posted Feb 22, 2007

1 in a generation WE PEOPLE OF LIVERPOOL DO NOT HAVE ANY LOW STANDARDS!!! yes there might of been the minor minority of you manc supporters that took Hillsborough as a good opportunity to show your hatred towards us Liverpool people, we chose back then to ignor the morons so any comments on here made again by morons I suggest you Liverpool supporters not to stoop to there level

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posted Feb 22, 2007

Sprecher,

Utter twaddle,A small lesson in reality.Firstly ManU do not have the right to stop people crossing the channel. That is upto the police or the customs and excise. Secondly, if there were 1500 supporters with fake tickets, the stewards should not have let them into the ground. It is no excuse to say that they were extremely good fakes, the Lille (or Lens) stewards need to better trained in order to spot them.

Can we stop blaming the fans for what is ultimately a complete lack of any proper orginisation.

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posted Feb 23, 2007

The last word goes to a fine piece of sense from "ivelostmemarbles" (sic). Sprecher, you are talking out of your hindmost. It is obvious given your grammar that you are French and obvious that you are biased and far from objective. Fake tickets are not MANU's responsibility at either Lille's or Len's ground. But, it would be MANU's responsibility if the same situation happened at Old T, in a few weeks. The good news is, it won't happen! We've also sorted out our football stadium's crisis, following various tragedy's at home and abroad. Unfortunately, for you, the French, the Italians and to a lesser degree the Spanish have barely begun, and have a very long way to go.

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posted Feb 23, 2007

REALITY

The whole thing was a screw up by the organisers,Uefa,French FA and Lille football club.

It is never the French's fault.

But the anwer is not in what we saw. The answer is in the root cause,

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posted Feb 23, 2007

jeez ! the french are so bloody holier than thou. to try and put the blame for overcrowding in an away stadium on man utd really beggars belief.

i will never eat snails again in protest.

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posted Feb 23, 2007

omg, what I'm reading is just too much!

So you think everything went wrong because of Lille OSC? Lille president declared that there was a problem with MU ticket distribution, etc... Dangerous english fans crossed he channel without being in charge of the club, MU safety director unreachable when lille officials phone them on matchday, MU safety director who didn't want to take part to preparation meetings before the game, MU stewards who didn't moved during the 'so called tragedy' provoked by drunk and violent fans, etc... shall I go on?

Of course french policement acted like morrons (an old habit in french police ^^), but don't you think Lille is REALLY the only one to blame??

I was in the stadium with Lille fans, and what I saw didn't look like a 150% full stand... there was more than enough space for MU fans to follow the game safely... unless you guyus expected a vast VIP area!!

Safety measures were approved by UEFA on matchday... what do you expect? Lille being banned? lol... Manchester would have enough reasons to be banned as well...

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posted Feb 26, 2007

Not only Lille, but it seems a worrying amount of ABUs are living in an alternate reality over this incident. I'm a United fan for the record.

1. The impression I get that some elements on continental Europe have still not forgiven English football for events that I am too young to remember have driven me mad for years now.

2. My impression of the crowd issues is this:

a. United distribute tickets a month before the game(standard practice last I checked).

b. Forged tickets may or may not have then become available, tickets for the Lille parts of the ground were certainly available to the United fans and either away, only half the away stand was opened up.

c. What happens when you get a stand's worth of people crammed into half a stand? A crush. United fans ask police for help, and shake the fences(not seen in England since the 80s ) to get their attention. French police assume they're dealing with hooligans and beat the cack out of them. Ignorance and stupidity on the part of French police and ground staff. A guy got over the fence yeah but that probably looked like the best way to escape the crush. The CRE have probably never bothered to read up on Hillsborough.

First I've heard of any flares from the United end and the cynical side of me is taking those claims with a pinch of salt.

If United get done for this then Platini's a moron!

3. Giggsy's freekick was perfectly legal under both English Premiership and Champions League rules.

It would not be legal under French league rules, therefore Lille have half a leg to stand on therefore their protest but given the Henry has pulled similar stunts for the French national team, Lille defenders playing naive innocents does not wash. We've become used to free kick takers getting away with such stunts in the Premiership.

4. Trying to cover an attempted walk off under the excuse of a mass protest also doesn't wash.

5. Add that the pitch wasn't Champions League standard either and it starts looking like Lille had no intention of beating United in a straight game of football but were(and still are) instead looking to win the tie through dirty tricks.

6. One point I will make is that banning clubs from playing in the Champions League unless they have up-to-standard grounds of their own(as someone suggested earlier) wouldn't work. When Arsenal were playing in the Champions League in 98/99(as champions) they had to play at the old Wembley because Highbury wasn't up to scratch!

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posted Mar 2, 2007

I was going to say I'd be astonished if such a freekick was actually against the rules, as it is perfectly legitimate from the FIFA laws of the game, but then the FFF do actually have a history of changing rules/adding new ones etc.

Anyone remember the green cards they introduced to tell the physio to come on to treat injured players!?

They might use the fact that it's illegal in France as an excuse, but highly paid professional footballers and coaching staff should really be aware of what rules they're using in the top competition in Europe, rather than being so naiive as to assume the "our pitch (not really, but OK), our ball, our rules. We're fed up, we're no playing..." etc.

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posted Mar 6, 2007

The French police and the organisation were an absolute disgrace. On Arriving at the Ground we were more or less at our stand but were diverted the full way round the ground to gain access. This took about twenty minutes. I spent most of the day within 15 minutes of the stadium and at one stage left the bar we were in and went to Macdonalds 50 yards away. 5 times i was asked by French people if i wanted a ticket for the United end. Quite cleary the Forgeries were French. having being diverted all the way round the ground there was very little time before kick off to get into the stadium which the seating was the worst i have ever seen combuned with forged tickets caused problems. I witnessed 3 people climbing the fence to get to safety who were hit with truncheons on their feet by the police and then the tear gas. They should be thrown out of the tournament and French football be given a very stern warning. A complete disgrace ! On leaving the stadium the French fans hurled coins ( In fact anything they could get their hands on) at us. We were spat on by almost all the French fans. The stewards and police did nothing !

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posted Mar 22, 2007

OK...United are getting fined for fans apparantly throwing fireworks yet the majority of eyewitness accounts on this thread suggest there were no fireworks thrown. Am I missing anything here?

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