Skem junior team abused and ejected from Emirates in our CL game

[The_MC]

Skem junior team abused for being 'Scousers' during Liverpool's Champions League game at Emirates StadiumApr 3 2008

Exclusive by Philip Kirkbride

 

 

A DREAM trip to the quarter-finals of the Champions League quickly turned into a nightmare for a young football team from Skelmersdale.

 

The Arriva Youth under-15s had won a once-in-a-lifetime prize of free tickets to watch Liverpool’s clash with Arsenal last night (Wednesday).

 

But the evening soon turned sour when they were unceremoniously ejected from the Emirates Stadium.

 

Bizarrely seated amongst the hard-core element of Arsenal supporters, the football-mad youngsters were victims of a torrent of abuse from adult Gunner supporters.

 

As proud Liverpool fans, the under-15s celebrated Dirk Kuyt’s 26th minute equaliser, but they were soon turfed out.

 

 

Arsenal stewards escorted the boys, and the three adults accompanying them, from their seats and out of the ground.

 

 

Stranded outside in unfamiliar surroundings, the children and their guardians went looking for answers but were refused entry back into the stadium.

 

 

Ray Radford, manager of the U-15s, was furious at the way his team had been treated and demanded that his shocked players get back in to watch the game.

 

 

He said: "We were having a great day until Liverpool scored. We were seated smack bang in the lion’s den and were abused by grown men - men in suits.

 

 

"These weren’t louts. They started shouting at the lads as soon as they realised we were Scousers.

 

 

"They started shouting about Michael Shields and Heysel - it was pandemonium.

 

 

"After we’d celebrated Kuyt’s goal, we were spoken to by the stewards and told to leave the ground.

 

 

"Even though I explained to him that the lads were guests of UEFA, because of the competition win, they still chucked us out."

 

 

Left stricken outside the ground the lads, wearing special UEFA tracksuits given to them as prize winners, continued to be hurled with abuse from passing footy yobs.

 

 

Radford eventually managed to get hold of a female UEFA official but he says she was of little help.

 

 

Ray added: "The female UEFA official said we weren’t allowed back in the ground and just left us there.

 

 

"We eventually walked round to a part of the stadium we recognised and managed to talk to the UEFA project manager, a guy called Simon Calder.

 

 

"He apologised for what had happened saying it was 'unacceptable, appalling and totally unprofessional'.

 

 

"But he said that Arsenal were not going to allow us back in the ground.

 

 

"We were eventually granted access back to our mini-bus but were not allowed to leave the ground until 11pm.

 

 

"By this stage, the lads were very anxious, quiet and very, very scared.

 

 

"They were stressed and because we weren’t allowed back in the ground, we missed the rest of the game."

 

 

The Advertiser spoke to Ollie Tritton but he declined to comment. UEFA official Simon Calder was unavailable for comment.

 

link

[Hassony]

I wonder if talk sport will bother talking for 3 minutes about this

[Billy Dane]

Disgraceful. Be interesting to see if this is picked up by the National media, and what William Gaillard has to say about it.

[Sion]

I don't blame the Arsenal stewards, it's their job to try and defuse potential situations. Imagine if there were 20 odd Arsenal fans sat together in the Kop on tuesday, there would bound to be some d****eads mouthing off to them. More stupid on behalf of UEFA to put them there. UEFA in poor organisation shocker!

Edited April 4, 2008 by Sion

[Kahnee]

Disgraceful. Be interesting to see if this is picked up by the National media, and what William Gaillard has to say about it.

It was clearly their fault

[Billy Dane]

I don't blame the Arsenal stewards, it's their job to try and defuse potential situations. Imagine if there were 20 odd Arsenal fans sat together in the Kop on tuesday, there would bound to be some d****eads mouthing off to them. More stupid on behalf of UEFA to put them there. UEFA in poor organisation shocker!

 

If the Gooners were wearing suits it sounds like they were sitting in the corporate/guest areas. Presumably Arsenal are responsible for ticket allocations so they wouldn't be giving UEFA freebie tickets in amongst the hard core support?

[Billy Dane]

It was clearly their fault

 

"Scousers in shell suits on rampage"

[johngibo YPC]

I don't blame the Arsenal stewards, it's their job to try and defuse potential situations. Imagine if there were 20 odd Arsenal fans sat together in the Kop on tuesday, there would bound to be some d****eads mouthing off to them. More stupid on behalf of UEFA to put them there. UEFA in poor organisation shocker!

 

Indeed. f***ing stupid place to put them

[Guest Snorky]

UEFA take over the ground lock stock and barrel. There is very little the clubs can do about it - nothing moves without UEFA saying so.

 

It's scandelous that grown men should be so hard and pick on kids and easy prey, nothing like Athens at all then ?

 

If they (Skem kids) were in danger then unfortunately as they were technically in the home end, the stewards would have had little option. The outcome would have been the same at Anfield believe me.

 

However, we did once have a Chelsea fan arrested for attacking a West Ham fan in the Upper Cent, but that's another story

[MFletcher]

You can't blame the stewards for that. You can blame UEFA for seating them there in the first place.

 

You have to wonder what UEFA do all day apart from pontificate about everything under the sun and create disorganised messes at every available opportunity.

[johngibo YPC]

You can't blame the stewards for that. You can blame UEFA for seating them there in the first place.

 

You have to wonder what UEFA do all day apart from pontificate about everything under the sun and create disorganised messes at every available opportunity.

 

Have very large lunches

[Molby]

You can't blame the stewards for that. You can blame UEFA for seating them there in the first place.

 

You have to wonder what UEFA do all day apart from pontificate about everything under the sun and create disorganised messes at every available opportunity.

 

 

hold on, they were thrown out ffs

 

why? if a situation was brewing then surely a solution existed that didn't need a load of 15 year old kids being turfed out

 

wtf? this is exactly the type of situation that justifies the union - I have no knowledge of what happened but lets say for a moment that it's as reported:

 

who is gonna speak up? it's a f***ing outrage...so who will speak for us? Parry? Moores?

 

if it's true...if it's not then moot point but if its true, then what?

 

and so on and so forth from ticketing, to travel arrangements, to 'singing sections'

and on and on....

 

I'm linking this to the union because it illustrates perfectly what we're about: we don't want anything unreasonable like cheap tickets or ...well cheap tickets

 

just to have the opportunity to put our point of view across, and by 'our' I mean the majority of our fans as expressed through a democratic process

 

question: are you entirely happy with the travel arrangements that currently exist or would you support the club seeing to it that the union provide an alternative to the likes of Barnes Travel, Sport Options etc? (our offer would have only subtle differences eg much cheaper, dedicated eand experienced travel rep, hotels properly scouted out etc etc)

 

are you entirely happy with the booze and catering arrangements that currently exist at Anfield? could you think of any suggestions that could improve match day experience for fans and simultaneously increase club revenue - and I defy any matchgoer not to have such ideas

 

 

and so on...all breaks back to the double edged sword: best supporters in the land = Chelsea semi 2005 AND (due to fact that for every fan that gives up, 10 are waiting to step in) ticket fiascos, s*** facilities at Anfield, no representation when things go wrong in Europe, all neglected and brushed under the carpet by the club because they know they can get away with it

 

 

 

 

 

 

nb I still love my club, obviously

[fyds]

Molby, much as I sympathise with your aims and objectives, this was not a Liverpool matter but a UEFA matter, as someone said earlier - they run the show top to bottom for this kind of game and the kids were guests of UEFA, not LFC - this has nothing to do with Parry and Moores or anyone else including Arsenal, this is Platini and Gallard's territory.

[hideNseek]

Molby, much as I sympathise with your aims and objectives, this was not a Liverpool matter but a UEFA matter, as someone said earlier - they run the show top to bottom for this kind of game and the kids were guests of UEFA, not LFC - this has nothing to do with Parry and Moores or anyone else including Arsenal, this is Platini and Gallard's territory.

 

 

I wouldn't totally exonerate Arsenal in this. It may well have been UEFA who organised it but you'd think Arsenal would have know something about it and could've handled the seating issue better or even what was going to happen to a bunch of kids once the game had started.

[DaveLFC]

There's a whole section behid the corporate seats in the upper centenary that is often given to away fans for CL games. I've yet to see a single person get ejected or abused and they celebrate their goals like any other fans.

[Mike]

There's a whole section behid the corporate seats in the upper centenary that is often given to away fans for CL games. I've yet to see a single person get ejected or abused and they celebrate their goals like any other fans.

theres regularly aggro there as well

[Guy_Incognito]

I used to go out with a lass from Skem. I'm more worried for the fellas in the suits...