I posted the below on another, smaller, website. I've posted it below just to add full agreement to Waynes comments. It's long wonded so I fear it may kill off Kahnee. Also, Wayne, I think I say you in Syntgmna (or however you pronounce it) square. We're you down and off to the right of steps on the concrete between all the trees where eveyone was taking a piss? ______________________________________ So, the 2007 European Cup Final. It quite simply could not have been more of a polar opposite to the two previous European finals I had been too (2001 & 2005). I flew into Athens on the Tuesday and the flight company screwed us around and left us waiting 3 ½ hours for the coach. There was then a 2 hour coach journey to our hotel. Fair enough, I won?t blame UEFA for that. We went into Athens later that night and to Syntagma (sp?) square which was packed with Liverpool fans singing and chanting and drinking. I didn?t see any trouble and while the weather was crap the fun was good. I left there and went back to the hotel at around 4am. The next morning I was in the reception in the hotel when someone came down to say that there room had been ransacked while they were in breakfast and their bags stolen. This bloke didn?t have a ticket and later that morning the bags turned up on one of the upper floors. There was no question that someone staying in the hotel had done it. We left for the square later that morning. We got there about 2ish and it was already stuffed full of Liverpool fans. While the singing was still going on, there was a different atmosphere to Istanbul. More fans then not were looking for tickets and there was nervousness about the place. People would ask you if you were looking for a ticket, if you answered no then they?d ask you if you had one. I?d always answer that I was picking it up at the ground before kick off as I didn?t want to let on that I had it on me. It was in the square that I say the first attack on a fan for his tickets. Two scousers just started laying into him and went through his pockets. Some other fans then came to the lads rescue and the two were chased away. A bunch of Irish and Liverpool lads beside me were looking for tickets and this little lad from Liverpool came up to them and said he had tickets for sale for ?100. I started laughing but only got serious looks in return. The lad asked how many they were looking for and one bloke replies 8 and the other asks for 5. This lad comes back with 13 tickets and hands them over. They weren?t even good forgeries. Later in the square I twice saw some lad running away at top speed with a bag in his hand closely pursued by 4 or 5 others. We left for the ground and arrived at the Olympic area at around 8ish. We went past the first security check with out taking my ticket out and were in a very large open area. This is where I again say people turning on each other and fighting over tickets. If someone was selling one ticket people would actually beat the hell out of the other person bidding on the ticket just to ensure they got it. Again even in the policed off area I would see people grabbing handbags and running. We got through the 3rd cordon and again my ticket had stayed in my pocket. When walking down to the ground I say some middle aged white scouser giving dogs abuse to this group of 7-8 Pakistani lads. They were just telling him to f*** off but he was getting stuck into them. Some other older white Liverpool lad, probably near to 60, told the other scouser to shut up and that those lads were home and away fans and deserved to be there more then most. The other lad was doing his nut so when the older guy shouted what his problem was, the other guy and his mate both replied ?they?re f***ing pakis?. The old lad called him a useless BNP c*** and so the younger bloke climbs up on this area to the right of us and shouts at the older boy to fight him. The older lad just told him to f*** off and kept walking. A bunch of us, including myself, were very prepared to sort the other lad out had he even made a move towards the old lad. I felt sick seeing that and it was everything in my power to stop myself from just leathering the prick. It was 100 mtrs further on that it got bad. The riot police had created a bottle neck out of riot vans and were stopping large groups and holding them back. I was initially pushed to the right and was pressed face first into a van as riot police just marched straight through everyone knocking them out of the way for no reason. I couldn?t catch my breath for probably less then two second but it seemed like forever. That split second of panic stuck with me for the rest of night. The police let the crowd through but I couldn?t get down the side of the vans so I was stuck again, this time more near the centre of the crowd. This was the point that a number of the riot police decided that they wanted to go somewhere else so they got there riot shields in front of the them and just marched clean through the crowd again and sent people flying. My mate who was stuck in a different part of the crowd saw them just walk straight over this girl who was no more then 15. They just didn?t care. When I eventually got through this mayhem, we were just back out in a big open space again. I couldn?t figure out why they bothered. I passed the final congestion point just before there was a major crush and I looked back to see all this smoke. I initially thought it was a flare, but then quickly realised that it was tear gas. I got into the ground eventually and was only 5 mins later a few lads came in with bloodshot eyes and water streaming from them. They said that they were told that the ground was now full. I had 20 seats around me free. I was standing on two seats and would move backwards a few seats and forward a few rows depending on what was happening. Directly to my right though I say a site that worried me greatly. The stand behind the goal was clearly massively over crowded and I was standing just to the left of it in a place that was less then half full. I immediately started thinking back to Hillsborough and the similarities. While the riot police refusing to let in people with genuine tickets at that stage is wrong, something had to be done, and had everyone else got in then we could have had the unthinkable on our hands. Again. I?m not going to go into the game as we all saw it. However, the YNWA at half time just seemed forced. People seemed to want to get the Istanbul experience but there were too may people there who just didn?t have a clue. On my flight over from Dublin at least 30 people I spoke too were going to their first ever Liverpool match. Crazy. At the end of the game the players came up to us and threw in their shirts and then we gave the Milan players a round of applause when they came down to us. The rest of the night was as you?d expect. We met up with a bunch of lads from Dublin who we meet at Anfield from time to time and they had been tear gassed and sent packing even though they had genuine tickets. They were not happy. The following day in the airport I was looking at some of the papers when some London lad around 30 in a Liverpool jersey bent down and picked up the Sun. An old scouser in front of me asked him why he?s buying that paper and he replies with a smile ?For page 3?. I asked him why is a Liverpool fan getting that s**** and he just laughed and began to walk away. I stopped him and told him he should be f***ing ashamed of himself reading that crap and he was not a Liverpool fan. He walked away but then came back about 15 seconds later and asked is there some reason he shouldn?t reading the paper? I asked him was he serious. I told him to f*** off home and do a search on his computer under Hillsborough and The Sun and learn something about the club he is pretending to support. The old boy who was still there told him he should already know if he was a fan, which is spot on. It really just hit home the type of ?fan? who was at this game. UEFA f***ed up here big style. When so few were getting tickets and so many were going corporate, it was always clear that there would be a very large back market for tickets on the day of the game. This was THE contributing factor in so many turning up ticket less. It is easy for UEFA to blame the fans but no matter who you are and in what sport, if you get a chance to go into a major final venue without a ticket you will take it. I would defy the pope himself not to just think feck it and walk in to the ground. (yes, the Pope does curse) However, we have a horrible element in our fan base. A racist, thieving, violent, swamp dwelling, dregs of society element that see nothing wrong with ripping off fellow fans of their money to pay for their trip, and of beating the crap out of them for their match tickets. I don?t know what we can do and I don?t think you can ask for self policing as most people understandably just don?t want to get involved if they see violent incidents. UEFA need to accept supply and demand and re asses how they handle clubs with large travelling fan bases like ours. If we had been given more tickets to a large stadium that was designed for football then we could have prevented this problem. Better class of tickets like the microchip ones in the World Cup in Germany and proper turnstile entrances will sort the issue. Also, football fans of clubs who qualify for finals like this are at games all the time and are well aware of how to access a ground. Creating bottle necks for no other reason then to give people something to is just asking for trouble. Leave us get into the stadium and we?ll do it as we do at our home grounds. I never saw even a tap of trouble between Milan fans and us. Just the police.
