Not liking the reports coming out from Athens

[Bob]

A mate of mine was 'dipped'. Lost £1200 - his cards, the lot. he didn't have tkt though so.

I saw the game in a bar in Athens. Didn't fancy getting my collar felt and ending up in Midnight Express ( i know that was turkey.....)

We had serious problems getting home. we didnt have a check in desk at the airport and then loads of people who missed earlier flights tried to get onto our flight. THe security guards were called and scuffles broke out with passengers at the departure gate. Some girl actually passed out.IN the end we were delayed for over 2 hours. It got really nasty at one point.
Got home eventually but not after some prick was caught smoking weed in the bog on the plane. The old bill were at JLA waiting for him but I think he slipped the net.

FFS! No ****, it'd be nigh on impossible to get away with that.

[Revo]

Nah - Tommy.

Not SCOUSERTOMMY I hasten to add !!

now now leslie

[Bob]

Nah - Tommy.

Not SCOUSERTOMMY I hasten to add !!

Aye, best ya distance yerself from that ****.

[Red_Al_77]

Scousertommy stole my ticket, plane, coach, breakfast, and cup of tea. FACT. He should be thrown off est.







Not really

[Howard_lfc]

now now leslie

[Revo]

Scousertommy stole my ticket, plane, coach, breakfast, and cup of tea. FACT. He should be thrown off est.







Not really

you forget to say he even washed the dishes you lazy ****

[Insider]

Deep breath. I couldn't avoid commenting on this, but I've a lot to say as usual.

Bunking in.
This generally entails a relative handful of fans, who in most cases will sit in a seat that would have been empty, probably because the corporate prawn muncher was double-booked with the ballet.

In a well-run stadium we're talking of a very small number. Very small.

A read a story about a few lads bunking in by walking with the player's wives last season at Cardiff. Some others got in via the kitchens. They hid in the bogs for a bit, moved seats a couple of times because the late arrivals wanted their seats, but still found a seat to watch the game from, and nobody had to sit in the aisles as a result, nobody got locked out who had a ticket.

Not that Cardiff is a well-run stadium, and of course that was the game where we had a load of tickets nicked from a post van. But compared to Greece?

I've never bunked in myself, but I'd always shake the hand of anyone who managed it in a way like this. There are some ingenious ways of getting in, but it's not going to happen with the kind of numbers that would cause safety issues. The chef in the kitchen might notice if he had 500 fans walking past his beef wellingtons. He's too busy to be arsed stopping 5 or 6 fans. Security staff don't want to upset the celebs, so a few properly-dressed fans posing as entourage won't be stopped. 500 or more might be.

The lad who got onto the team pics after we'd won in Istanbul did an effective bunking-in. He bunked into the photos. He got away with it because he was on his own - would 500 have managed it?

Turnstiles.
So apart from the sneaky ways how else can you get into a stadium. Can you imagine turning up at Anfield and getting in without a ticket? What would stop you? That twirly thing isn't there as part of the entertainment. It's called a turnstile and it's there to stop you getting in for free. But these complex inventions seem to be beyond the reach of whoever administers so many grounds in Europe. The Italian trouble earlier in the season wasn't exactly helped by the fact that people could just walk in.

The security cordons around a ground are nothing more than a way of filtering people out. If you somehow bluff your way through 2, 3 or 4 security cordons, you still can't get through a turnstile.

Unless you've got a corrupt or stupid turnstile operator. Or you don't produce tickets that are difficult to forge.

You can't charge in a group through a turnstile.

Forgeries.
As for forged tickets - well if UEFA can't produce tickets that are difficult to forge for their show-piece game then what the hell are they doing with all that sponsor money?

The reason we've got odd looking 20 quid notes now is because the Bank of England didn't like the way forgeries were becoming so good.

From the reasoning of a lot on here, (and UEFA), instead of investing the money to change the 20 quid notes they should just have said "Please don't forge our money" and crossed their fingers. Hoped for the best. It's not their fault if there are nasty forgers producing fake 20 quid notes.

If the stadium staff couldn't tell the difference between a fake and a real ticket, why should the fans be able to tell? Did the tout who sold it them say, "This is only a fake," or did he just sell it the way touts do in their sneaky underhand way? If a fan can see the difference between a forgery and a real ticket then so should stadium staff.

I really fail to see how a Liverpool fan getting in with a forgery can be condemned. Condemn the forgers by all means, but not the user of the forgery. I'm sure everyone on here knows someone who's been passed a forged note or coin in the past. Did that person get arrested? Doubtful.

Fans travelling without tickets.
As for the numbers of fans in Athens - a lot of those there without tickets didn't expect to get a ticket - they hoped to get one, but were prepared to see the game in a bar or a square just for the craic of being out there. A match ticket would be a bonus.

But that was still their hope. I forget the numbers now, but with around 30,000 tickets for the match going to neutrals in one way or other, who can blame a ticketless fan for hoping they'd get a ticket? UEFA have no interest in finding out where the "family" tickets really go. It's a tax-free cash-in-hand perk for so many of that "family" to tout their tickets.

So there's nothing wrong with ticketless fans going out for the game.

LFC and tickets
Even the integrity of our club has been called into question regarding tickets. Rick Parry's refusal to "play the numbers game" put doubt into the minds of so many Reds, and reinforced all the anecdotes about travel firms who somehow manage to get hundreds or thousands of tickets for games (from LFC's allocation) despite the club saying they don't deal with travel firms for ticketing (other than those clearly advertised on the offal for big games).

I hope our club will open up when pressed about how tickets are distributed. Good or bad, we need to know how many people are getting favours. We need to know that touts and rip-off travel companies will be stopped if at all possible. I expect LFC to do this - to investigate how touts do so well out of our club.

A mixture of what's been said publicly and other whispers (now there's a Dunkism) leave me feeling quite confident that they will sort out ticketing properly once and for all in as far as our own allocations go. It's not a simple job by any means, you'll always upset someone, but as long as the touts are the main victims I think most of us will be happy.

Kicking UEFA's arse.
As for UEFA, well I'm personally hopeful that our position as part of G14 will be of use in getting the mouldy gits in Switzerland to open their eyes and sort this out once and for all. The FA aren't much better though with their "FA Family" bollocks for the FA cup final, so maybe they need a good kicking too via the Premier League. It's not much more than a hope though. I'm confident about our club, with its new owners, wanting to maintain its integrity. UEFA don't have any!

Minorities
There are some complete arseholes who follow our team. It does seem to be a tiny minority though, and most reports I've seen have said as much. As fans maybe it's our duty to shop any of them we recognise.

But until we learn a way of recognising the arseholes before they act like arseholes there will always be a risk of incidents like last night. So UEFA or FIFA or whoever is organising a big event need to ensure they've done a risk assessment. Did UEFA get information from the Greek FA on what policing would be like before they gave them the final? Did UEFA make tickets that were hard to forge? Did UEFA install turnstiles operated by well-trained staff? Did UEFA do all they could to stop touts from prospering?

Hillsborough
I understand why comparing last night to Hillsborough is being done. But I resent the one poster I noticed who seemed to be implying that Hillsborough wasn't the fault of the police. Then again, that particular poster is a notorious attention seeker who likes to defend the indefensible. I suggest he reads the HJC website - and I mean read it, not skim it - to learn all about that day. It contains a section on the S*n boycott which might help him realise why those who disregard the boycott are so despised by the majority of Reds.

A hell of a lot of **** was spread about our club and our fans in the aftermath of that awful day, and it still sticks to this day. Who spread the ****? Well Kelvin MacKenzie was chief of **** spreading, but the police and the FA wanted to try and make sure they weren't considered to be at fault for what happened. Anything they could make up or exaggerate was used to try and deflect the blame from them. They gave us the wrong end of the ground, for the second time, supposedly on police advice. LFC complained in advance but this fell on deaf ears. Then look what happened.

Blame
Right now UEFA are trying to make out that the complete cock-up they made of organising this event is down to us. If anyone had died last night, they'd be making the same allegations.

That's where the problem lies - unless UEFA are willing to hold their hands up and admit they ****ed up then they'll have the same problems next time they host a final that is attended by a team with a huge following of passionate fans.

Fans bunking in don't cause crushes in a well-run situation. There aren't enough of them able to do so. So can UEFA learn any lessons from last night? Yes. Will they? Doubtful, very doubtful.

Especially when a minority of Liverpool fans want to let UEFA off the hook.

One thing to be glad of. At least last night wasn't an all English final.

The end.

[Revo]

and in one post, insider tells it intellectually how it is brilliant post

[reddragon]

Deep breath. I couldn't avoid commenting on this, but I've a lot to say as usual.

Bunking in.
This generally entails a relative handful of fans, who in most cases will sit in a seat that would have been empty, probably because the corporate prawn muncher was double-booked with the ballet.

In a well-run stadium we're talking of a very small number. Very small.

A read a story about a few lads bunking in by walking with the player's wives last season at Cardiff. Some others got in via the kitchens. They hid in the bogs for a bit, moved seats a couple of times because the late arrivals wanted their seats, but still found a seat to watch the game from, and nobody had to sit in the aisles as a result, nobody got locked out who had a ticket.

Not that Cardiff is a well-run stadium, and of course that was the game where we had a load of tickets nicked from a post van. But compared to Greece?

I've never bunked in myself, but I'd always shake the hand of anyone who managed it in a way like this. There are some ingenious ways of getting in, but it's not going to happen with the kind of numbers that would cause safety issues. The chef in the kitchen might notice if he had 500 fans walking past his beef wellingtons. He's too busy to be arsed stopping 5 or 6 fans. Security staff don't want to upset the celebs, so a few properly-dressed fans posing as entourage won't be stopped. 500 or more might be.

The lad who got onto the team pics after we'd won in Istanbul did an effective bunking-in. He bunked into the photos. He got away with it because he was on his own - would 500 have managed it?

Turnstiles.
So apart from the sneaky ways how else can you get into a stadium. Can you imagine turning up at Anfield and getting in without a ticket? What would stop you? That twirly thing isn't there as part of the entertainment. It's called a turnstile and it's there to stop you getting in for free. But these complex inventions seem to be beyond the reach of whoever administers so many grounds in Europe. The Italian trouble earlier in the season wasn't exactly helped by the fact that people could just walk in.

The security cordons around a ground are nothing more than a way of filtering people out. If you somehow bluff your way through 2, 3 or 4 security cordons, you still can't get through a turnstile.

Unless you've got a corrupt or stupid turnstile operator. Or you don't produce tickets that are difficult to forge.

You can't charge in a group through a turnstile.

Forgeries.
As for forged tickets - well if UEFA can't produce tickets that are difficult to forge for their show-piece game then what the hell are they doing with all that sponsor money?

The reason we've got odd looking 20 quid notes now is because the Bank of England didn't like the way forgeries were becoming so good.

From the reasoning of a lot on here, (and UEFA), instead of investing the money to change the 20 quid notes they should just have said "Please don't forge our money" and crossed their fingers. Hoped for the best. It's not their fault if there are nasty forgers producing fake 20 quid notes.

If the stadium staff couldn't tell the difference between a fake and a real ticket, why should the fans be able to tell? Did the tout who sold it them say, "This is only a fake," or did he just sell it the way touts do in their sneaky underhand way? If a fan can see the difference between a forgery and a real ticket then so should stadium staff.

I really fail to see how a Liverpool fan getting in with a forgery can be condemned. Condemn the forgers by all means, but not the user of the forgery. I'm sure everyone on here knows someone who's been passed a forged note or coin in the past. Did that person get arrested? Doubtful.

Fans travelling without tickets.
As for the numbers of fans in Athens - a lot of those there without tickets didn't expect to get a ticket - they hoped to get one, but were prepared to see the game in a bar or a square just for the craic of being out there. A match ticket would be a bonus.

But that was still their hope. I forget the numbers now, but with around 30,000 tickets for the match going to neutrals in one way or other, who can blame a ticketless fan for hoping they'd get a ticket? UEFA have no interest in finding out where the "family" tickets really go. It's a tax-free cash-in-hand perk for so many of that "family" to tout their tickets.

So there's nothing wrong with ticketless fans going out for the game.

LFC and tickets
Even the integrity of our club has been called into question regarding tickets. Rick Parry's refusal to "play the numbers game" put doubt into the minds of so many Reds, and reinforced all the anecdotes about travel firms who somehow manage to get hundreds or thousands of tickets for games (from LFC's allocation) despite the club saying they don't deal with travel firms for ticketing (other than those clearly advertised on the offal for big games).

I hope our club will open up when pressed about how tickets are distributed. Good or bad, we need to know how many people are getting favours. We need to know that touts and rip-off travel companies will be stopped if at all possible. I expect LFC to do this - to investigate how touts do so well out of our club.

A mixture of what's been said publicly and other whispers (now there's a Dunkism) leave me feeling quite confident that they will sort out ticketing properly once and for all in as far as our own allocations go. It's not a simple job by any means, you'll always upset someone, but as long as the touts are the main victims I think most of us will be happy.

Kicking UEFA's arse.
As for UEFA, well I'm personally hopeful that our position as part of G14 will be of use in getting the mouldy gits in Switzerland to open their eyes and sort this out once and for all. The FA aren't much better though with their "FA Family" bollocks for the FA cup final, so maybe they need a good kicking too via the Premier League. It's not much more than a hope though. I'm confident about our club, with its new owners, wanting to maintain its integrity. UEFA don't have any!

Minorities
There are some complete arseholes who follow our team. It does seem to be a tiny minority though, and most reports I've seen have said as much. As fans maybe it's our duty to shop any of them we recognise.

But until we learn a way of recognising the arseholes before they act like arseholes there will always be a risk of incidents like last night. So UEFA or FIFA or whoever is organising a big event need to ensure they've done a risk assessment. Did UEFA get information from the Greek FA on what policing would be like before they gave them the final? Did UEFA make tickets that were hard to forge? Did UEFA install turnstiles operated by well-trained staff? Did UEFA do all they could to stop touts from prospering?

Hillsborough
I understand why comparing last night to Hillsborough is being done. But I resent the one poster I noticed who seemed to be implying that Hillsborough wasn't the fault of the police. Then again, that particular poster is a notorious attention seeker who likes to defend the indefensible. I suggest he reads the HJC website - and I mean read it, not skim it - to learn all about that day. It contains a section on the S*n boycott which might help him realise why those who disregard the boycott are so despised by the majority of Reds.

A hell of a lot of **** was spread about our club and our fans in the aftermath of that awful day, and it still sticks to this day. Who spread the ****? Well Kelvin MacKenzie was chief of **** spreading, but the police and the FA wanted to try and make sure they weren't considered to be at fault for what happened. Anything they could make up or exaggerate was used to try and deflect the blame from them. They gave us the wrong end of the ground, for the second time, supposedly on police advice. LFC complained in advance but this fell on deaf ears. Then look what happened.

Blame
Right now UEFA are trying to make out that the complete cock-up they made of organising this event is down to us. If anyone had died last night, they'd be making the same allegations.

That's where the problem lies - unless UEFA are willing to hold their hands up and admit they ****ed up then they'll have the same problems next time they host a final that is attended by a team with a huge following of passionate fans.

Fans bunking in don't cause crushes in a well-run situation. There aren't enough of them able to do so. So can UEFA learn any lessons from last night? Yes. Will they? Doubtful, very doubtful.

Especially when a minority of Liverpool fans want to let UEFA off the hook.

One thing to be glad of. At least last night wasn't an all English final.

The end.

that bit about last night being all english makes me go cold
until this gets sorted out properly i'm never going to another final

[lfcruleus]

Deep breath. I couldn't avoid commenting on this, but I've a lot to say as usual.

Bunking in.
This generally entails a relative handful of fans, who in most cases will sit in a seat that would have been empty, probably because the corporate prawn muncher was double-booked with the ballet.

In a well-run stadium we're talking of a very small number. Very small.

A read a story about a few lads bunking in by walking with the player's wives last season at Cardiff. Some others got in via the kitchens. They hid in the bogs for a bit, moved seats a couple of times because the late arrivals wanted their seats, but still found a seat to watch the game from, and nobody had to sit in the aisles as a result, nobody got locked out who had a ticket.

Not that Cardiff is a well-run stadium, and of course that was the game where we had a load of tickets nicked from a post van. But compared to Greece?

I've never bunked in myself, but I'd always shake the hand of anyone who managed it in a way like this. There are some ingenious ways of getting in, but it's not going to happen with the kind of numbers that would cause safety issues. The chef in the kitchen might notice if he had 500 fans walking past his beef wellingtons. He's too busy to be arsed stopping 5 or 6 fans. Security staff don't want to upset the celebs, so a few properly-dressed fans posing as entourage won't be stopped. 500 or more might be.

The lad who got onto the team pics after we'd won in Istanbul did an effective bunking-in. He bunked into the photos. He got away with it because he was on his own - would 500 have managed it?

Turnstiles.
So apart from the sneaky ways how else can you get into a stadium. Can you imagine turning up at Anfield and getting in without a ticket? What would stop you? That twirly thing isn't there as part of the entertainment. It's called a turnstile and it's there to stop you getting in for free. But these complex inventions seem to be beyond the reach of whoever administers so many grounds in Europe. The Italian trouble earlier in the season wasn't exactly helped by the fact that people could just walk in.

The security cordons around a ground are nothing more than a way of filtering people out. If you somehow bluff your way through 2, 3 or 4 security cordons, you still can't get through a turnstile.

Unless you've got a corrupt or stupid turnstile operator. Or you don't produce tickets that are difficult to forge.

You can't charge in a group through a turnstile.

Forgeries.
As for forged tickets - well if UEFA can't produce tickets that are difficult to forge for their show-piece game then what the hell are they doing with all that sponsor money?

The reason we've got odd looking 20 quid notes now is because the Bank of England didn't like the way forgeries were becoming so good.

From the reasoning of a lot on here, (and UEFA), instead of investing the money to change the 20 quid notes they should just have said "Please don't forge our money" and crossed their fingers. Hoped for the best. It's not their fault if there are nasty forgers producing fake 20 quid notes.

If the stadium staff couldn't tell the difference between a fake and a real ticket, why should the fans be able to tell? Did the tout who sold it them say, "This is only a fake," or did he just sell it the way touts do in their sneaky underhand way? If a fan can see the difference between a forgery and a real ticket then so should stadium staff.

I really fail to see how a Liverpool fan getting in with a forgery can be condemned. Condemn the forgers by all means, but not the user of the forgery. I'm sure everyone on here knows someone who's been passed a forged note or coin in the past. Did that person get arrested? Doubtful.

Fans travelling without tickets.
As for the numbers of fans in Athens - a lot of those there without tickets didn't expect to get a ticket - they hoped to get one, but were prepared to see the game in a bar or a square just for the craic of being out there. A match ticket would be a bonus.

But that was still their hope. I forget the numbers now, but with around 30,000 tickets for the match going to neutrals in one way or other, who can blame a ticketless fan for hoping they'd get a ticket? UEFA have no interest in finding out where the "family" tickets really go. It's a tax-free cash-in-hand perk for so many of that "family" to tout their tickets.

So there's nothing wrong with ticketless fans going out for the game.

LFC and tickets
Even the integrity of our club has been called into question regarding tickets. Rick Parry's refusal to "play the numbers game" put doubt into the minds of so many Reds, and reinforced all the anecdotes about travel firms who somehow manage to get hundreds or thousands of tickets for games (from LFC's allocation) despite the club saying they don't deal with travel firms for ticketing (other than those clearly advertised on the offal for big games).

I hope our club will open up when pressed about how tickets are distributed. Good or bad, we need to know how many people are getting favours. We need to know that touts and rip-off travel companies will be stopped if at all possible. I expect LFC to do this - to investigate how touts do so well out of our club.

A mixture of what's been said publicly and other whispers (now there's a Dunkism) leave me feeling quite confident that they will sort out ticketing properly once and for all in as far as our own allocations go. It's not a simple job by any means, you'll always upset someone, but as long as the touts are the main victims I think most of us will be happy.

Kicking UEFA's arse.
As for UEFA, well I'm personally hopeful that our position as part of G14 will be of use in getting the mouldy gits in Switzerland to open their eyes and sort this out once and for all. The FA aren't much better though with their "FA Family" bollocks for the FA cup final, so maybe they need a good kicking too via the Premier League. It's not much more than a hope though. I'm confident about our club, with its new owners, wanting to maintain its integrity. UEFA don't have any!

Minorities
There are some complete arseholes who follow our team. It does seem to be a tiny minority though, and most reports I've seen have said as much. As fans maybe it's our duty to shop any of them we recognise.

But until we learn a way of recognising the arseholes before they act like arseholes there will always be a risk of incidents like last night. So UEFA or FIFA or whoever is organising a big event need to ensure they've done a risk assessment. Did UEFA get information from the Greek FA on what policing would be like before they gave them the final? Did UEFA make tickets that were hard to forge? Did UEFA install turnstiles operated by well-trained staff? Did UEFA do all they could to stop touts from prospering?

Hillsborough
I understand why comparing last night to Hillsborough is being done. But I resent the one poster I noticed who seemed to be implying that Hillsborough wasn't the fault of the police. Then again, that particular poster is a notorious attention seeker who likes to defend the indefensible. I suggest he reads the HJC website - and I mean read it, not skim it - to learn all about that day. It contains a section on the S*n boycott which might help him realise why those who disregard the boycott are so despised by the majority of Reds.

A hell of a lot of **** was spread about our club and our fans in the aftermath of that awful day, and it still sticks to this day. Who spread the ****? Well Kelvin MacKenzie was chief of **** spreading, but the police and the FA wanted to try and make sure they weren't considered to be at fault for what happened. Anything they could make up or exaggerate was used to try and deflect the blame from them. They gave us the wrong end of the ground, for the second time, supposedly on police advice. LFC complained in advance but this fell on deaf ears. Then look what happened.

Blame
Right now UEFA are trying to make out that the complete cock-up they made of organising this event is down to us. If anyone had died last night, they'd be making the same allegations.

That's where the problem lies - unless UEFA are willing to hold their hands up and admit they ****ed up then they'll have the same problems next time they host a final that is attended by a team with a huge following of passionate fans.

Fans bunking in don't cause crushes in a well-run situation. There aren't enough of them able to do so. So can UEFA learn any lessons from last night? Yes. Will they? Doubtful, very doubtful.

Especially when a minority of Liverpool fans want to let UEFA off the hook.

One thing to be glad of. At least last night wasn't an all English final.

The end.

Good post, agree on most except the fact that in my eyes there is a difference between the fan that goes out in hope of getting a ticket and the fan that decides he is going to get to the game no matter what it takes.
It was the numbers involved that was scary and made the policing more difficult, the policing was wrong but nothing they could do considering the facilities would have been right.
I shudder to think what would have happened had LFC and MUFC fans met on the Train platform in Syntagma station i really do.

[Revo]

that bit about last night being all english makes me go cold
until this gets sorted out properly i'm never going to another final

funny enough, i couldent believe how many lads i heard saying the same thing

[lfcruleus]

that bit about last night being all english makes me go cold
until this gets sorted out properly i'm never going to another final

me either.

[alunevans]

Such a very very depressing thread. There are a few equally depressing threads on RAWK, too.

I returned home this lunchtime and opened my email to find 150 new mails - mainly from Mancs and Bluenoses gleefully lapping it all up....delighting in proclaiming "this is a Liverpool problem". :whatever:

We're getting slaughtered from all angles - most of it blinkered, hateful bile of course - but it's clear we have some full-weight c*nts following the club.

But we didn't see any of this in Istanbul, did we? UEFA, the shambolic Greek authorities and our minority of scum all have to shoulder the blame.

I'm really depressed.

I do love Shaggy you know.

[alunevans]

i suggest we all head up to aluns thread for that girlie hug thing

yeah but bring your hankies, there's snot everywhere

[alunevans]

Bunked on to a plane?! How the **** do you bunk on to a plane????

that happened going home from turkey too actually