A JUDGE has slammed pub bosses after a brawl left a barmaid badly injured.

Julie Crump needed 11 stitches in a cut above her right eye following the fight at the Hare and Hounds, Stourbridge Road, Kidderminster.

Glasses were hurled when a rowdy dispute over rival football teams escalated.

Judge Michael Mott said there had been "a lamentable failure by management" to nip the trouble in the bud. He told pals Dean Calder and Dean Golding, in the dock at Worcester Crown Court, they should have been thrown out.

"Instead you were allowed to sit there until other customers got irate," he added.

Calder, 19, of Hurcott Road, Kidderminster, and 20-year-old Golding, of Trinity Fields, Kidderminster, were both sent to detention for six months. They admitted affray. Both had drunk up to seven pints of lager before trouble broke out on August 31 last year, said Tim Sapwell, prosecuting.

They were in a group of six youths who hurled obscenities at customers. Golding spat beer around and cigarette ends were thrown about.

Customer Conrad Sly got so fed up he went over to talk to Calder - but ended up punching him, said Mr Sapwell. In the melee which followed - captured on a security video and shown to the judge - Miss Crump and a male customer were injured.

Simon Davis, for Calder, who had a previous conviction for wounding, said jovial banter between the group was not appreciated by others.

Delroy Henry, for Golding, admitted that he lashed out in an act of retaliation.

It was ironic that Golding had a qualification in bar-room management and appreciated the stressful situation that staff found themselves in.

Judge Mott added that Mr Sly should never have delivered a punch but was "grossly provoked" by a group which behaved in a boorish, drunken and abusive way.