Manchester Evening News hatchet job on UEFA final

muttley said:
The Police Federation at the time blamed the Council.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk

Police boss: Council caused Rangers riot by turning off big screen

A SENIOR police figure has blamed Manchester council for the Uefa Cup final riot. Chris Burrows, chairman of the Greater Manchester Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file bobbies, said the big screen showing the match in Piccadilly Gardens was deliberately switched off.
www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk
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I have coped and pasted that important link below Muttley.



Police boss: Council caused Rangers riot by turning off big screen


A SENIOR police figure has blamed Manchester council for the Uefa Cup final riot. Chris Burrows, chairman of the Greater Manchester Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file bobbies, said the big screen showing the match in Piccadilly Gardens was deliberately switched off.


A SENIOR police figure has blamed Manchester council for the Uefa Cup final riot. Chris Burrows, chairman of the Greater Manchester Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file bobbies, said the big screen showing the match in Piccadilly Gardens was deliberately switched off.

Drunken fans went on the rampage before and after the game between Zenit St Petersburg and Rangers in May 2008.

Town hall officials have consistently said the screen failed, prompting a night of serious rioting. A council report blamed drunken fans for thwarting efforts to overcome a weak signal to the screen, with contractors ordered to abandon the site and run.

Following the latest claims, the councl again issued a strong denial and GMP Chief Constable Peter Fahy said no blame could be apportioned to any organisation.

Mr Burrows made his comments at the Federation's annual open meeting in the V&A hotel in Manchester. It included a question-and-answer session with Chief Constable Peter Fahy, Coun Paul Murphy, Mr Burrows and other Federation officials who were also on the panel.

Asked by one officer who had been to blame for the Uefa cup 'fiasco', Mr Burrows said: "It was the local authority. I was listening to the (police radio that night. That screen was switched off."



No-one on the panel rebutted Mr Burrows' comments.

After the meeting, Coun Jim Battle, deputy leader of the council, said: "The claim that the screen was switched off by the council is entirely unfounded. The screen broke down and as the technicians tried to fix it they were pelted with bottles. Nothing excuses the mindless violence that followed.


"Never have we experienced the widespread rioting and hooliganism we saw in the city that night. police officers, council staff and others showed admirable courage and carried out a splendid job under extremely difficult circumstances."

Mr Fahy later said: "A council investigation revealed the signal failure was responsible for the screen not working. No blame can be apportioned to any organisation. The disorder was a consequence of individuals taking part in violence."
 
A lesson in how not to organise or Police such a large event with so many people.

Everyone crammed into the city centre rather than spread across the city like match day in Seville.

Heavy handed Police just made the situation worse, attacking people asking for assistance as nobody knew what was going on. Some of those coppers I seen that night deserved a kicking for the way they were treating people.

We were walking to get to the train station, didn't know there had been bother but approached a large line of police blocking the way we were going. Asked how we get to the train station (didn't know they had closed it at this point) and got a baton stuck in my chest and pushed away.

Along the line of police was an old guy with his head split open and the people who were with him going mental at the police as they'd pushed him over for nothing. You can see why some folk under the influence would react to that sort of treatment.
 
MuddyWaters said:
Apparently the police wanted a fanzone in Heaton Park, but shopkeepers association ( or whatever you call it) wanted us in the city centre
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I suppose we all have degrees in hindsight. But surely Old Trafford could have been utilised? There's 70,000 right there.

Is there also an Old Trafford cricket ground? You're maybe talking another 30-50,000 could have been put there, with the appropriate big screens?

Maybe Utd, wouldn't have wanted anything to do with it anyway?

I mean, even when Novo scores the decisive penaty, the commentator comes out with those immortal words; 'Brace yourself Manchester.'

Yet the manc police operation and council didn't realise what was going to happen in terms of numbers?
 
GovanFront4 said:
Piccadilly was unsafe and if we scored there would have been injuries all over the place.
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You’re probably right mate. The place was packed full.

I mind when I walked out of the train station and looking down to street towards Piccadilly square, I’ve never seen anything like it. You couldn’t see in front of you for blue jerseys and people. It was packed to capacity, every pub shut and every shop closed pretty much. Manchester hadn’t anticipated so many people just coming down.

We got there about lunchtime that day, and I think by about 4pm the place was drank dry. Piccadilly had a huge carsberg tanker to supply their bar and that was emptied before 5pm. The toilets were placed outside the square and if you left for a pish, you weren’t getting back in and the security folk weren’t messing about. I watched guys rip heras fencing down just to get back into the square. It was carnage but most of it was great spirits. As you say, had the game been shown on that screen and stuff happened, god knows how bad it would have got. To be fair, there were a few skirmishes among the crowd once the bar stopped serving booze and the realisation kicked in that the game wasn’t being shown. I clocked it about 6:30 pm that night that the screen kept playing the same loop when the coverage had started around 6pm I’m sure, so I had an inkling that something wasn’t right. Most folk were too pished to notice to be fair!
 
Boots the chemist got raided by a local ned, Rangers fans got the blame. Nothing to do with us.

And two or three arrested were known hooligans from towns like Blackburn there for a day out and to cause trouble.

Vast majority had a good day.

I went to the FF party in the Ritz I think it was called.

Manchester was poorly prepared and Bain and co underestimated our numbers massively. Wouldn't be like that clown to get things wrong.

Manchester is a good city these days.
 
Sticky Fingers said:
You’re probably right mate. The place was packed full.

I mind when I walked out of the train station and looking down to street towards Piccadilly square, I’ve never seen anything like it. You couldn’t see in front of you for blue jerseys and people. It was packed to capacity, every pub shut and every shop closed pretty much. Manchester hadn’t anticipated so many people just coming down.

We got there about lunchtime that day, and I think by about 4pm the place was drank dry. Piccadilly had a huge carsberg tanker to supply their bar and that was emptied before 5pm. The toilets were placed outside the square and if you left for a pish, you weren’t getting back in and the security folk weren’t messing about. I watched guys rip heras fencing down just to get back into the square. It was carnage but most of it was great spirits. As you say, had the game been shown on that screen and stuff happened, god knows how bad it would have got. To be fair, there were a few skirmishes among the crowd once the bar stopped serving booze and the realisation kicked in that the game wasn’t being shown. I clocked it about 6:30 pm that night that the screen kept playing the same loop when the coverage had started around 6pm I’m sure, so I had an inkling that something wasn’t right. Most folk were too pished to notice to be fair!
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I was only 17 at the time and it was my second trip with Rangers and where we were in Picaddily bottles just started flying at one point. Trying to get out with my mum and dad and wee brother was crazy people just kicking off everywhere. Managed to bribe a bouncer to let us in a pub for the second half then couldn’t get back to Blackpool. Was absolute chaos but fortunately missed the worst parts.
 
wee bud's pit boots said:
I suppose we all have degrees in hindsight. But surely Old Trafford could have been utilised? There's 70,000 right there.

Is there also an Old Trafford cricket ground? You're maybe talking another 30-50,000 could have been put there, with the appropriate big screens?

Maybe Utd, wouldn't have wanted anything to do with it anyway?

I mean, even when Novo scores the decisive penaty, the commentator comes out with those immortal words; 'Brace yourself Manchester.'

Yet the manc police operation and council didn't realise what was going to happen in terms of numbers?
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Seville had it right with that stadium showing the game. I was walking around Seville centre about an hour before kick and there were only wee pockets of fans around and you never felt any trouble on the air.
 
wee bud's pit boots said:
I suppose we all have degrees in hindsight. But surely Old Trafford could have been utilised? There's 70,000 right there.

Is there also an Old Trafford cricket ground? You're maybe talking another 30-50,000 could have been put there, with the appropriate big screens?

Maybe Utd, wouldn't have wanted anything to do with it anyway?

I mean, even when Novo scores the decisive penaty, the commentator comes out with those immortal words; 'Brace yourself Manchester.'

Yet the manc police operation and council didn't realise what was going to happen in terms of numbers?
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Yeah he knew 2 seconds after the penalty, I knew, you knew, but MCC and the police didn't know, it was a phuckin shambles, not helped by some of our idiotic supporters
 
Professor Yaffle said:
Boots the chemist got raided by a local ned, Rangers fans got the blame. Nothing to do with us.

And two or three arrested were known hooligans from towns like Blackburn there for a day out and to cause trouble.

Vast majority had a good day.

I went to the FF party in the Ritz I think it was called.

Manchester was poorly prepared and Bain and co underestimated our numbers massively. Wouldn't be like that clown to get things wrong.

Manchester is a good city these days.
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The FF do in the Ritz was ideal. Mind we were queuing up from half 10 to get in haha. Anyone I know that went and hadn't made pre arranged plans had a shite day IMO.

One of my mates had to spend the day in a Brazilian restaurant cos it was the only place he could get in.
 
Arminius said:
I actually wrote to the chief of police weeks BEFORE I headed down for the final warning then that every single Rangers fan I knew was heading to Manchester and the numbers would be astronomical.

I suggested opening up Old Trafford with big screens to take 75,000 off the streets as a starts to deal with the numbers.

Totally ignored. No response. The council and police were 95% to blame for the shambles. Some of our fans let us down, though. Would be stupid to ignore that simple fact.
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I know a copper whose gaffer purposely offered plenty of resources including intelligence and personnel to help police it down there, and were flatly turned down by greater Manchester police.

The police and council down there were absolutely responsible for the shambles.
Amongst any support of 250k you're always going to get a selection of rockets attending that needs dealt with accordingly.
 
There were mitigating circumstances but it was a perfect storm really. Some people are cretins who can't behave and with it being so close it encouraged these idiots to travel for a day out.

There's blame on all sides. I'm glad we got Seville to kinda reconcile that.
 
It's also worth remembering that just two years earlier GMP cancelled our friendly at Bolton because they shat it at the prospect of just 10000 visiting fans.

www.theboltonnews.co.uk

Police call off Rangers friendly at the Reebok

BOLTON Wanderers friendly with Scottish giants Glasgow Rangers at the Reebok on Tuesday has been cancelled on the advice of local police.
www.theboltonnews.co.uk www.theboltonnews.co.uk
 
PT98 said:
The FF do in the Ritz was ideal. Mind we were queuing up from half 10 to get in haha. Anyone I know that went and hadn't made pre arranged plans had a shite day IMO.

One of my mates had to spend the day in a Brazilian restaurant cos it was the only place he could get in.
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You were in The Ritz, and never brought me a hauf?
 
It was only after game when I saw police lining up near canals and amount of police vans I know something had happened
When I got back to bus found out about trouble
Manchester weren't ready for amount of traveling fans
 
Piccadilly gardens was a time bomb waiting to go off unfortunately. We got down mid afternoon and it must have taken at least half an hour to walk from one side of the square to the other given the sheer volume of people.

had a ticket for the game so was away from there early doors thankfully.

As many others have said, the city was hugely underprepared which is frustrating as manchester had the infrastructure to host the volume of travelling fans, they just never made the effort to. The likes of Old Trafford, the cricket ground, MEN Arena etc could have been used for fan events but they were more interested in trying to discourage people from travelling
 
mdingwall said:
Any mention of the reasons the cops gave when they finally admitted it was them who turned the screens off?
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From my recollection at the time Plod were of the opinion there could be serious injuries if we had scored, given how overcrowded Piccadilly was at the time and that is why it was turned off.

I have told this before, but the Saturday after when we were playing Motherwell, I bumped into a relatives other half who was a copper and working at Fir Park .
A Sellik fan.
He told us that one of his colleagues-who was a Gers fan- was down in Manchester for the final and had his wrist cracked by the GMP when they started on the fans.
He wanted to file a complaint about their behaviour but was told in no uncertain terms to drop it if he valued his career in the force.
The fix was in and the blame was being pointed at us.
 
Coza said:
Two aspects to that.

1. They were a shambles and refused to accept they were going to be swarmed by rangers fans even when there were fans there early.

2. Seville and the cost prohibited all manner of arsewipes going along. Manchester was £5 each in a corsa to get there.
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Correct. I met some absolute bams I grew up beside who I’d wager had never been to a Rangers game in their lives.
 
Travelling down to the game and the build up on day of the game are some of my favourite memories going to see Rangers. I was at the game and never saw any violence. First I heard about it was when my sister phoned me to tell me about it as she had been in the square.
 
Sticky Fingers said:
Manchester was brilliant until their council and organisers made a total james hunt of it with the screen failure.

Had the screen worked properly in Piccadilly, I doubt there would have been any violence or trouble on the scale of which happened later.

People were antsy, annoyed and irritated because they’ve travelled a couple of hundred miles to watch the game, bevvyed up and ready to watch their team, and then all hell breaks loose.

It was a brilliant day out until the police started to get heavy handed and very very uncooperative.

They shut the train station down completely until about 50 guys bust open the shutters to get in, they blocked off every street towards the station and batoned any person who went near them. I got chased up a lane with around 30 folk with them chasing us and swinging as hard as they could, the bastards. I nearly got smashed in the leg with one and it missed me by millimetres as a ran.

The police were a shambles that night. There were zenit fans throwing street bins and fighting with whoever they wanted but the police wouldn’t go near them.

The whole thing after the game had finished was a shambles.

Rangers fans defended themselves rightly, and the Manchester council should have been ashamed of themselves for their handling of it.
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Everyone bar Manchester Council and the police new what was going to happen.
For a city used to putting on big events they should have been better prepared.
 
Council were no doubt full of the dark side who would be well briefed by the dark side in Scotland , plus when I heard ewan cameron on the Friday night before the match, when he introduced the gmp top man with a name straight out of the roi I smelt a rat. 30 odd arrested out of 300,000 is incredible considering the shit that was happening.
 
I remember the screen saying something like "we are working to fix the issue" but they actually turned it off.

Crowd started getting frustrated and then thousands of bears trying to get into bookies or pubs to see the game.

I ended up missing the while game and still haven't watched it.

Disgraceful that I had to miss my team in European final due to piss poor planning from the people in charge.
 
mdingwall said:
Any mention of the reasons the cops gave when they finally admitted it was them who turned the screens off?
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Spoke to the police at Albert Square late afternoon and he advised to find a pub and not leave it as the screens at Piccadilly were not setup to show the live feed and the tens of thousands there would head to where we were. They were to do all they could to keep them away from Albert Square area as they couldn’t cope with the numbers
 
wee bud's pit boots said:
I suppose we all have degrees in hindsight. But surely Old Trafford could have been utilised? There's 70,000 right there.

Is there also an Old Trafford cricket ground? You're maybe talking another 30-50,000 could have been put there, with the appropriate big screens?

Maybe Utd, wouldn't have wanted anything to do with it anyway?

I mean, even when Novo scores the decisive penaty, the commentator comes out with those immortal words; 'Brace yourself Manchester.'

Yet the manc police operation and council didn't realise what was going to happen in terms of numbers?
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Man Utd did offer the use of Old Trafford but City wanted it to be all about them and I say that as someone who goes to watch City occasionally

LCCC Offered the use of the Cricket ground and it would have brought in a great deal of income but again that plan was shelved for reasons known only to UEFA / Council

ETA….if the final was at Ibrox we wouldn’t want those begging bastards to cash in
 
Some people who know nothing about England think it's a pro-Rangers pro-Protestant pro-British paradise.

It isn't.

Places like Manchester and Liverpool and London are dominated politically by cultural marxists who are venemously pro-Islam, pro-Hamas and pro-IRA.

They slither themsleves into government bodies, media and academic instutitons. They hate Rangers and everything it stands for. So far-left IRA publications like this will always post posionious lies about us.
 
wee bud's pit boots said:
We were travelling down in the car and stopped at Scotch Corner about 6:00 am and feck me the amount of empties at that time in the morning was north of excessive to say the least.
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Yep, we were the same, left at 5am, got to Southwaite around 6:30am, I was heading for a coffee and I was astonished seeing people with a full English and a bottle of Bucky……at 6:30am!

We got to the M60, stuck in traffic and a transit van was next to us, the side door opened, there must have been half a dozen people in the back getting bevvied, no seats or anything, just sitting on the plywood floor, and they had a 3 litre milk carton, full of pish, which they preceded to empty out on the motorway.

I said to my mates at the time, this is going to end up absolutely carnage tonight
 
wee bud's pit boots said:
I suppose we all have degrees in hindsight. But surely Old Trafford could have been utilised? There's 70,000 right there.

Is there also an Old Trafford cricket ground? You're maybe talking another 30-50,000 could have been put there, with the appropriate big screens?

Maybe Utd, wouldn't have wanted anything to do with it anyway?

I mean, even when Novo scores the decisive penaty, the commentator comes out with those immortal words; 'Brace yourself Manchester.'

Yet the manc police operation and council didn't realise what was going to happen in terms of numbers?
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Did he not also say, along the lines of “…and Manchester may not be big enough”?
 
I loved Manchester in 08 ( result apart )

Quite simply they didn’t expect nearly a quarter of a million of to turn up
 
The police were absolute throbbers. I seen them threatening a lassie who had her son with her. He was about 8 years old.

She was guilty of asking him if he knew anywhere she could get in with her boy to watch the game.

He was an absolute arsehole.
 
tazzabear said:
Did he not also say, along the lines of “…and Manchester may not be big enough”?
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He did,, "they wont need visas,, they won't need passports, but you know what... Manchester just might not be big enough" , Manchester organisers should have hired Peter drury, useless
 
DEJABLUE62 said:
He did,, "they wont need visas,, they won't need passports, but you know what... Manchester just might not be big enough" , Manchester organisers should have hired Peter drury, useless
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Exactly my recollection.
Doubted it because that senior poster didn’t mention.
 
Sticky Fingers said:
Manchester was brilliant until their council and organisers made a total james hunt of it with the screen failure.

Had the screen worked properly in Piccadilly, I doubt there would have been any violence or trouble on the scale of which happened later.

People were antsy, annoyed and irritated because they’ve travelled a couple of hundred miles to watch the game, bevvyed up and ready to watch their team, and then all hell breaks loose.

It was a brilliant day out until the police started to get heavy handed and very very uncooperative.

They shut the train station down completely until about 50 guys bust open the shutters to get in, they blocked off every street towards the station and batoned any person who went near them. I got chased up a lane with around 30 folk with them chasing us and swinging as hard as they could, the bastards. I nearly got smashed in the leg with one and it missed me by millimetres as a ran.

The police were a shambles that night. There were zenit fans throwing street bins and fighting with whoever they wanted but the police wouldn’t go near them.

The whole thing after the game had finished was a shambles.

Rangers fans defended themselves rightly, and the Manchester council should have been ashamed of themselves for their handling of it.
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I read stuff like this and honestly think I was in a different city.

We were in Albert Square to watch the game. After it finished, we walked up to the train station and got on the next train to the station near our digs.

Other than the mess on the streets on the way up to Piccadilly, we seen none of what’s described above, and this was about 10pm.

We only found out about the chaos while eating breakfast, watching sky news the next morning.
 
dazzapat said:
I read stuff like this and honestly think I was in a different city.

We were in Albert Square to watch the game. After it finished, we walked up to the train station and got on the next train to the station near our digs.

Other than the mess on the streets on the way up to Piccadilly, we seen none of what’s described above, and this was about 10pm.

We only found out about the chaos while eating breakfast, watching sky news the next morning.
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Just on the road from Piccadilly square to the train station, it was like Port Stanley runway. Warzone, police everywhere, injured bodies walking around, scared women and kids. It was mental, and the only real aggressors were the police all fitted with riot gear, horses the lot. If they were allowed guns there would have been shootings galore.

This was probably around 10:30-11pm, it was carnage.

I maintain to this day the sight of 50 odd guys lifting the shutters open, basically ripping them up, at the train station was one of the best things ive ever seen. There was no need to close the station, but to be fair, there were no trains running to Glasgow until early morning so when we woke up off the station floor, the station was ripped to shreds. It was some mess!
 
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