this appeared in the observer on sunday i cut and pasted the article followed by my letter of reply to the paper.the ****** really makes me wonder why i bother with the rag
paul wilson(observer sport 26/5) wrote :
Call me hard-hearted if you like, but I found my initial sympathy for all the ticket-holding Liverpool fans tear-gassed and clobbered by Athens police evaporating at the airport the following day, on encountering scally after scally bragging about getting into the European Cup final for nothing.
The police did not cover themselves in glory and doubtless Uefa's security screening could have been tighter, but the experience of frightened fans who said a Hillsborough-type situation was only narrowly avoided should make true Liverpool supporters ponder on cause and effect. Turnstiles cause delays and crushes, yet in their absence it is always going to be difficult for police and security cordons that stop short of army entrenchments, to resist large numbers of recklessly determined gatecrashers who arrive at the same time. Liverpool followers need no history lessons on why all-seat stadiums came about in the first place, and now they are here it does not take a genius to work out that seats occupied by people without tickets must be at the expense of people who paid for them.
So please, Michael Howard and the rest, let's not have any more complaints about police brutality or Uefa inefficiency. The same sort of thing keeps happening too often. This was a problem Liverpool brought with them. The people to blame for fans with tickets being turned away were the fans inside the ground with no tickets. And they must have been Liverpool supporters, because it didn't happen at the Milan end.
dear sir
Paul Wilson in his article 'It's the scally's to blame' (observer 26/5) shows an ignorance and arrogance not in keeping with your paper. He says that 'turnstiles cause crushes' if this is the case then why have they been succesfully used at every football match staged in the last 80 years ? .The champions league final was the first football game i had ever been to where the use of turnstiles was not deemed necersary to ensure crowd safety.The ensuing chaos was a direct result of UEFA'S decision.To use a ground with no turnstiles and to not supply adaquatley trained security stewards is a major failing and one that should be followed up by our Club,FA,MP's and Journalists. It seems that blaming liverpool fans for the shortcomings of UEFA and the FA is still the easy answer and one that unfourtunatley will continue to happen when even the Observer allows it's journalists to slander a club and city as if he was writing for the SUN .The reason it did not happen at the Milan end is not because liverpool supporters are a gang of scally thugs as Mr Wilson believes but because a lot of tickets had been sold on the blackmarket, notice the amount of liverpool supporters all over the ground , and so there was more of us than milan fans.If i know a large volume of people are coming to an event i would set up a system to deal with it, not blame the 'quality' of people turning up to the event !
yours sincerely
paul wilson(observer sport 26/5) wrote :
Call me hard-hearted if you like, but I found my initial sympathy for all the ticket-holding Liverpool fans tear-gassed and clobbered by Athens police evaporating at the airport the following day, on encountering scally after scally bragging about getting into the European Cup final for nothing.
The police did not cover themselves in glory and doubtless Uefa's security screening could have been tighter, but the experience of frightened fans who said a Hillsborough-type situation was only narrowly avoided should make true Liverpool supporters ponder on cause and effect. Turnstiles cause delays and crushes, yet in their absence it is always going to be difficult for police and security cordons that stop short of army entrenchments, to resist large numbers of recklessly determined gatecrashers who arrive at the same time. Liverpool followers need no history lessons on why all-seat stadiums came about in the first place, and now they are here it does not take a genius to work out that seats occupied by people without tickets must be at the expense of people who paid for them.
So please, Michael Howard and the rest, let's not have any more complaints about police brutality or Uefa inefficiency. The same sort of thing keeps happening too often. This was a problem Liverpool brought with them. The people to blame for fans with tickets being turned away were the fans inside the ground with no tickets. And they must have been Liverpool supporters, because it didn't happen at the Milan end.
dear sir
Paul Wilson in his article 'It's the scally's to blame' (observer 26/5) shows an ignorance and arrogance not in keeping with your paper. He says that 'turnstiles cause crushes' if this is the case then why have they been succesfully used at every football match staged in the last 80 years ? .The champions league final was the first football game i had ever been to where the use of turnstiles was not deemed necersary to ensure crowd safety.The ensuing chaos was a direct result of UEFA'S decision.To use a ground with no turnstiles and to not supply adaquatley trained security stewards is a major failing and one that should be followed up by our Club,FA,MP's and Journalists. It seems that blaming liverpool fans for the shortcomings of UEFA and the FA is still the easy answer and one that unfourtunatley will continue to happen when even the Observer allows it's journalists to slander a club and city as if he was writing for the SUN .The reason it did not happen at the Milan end is not because liverpool supporters are a gang of scally thugs as Mr Wilson believes but because a lot of tickets had been sold on the blackmarket, notice the amount of liverpool supporters all over the ground , and so there was more of us than milan fans.If i know a large volume of people are coming to an event i would set up a system to deal with it, not blame the 'quality' of people turning up to the event !
yours sincerely
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