Not liking the reports coming out from Athens

[reddragon]

No I haven't read everything word by word, more scanning posts.

Anyway, are you short of argument ?

he may not be but i'm getting short of patience

[Guest]

mate it was ****ing scary out there. i spent a fortune and saw about 10 minutes of the game. i spent the whole of the 2nd half outside trying to comfort a 23 year old girl who'd been teargassed outside in the crush.
i can honestly say i've never cared less about the result of match than last night [heysel excepted]

One more reason I won't consider going to an european LFC match ... ever. Shame that.

[Red_Polo]

However, the argument that it's the police/authorities/UEFAs fault and NOT 'people's nature' seems very harsh IMO. See DJS's analogy re. blaming a car company for people stealing cars...

OK, take that analogy. Thieves will always exist barring a radical social change of the kind that car companies themselves cannot bring about, what can actually be changed by the companies is the measures they take to deal with the possibility of theft.

So, certain types of nobed fans exist, and that can't be changed simply by UEFA moralising and accepting no blame themselves. The authorities have the ability, and furthermore the responsibility to ensure they deal with these problems as effectively as possible. Where they fail to handle things appropriately, they deserve to be criticised heavily.

If your car got nicked because suddenly the alarm became dysfunctional and the central locking was ****ed, you know the car thief was in the wrong of course, but you'd also be ****ing incensed at the car company, especially if they just said 'yeah car thieves are scum aren't they' and denied any blame should fall on them.

[kurtangle01]

Not that I was at the game so I'm not qualified to comment but the way I see it is that if there were risks of a crush it's UEFAs fault for not having te correct procedures in place to police the event.

Had they had suitable policing, suitable check points and suitable tickets that would have been hard to forge then these events could have been avoided.

We're by no means blameless but UEFA knew how the situation would be and it was up to them to ensure the safety of fans. Sadly they never but thank god we're only talking about a few incidents and not something more serious.

[kopash]

I was there. Like DS I went in early and avoided all the problems.

I would say with more or less 100% certainty fans without tickets got in. There were people standing/sitting on the steps between sections throughout the game. I have no idea how they got in given all the security checks mentioned above, but the fact remains they did.

[Stanbull]

I've just got back, I'm knackered & well pissed off, the Greeks couldn't run a ****ing bath

The 4 ticket checking stations were totally ineffective & inefficient. One well run security cordon & a futher check at the turnstyles would have been suffice except they didn't have turnstyles.

The muppets who were using the blue laser lights to check for forgeries were just plain stupid, lad in front of us presented his ticket, guy checks it "It's a fake It's a fake" he's shouting at the top of his voice whist holding the ticket high above his head. The lad just grabbed it back off him & went through

Greek police were fully kitted out in riot grear, battons & pepper spray & I think were fully intending to use it at the drop of a hat. At the third check point they had a line of vans leaving a gap say 10ft wide for the thousands of fans to get to through. This 10 foot gap was blocked by lines of police asking to see your ticket, this of course led to huge queues building up, and the inevitable pushing forward. They were screaming through a loud hailer to stand still for our own safety!!!!, very difficult at the front with a huge throng behind you so you got a whack with a bat, nice.

When you finally got to the gate which was a pair of 6 foot wide gates, they were closed, they would then open them & you just had to dive in through the crush before they closed the gates again.Got very scary at this point, saw young kids & parents ****ting themselves trying to get in safely.

I didn't see the gate rushing as I was in the stadium at that time but spoke to a LFC Steward on our coach. He said they were on gate duty at gate 2 when the fans rushed the gate, the police told the stewards to get back in as they were going to pepper spray them.
He said it was quite ironic that those ******s with no tickets who surged the gate were plastered in Hillsborough stickers & innocent fans with legit tickets got the same treatmeant because of their actions.
Obviously the Hillsborough sticker & badges a mere fashion accessories to these ****s

One fan on our coach had a legit ticket, saw the storming of the gate so stepped away till it died down. Returned & went straight to a policeman to explain he had a genuine ticket & how best should he get in, all nice & polite like. His answer = a face full of pepper spray.

My mates wallet was pickpocketed whilst in one of the crushes at the checkpoints, more than likely taken by a fellow red, shocking.

At the Airport holding pen, it was pure mayhem, we got there abou 1.00am for our 2.00am flight. Took us an hour and a half to get through passport control as they only had 4 desks open & thousands of reds in the queue with buses & coaches arriving by the minute. Er Hello you've known about this for months you stupid pricks

Once through passport control & security you are hearded into another waiting room were no food or drink was on sale. Our plane was delayed till 6.45am, all they gave us was a bottle of water & a ham & cheese sandwich that was frozen solid, I kid you not.

A load of Barnes travel customers & stewards are still out there because a number of so called reds stormed their plane & once the plane was full, the pilot wanting to keep his flight spot so just took off.

Since Istanbul there are more and more bellends going who don't give a **** about anyone. Not sure why that is to be honest but just an observation that these selfish,thoughtless,arrogant & agressive bad apples are increasing in number

All this sounds terrible & it is & on top of that the result,but what I found the vast majority of our support were great during the day at the game did us proud, singing their hearts out & despite the defeat carried on singing appreciating the teams efforts. Most also stayed behind to sportingly appluad Milan

If you got this far down thanks for reading my rant

[kurtangle01]

I was there. Like DS I went in early and avoided all the problems.

I would say with more or less 100% certainty fans without tickets got in. There were people standing/sitting on the steps between sections throughout the game. I have no idea how they got in given all the security checks mentioned above, but the fact remains they did.

And the reason they got in was quite clearly due to poor stewarding and policing on the authorities part. UEFA organise these events and should have the best possible security in place. The fact that it wasn't means UEFA are partly to blame for these incidents IMHO.

[reddragon]

I've just got back, I'm knackered & well pissed off, the Greeks couldn't run a ****ing bath

The 4 ticket checking stations were totally ineffective & inefficient. One well run security cordon & a futher check at the turnstyles would have been suffice except they didn't have turnstyles.

The muppets who were using the blue laser lights to check for forgeries were just plain stupid, lad in front of us presented his ticket, guy checks it "It's a fake It's a fake" he's shouting at the top of his voice whist holding the ticket high above his head. The lad just grabbed it back off him & went through

Greek police were fully kitted out in riot grear, battons & pepper spray & I think were fully intending to use it at the drop of a hat. At the third check point they had a line of vans leaving a gap say 10ft wide for the thousands of fans to get to through. This 10 foot gap was blocked by lines of police asking to see your ticket, this of course led to huge queues building up, and the inevitable pushing forward. They were screaming through a loud hailer to stand still for our own safety!!!!, very difficult at the front with a huge throng behind you so you got a whack with a bat, nice.

When you finally got to the gate which was a pair of 6 foot wide gates, they were closed, they would then open them & you just had to dive in through the crush before they closed the gates again.Got very scary at this point, saw young kids & parents ****ting themselves trying to get in safely.

I didn't see the gate rushing as I was in the stadium at that time but spoke to a LFC Steward on our coach. He said they were on gate duty at gate 2 when the fans rushed the gate, the police told the stewards to get back in as they were going to pepper spray them.
He said it was quite ironic that those ******s with no tickets who surged the gate were plastered in Hillsborough stickers & innocent fans with legit tickets got the same treatmeant because of their actions.
Obviously the Hillsborough sticker & badges a mere fashion accessories to these ****s

One fan on our coach had a legit ticket, saw the storming of the gate so stepped away till it died down. Returned & went straight to a policeman to explain he had a genuine ticket & how best should he get in, all nice & polite like. His answer = a face full of pepper spray.

My mates wallet was pickpocketed whilst in one of the crushes at the checkpoints, more than likely taken by a fellow red, shocking.

At the Airport holding pen, it was pure mayhem, we got there abou 1.00am for our 2.00am flight. Took us an hour and a half to get through passport control as they only had 4 desks open & thousands of reds in the queue with buses & coaches arriving by the minute. Er Hello you've known about this for months you stupid pricks

Once through passport control & security you are hearded into another waiting room were no food or drink was on sale. Our plane was delayed till 6.45am, all they gave us was a bottle of water & a ham & cheese sandwich that was frozen solid, I kid you not.

A load of Barnes travel customers & stewards are still out there because a number of so called reds stormed their plane & once the plane was full, the pilot wanting to keep his flight spot so just took off.

Since Istanbul there are more and more bellends going who don't give a **** about anyone. Not sure why that is to be honest but just an observation that these selfish,thoughtless,arrogant & agressive bad apples are increasing in number

All this sounds terrible & it is & on top of that the result,but what I found the vast majority of our support were great during the day at the game did us proud, singing their hearts out & despite the defeat carried on singing appreciating the teams efforts. Most also stayed behind to sportingly appluad Milan

If you got this far down thanks for reading my rant

welcome home mate

[Pacman]

I've just got back, I'm knackered & well pissed off, the Greeks couldn't run a ****ing bath

The 4 ticket checking stations were totally ineffective & inefficient. One well run security cordon & a futher check at the turnstyles would have been suffice except they didn't have turnstyles.

The muppets who were using the blue laser lights to check for forgeries were just plain stupid, lad in front of us presented his ticket, guy checks it "It's a fake It's a fake" he's shouting at the top of his voice whist holding the ticket high above his head. The lad just grabbed it back off him & went through

Greek police were fully kitted out in riot grear, battons & pepper spray & I think were fully intending to use it at the drop of a hat. At the third check point they had a line of vans leaving a gap say 10ft wide for the thousands of fans to get to through. This 10 foot gap was blocked by lines of police asking to see your ticket, this of course led to huge queues building up, and the inevitable pushing forward. They were screaming through a loud hailer to stand still for our own safety!!!!, very difficult at the front with a huge throng behind you so you got a whack with a bat, nice.

When you finally got to the gate which was a pair of 6 foot wide gates, they were closed, they would then open them & you just had to dive in through the crush before they closed the gates again.Got very scary at this point, saw young kids & parents ****ting themselves trying to get in safely.

I didn't see the gate rushing as I was in the stadium at that time but spoke to a LFC Steward on our coach. He said they were on gate duty at gate 2 when the fans rushed the gate, the police told the stewards to get back in as they were going to pepper spray them.
He said it was quite ironic that those ******s with no tickets who surged the gate were plastered in Hillsborough stickers & innocent fans with legit tickets got the same treatmeant because of their actions.
Obviously the Hillsborough sticker & badges a mere fashion accessories to these ****s

One fan on our coach had a legit ticket, saw the storming of the gate so stepped away till it died down. Returned & went straight to a policeman to explain he had a genuine ticket & how best should he get in, all nice & polite like. His answer = a face full of pepper spray.

My mates wallet was pickpocketed whilst in one of the crushes at the checkpoints, more than likely taken by a fellow red, shocking.

At the Airport holding pen, it was pure mayhem, we got there abou 1.00am for our 2.00am flight. Took us an hour and a half to get through passport control as they only had 4 desks open & thousands of reds in the queue with buses & coaches arriving by the minute. Er Hello you've known about this for months you stupid pricks

Once through passport control & security you are hearded into another waiting room were no food or drink was on sale. Our plane was delayed till 6.45am, all they gave us was a bottle of water & a ham & cheese sandwich that was frozen solid, I kid you not.

A load of Barnes travel customers & stewards are still out there because a number of so called reds stormed their plane & once the plane was full, the pilot wanting to keep his flight spot so just took off.

Since Istanbul there are more and more bellends going who don't give a **** about anyone. Not sure why that is to be honest but just an observation that these selfish,thoughtless,arrogant & agressive bad apples are increasing in number

All this sounds terrible & it is & on top of that the result,but what I found the vast majority of our support were great during the day at the game did us proud, singing their hearts out & despite the defeat carried on singing appreciating the teams efforts. Most also stayed behind to sportingly appluad Milan

If you got this far down thanks for reading my rant

Shocking mate just shocking. Tommyscouser however thinks this is all ok kin tit. Glad you got back safe matey

[kurtangle01]

I've just got back, I'm knackered & well pissed off, the Greeks couldn't run a ****ing bath

The 4 ticket checking stations were totally ineffective & inefficient. One well run security cordon & a futher check at the turnstyles would have been suffice except they didn't have turnstyles.

The muppets who were using the blue laser lights to check for forgeries were just plain stupid, lad in front of us presented his ticket, guy checks it "It's a fake It's a fake" he's shouting at the top of his voice whist holding the ticket high above his head. The lad just grabbed it back off him & went through

Greek police were fully kitted out in riot grear, battons & pepper spray & I think were fully intending to use it at the drop of a hat. At the third check point they had a line of vans leaving a gap say 10ft wide for the thousands of fans to get to through. This 10 foot gap was blocked by lines of police asking to see your ticket, this of course led to huge queues building up, and the inevitable pushing forward. They were screaming through a loud hailer to stand still for our own safety!!!!, very difficult at the front with a huge throng behind you so you got a whack with a bat, nice.

When you finally got to the gate which was a pair of 6 foot wide gates, they were closed, they would then open them & you just had to dive in through the crush before they closed the gates again.Got very scary at this point, saw young kids & parents ****ting themselves trying to get in safely.

I didn't see the gate rushing as I was in the stadium at that time but spoke to a LFC Steward on our coach. He said they were on gate duty at gate 2 when the fans rushed the gate, the police told the stewards to get back in as they were going to pepper spray them.
He said it was quite ironic that those ******s with no tickets who surged the gate were plastered in Hillsborough stickers & innocent fans with legit tickets got the same treatmeant because of their actions.
Obviously the Hillsborough sticker & badges a mere fashion accessories to these ****s

One fan on our coach had a legit ticket, saw the storming of the gate so stepped away till it died down. Returned & went straight to a policeman to explain he had a genuine ticket & how best should he get in, all nice & polite like. His answer = a face full of pepper spray.

My mates wallet was pickpocketed whilst in one of the crushes at the checkpoints, more than likely taken by a fellow red, shocking.

At the Airport holding pen, it was pure mayhem, we got there abou 1.00am for our 2.00am flight. Took us an hour and a half to get through passport control as they only had 4 desks open & thousands of reds in the queue with buses & coaches arriving by the minute. Er Hello you've known about this for months you stupid pricks

Once through passport control & security you are hearded into another waiting room were no food or drink was on sale. Our plane was delayed till 6.45am, all they gave us was a bottle of water & a ham & cheese sandwich that was frozen solid, I kid you not.

A load of Barnes travel customers & stewards are still out there because a number of so called reds stormed their plane & once the plane was full, the pilot wanting to keep his flight spot so just took off.

Since Istanbul there are more and more bellends going who don't give a **** about anyone. Not sure why that is to be honest but just an observation that these selfish,thoughtless,arrogant & agressive bad apples are increasing in number

All this sounds terrible & it is & on top of that the result,but what I found the vast majority of our support were great during the day at the game did us proud, singing their hearts out & despite the defeat carried on singing appreciating the teams efforts. Most also stayed behind to sportingly appluad Milan

If you got this far down thanks for reading my rant

Good post, mate. I have to agree with you that their tends to be an element of people who have started going since Istanbul that want in at any cost despite ot having a ticket.

I went to Istanbul and it was fine but I wasn't at the match yesterday so can't really comment on the incidents that occured but you're right about this "I don't give a **** if I have a ticket or not I'm getting into the ground" attitude that seems to have popped up recently.

[Red_Polo]

Obviously the Hillsborough sticker & badges a mere fashion accessories to these ****s

So true. As much as the authorities have ****ed things up, it does seems an increasing number of fans wear stickies but are totally oblivious to how their own actions are endanger others. Numerous stories over the last 2 years have suggested things are getting worse.

I'm glad I didn't see a lot of the stuff you mentioned, DJS and myself got in quite early and although we saw the odd unsavoury incident and the poor organisation it was considerably quieter when we got right up to the ground itself. I heard a brief blast of a siren soon after KO but engrossed in the match I thought nothing of it and I was quite unaware of what had been going on around KO time until I got back home.

[disco]

those ticketed fans had no idea that the stadium was already full of forged / bunking in fans had they? Apparently the gate had gone in at half four in the afternoon - most of us were still in town then

Half four?! **** me. (that's a statement, not a request!)

[disco]

I was about to post something similar about the cultural issues but fortunately for all concerned I won't bother now.

It's for the best

[disco]

I've just got back, I'm knackered & well pissed off, the Greeks couldn't run a ****ing bath

The 4 ticket checking stations were totally ineffective & inefficient. One well run security cordon & a futher check at the turnstyles would have been suffice except they didn't have turnstyles.

The muppets who were using the blue laser lights to check for forgeries were just plain stupid, lad in front of us presented his ticket, guy checks it "It's a fake It's a fake" he's shouting at the top of his voice whist holding the ticket high above his head. The lad just grabbed it back off him & went through

Greek police were fully kitted out in riot grear, battons & pepper spray & I think were fully intending to use it at the drop of a hat. At the third check point they had a line of vans leaving a gap say 10ft wide for the thousands of fans to get to through. This 10 foot gap was blocked by lines of police asking to see your ticket, this of course led to huge queues building up, and the inevitable pushing forward. They were screaming through a loud hailer to stand still for our own safety!!!!, very difficult at the front with a huge throng behind you so you got a whack with a bat, nice.

When you finally got to the gate which was a pair of 6 foot wide gates, they were closed, they would then open them & you just had to dive in through the crush before they closed the gates again.Got very scary at this point, saw young kids & parents ****ting themselves trying to get in safely.

I didn't see the gate rushing as I was in the stadium at that time but spoke to a LFC Steward on our coach. He said they were on gate duty at gate 2 when the fans rushed the gate, the police told the stewards to get back in as they were going to pepper spray them.
He said it was quite ironic that those ******s with no tickets who surged the gate were plastered in Hillsborough stickers & innocent fans with legit tickets got the same treatmeant because of their actions.
Obviously the Hillsborough sticker & badges a mere fashion accessories to these ****s

One fan on our coach had a legit ticket, saw the storming of the gate so stepped away till it died down. Returned & went straight to a policeman to explain he had a genuine ticket & how best should he get in, all nice & polite like. His answer = a face full of pepper spray.

My mates wallet was pickpocketed whilst in one of the crushes at the checkpoints, more than likely taken by a fellow red, shocking.

At the Airport holding pen, it was pure mayhem, we got there abou 1.00am for our 2.00am flight. Took us an hour and a half to get through passport control as they only had 4 desks open & thousands of reds in the queue with buses & coaches arriving by the minute. Er Hello you've known about this for months you stupid pricks

Once through passport control & security you are hearded into another waiting room were no food or drink was on sale. Our plane was delayed till 6.45am, all they gave us was a bottle of water & a ham & cheese sandwich that was frozen solid, I kid you not.

A load of Barnes travel customers & stewards are still out there because a number of so called reds stormed their plane & once the plane was full, the pilot wanting to keep his flight spot so just took off.

Since Istanbul there are more and more bellends going who don't give a **** about anyone. Not sure why that is to be honest but just an observation that these selfish,thoughtless,arrogant & agressive bad apples are increasing in number

All this sounds terrible & it is & on top of that the result,but what I found the vast majority of our support were great during the day at the game did us proud, singing their hearts out & despite the defeat carried on singing appreciating the teams efforts. Most also stayed behind to sportingly appluad Milan

If you got this far down thanks for reading my rant

Interesting mate, and sorry your day was spoiled.

It's amazing how much effect a minority - and I do believe it is a minority - can have. Real shame. (favourite word of the day )

[Flake]

I've just got back in to stanstead.

I've still got my ticket, stub included, never checked properly by anyone.

The organisatio was a disgrace, and playing a game at a ground without turnstyles is ****ing stupid.

There were plenty turned away with valid tickets, and plenty who got in with a ****ing photocopy.

With the allocation we had and the excitement of the game, there was always gonna be scallies turning up to blag in, but it would never have come to what it did if there was anyone checking a ****ing ticket.