Champions League Final

[warthog]

I think I'm about to throw up.

[blurred]

I think it's fair to point out also though, that many of us on here that took both the time and trouble to answer Blurred's questionairre on here earlier in the season received an absolute torrent of abuse for giving our honest opinion that Liverpool wouldn't actually win anything this season, which, of course, they haven't. Whereas there's a lot on here (myself included) that disagree with a lot of what Blurred has had to say, to the best of my knowledge nobody has resorted to the terms of abuse that greeted many of us for our honest take on things when our opinion disagreed with that of the locals on RAWK. I'll be honest, that actually makes me feel quite proud.

Indeed - although as I've said in the past when you have such a large 'community' as RAWK (something like 21,000 members) you tend to find that the reasonable voices are lost in a sea of charlies.

I wouldn't say that the whites have been whiter than white on the old abuse front, though (plenty of bin-dipping and murdering references, among others, slipped in amongst some general vitriol) but hell, wouldn't life be boring if we all thought the same.

Group hug, everyone; here's to next season.

[Gertie]

I wouldn't say that the whites have been whiter than white on the old abuse front, though (plenty of bin-dipping and murdering references, among others, slipped in amongst some general vitriol) but hell, wouldn't life be boring if we all thought the same.

Group hug, everyone; here's to next season.

OOoh don't trust him, it's a ruse... he's after nicking your wallet

I'm teasing I like hugs there should be more of them.

(This is why some women shouldn't be allowed on football forums)

[communistworkethic]

I echo bruce's views here.

Those that travelled without tickets or bought them on the black market to find they were forged have to take responsibility for their actions. If you buy from a tout you take a risk. Incidentally, do we have a steer as to where these touts originated? Liverpool perchance?

It seems that despite being involved in the biggest disaster in domestic football, Liverpool fans believe everyone has to learn lessons but themselves. The arrangements were set to deal with a certain number of people, the fact that 5,000 decide to chance it isn't the organisers' fault.

The airports - planes get cancelled and breakdown, it happens live with it. Travelling on matchday carried an inherrent risk, stop whining.

As for the argument about swipe cards etc - you don't get them for cup games, daft point. You moan if it takes ages to get in through security checks you moan if they don't check hard enough. Which do you want?

As ever Liverpool show themselves to be ungracious and selfpitying. Willing only to blame everyone but themselves.

[blurred]

You moan if it takes ages to get in through security checks you moan if they don't check hard enough. Which do you want?

Commie in talking about things of which he has no knowledge? Well I'm shocked.

We moan when there are two deliberately created bottlenecks, with thousands of supporters being forced through an area that can probably only fit 6-10 people wide. We moan when at neither of these two points were any tickets being checked, and where people with either no ticket at all or just any piece of paper they happened to have to hand would suffice (I've read a tale on RAWK in the last couple of days of someone having a ripped-up Pepsi cup and getting through with it). We moan because not only does this add an extra 30 minutes or more in getting anywhere near the ground, it creates unneccesary danger and situations where some people were quite clearly distressed if not injured.

Why have 5 or 6 security/ticket checks, if all the purpose of these was, as it seemed, to deliberately slow down and create a crush? 40,000+ people enter Anfield week-in, week-out, yet we do not need 5 or 6 sets of police staggered down Breck Road or Anfield Road to allow this to happen.

I'm all for proper security checks, especially at European games and major finals, but the organisation was rat-shit from the start.

May I re-iterate that I was trying to get into the ground 2 hours before the start of the game (fearing that something of this nature could happen closer to KO), and it had already descended into disorganised chaos.

OOoh don't trust him, it's a ruse... he's after nicking your wallet

I'm teasing I like hugs there should be more of them.

(This is why some women shouldn't be allowed on football forums)

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I'd just like to say that I have read most, if not all, of this post and would like to applaud blurred for resolutely sticking to his opinion and defending his club and the majority of his fans in the face of a barrage of criticism.

Whether we agree with him or not, I personally am impressed he has stuck with it and argued the toss. This is what makes me return to this site day after day, knowing that there is always a different perspective.
I am not taking the piss either.

Yes you are, it's what you do, you work for the Water Board.

Anyway, whilst I'm in disagreement with a lot of what Blurred has had to say on the issue......... (insert Voltaire quote here).

Agreed. Decent debate is the cornerstone of this site, if not civilisation at large.

Although Wikipedia now says it's not a Voltaire quote, but a later biographer's attempt to condense his worldview. News to me, and as ever with Wiki it needs corroborating, but there you go. For those who know not what the chuff me and Brucey are on about, go here

[communistworkethic]

You moan if it takes ages to get in through security checks you moan if they don't check hard enough. Which do you want?

Commie in talking about things of which he has no knowledge? Well I'm shocked.

We moan when there are two deliberately created bottlenecks, with thousands of supporters being forced through an area that can probably only fit 6-10 people wide. We moan when at neither of these two points were any tickets being checked, and where people with either no ticket at all or just any piece of paper they happened to have to hand would suffice (I've read a tale on RAWK in the last couple of days of someone having a ripped-up Pepsi cup and getting through with it). We moan because not only does this add an extra 30 minutes or more in getting anywhere near the ground, it creates unneccesary danger and situations where some people were quite clearly distressed if not injured.

Why have 5 or 6 security/ticket checks, if all the purpose of these was, as it seemed, to deliberately slow down and create a crush? 40,000+ people enter Anfield week-in, week-out, yet we do not need 5 or 6 sets of police staggered down Breck Road or Anfield Road to allow this to happen.

I'm all for proper security checks, especially at European games and major finals, but the organisation was rat-shit from the start.

May I re-iterate that I was trying to get into the ground 2 hours before the start of the game (fearing that something of this nature could happen closer to KO), and it had already descended into disorganised chaos.

always one with the personal comments. It suggests you know your talking from a weak position. How do I not know what I'm talking about? What out of what I've said lacks knowledge that I could not have reasonably gained in a life of visiting football grounds/travelling the world longer than you've lived?

Turnstiles at all grounds create bottlenecks. But each week do 5,000 pissed up fans turn up from overseas without tickets for each of those Liverpool games? And your fans brazenly flouted the ticketing position and you don't see this as an issue - blaming the officials instead. Yes it's the officials fault that lots of ticketless fans joined the queues in the first place adding to the bottleneck. Perhaps if Liverpool fans hadn't made such a reuptation in Europe they may have been treated a little better?

You moan at officials but won't decry you criminal elements or accept they are as much to blame. Blinkered.

[Montreal Wanderer]

I'd just like to say that I have read most, if not all, of this post and would like to applaud blurred for resolutely sticking to his opinion and defending his club and the majority of his fans in the face of a barrage of criticism.

Whether we agree with him or not, I personally am impressed he has stuck with it and argued the toss. This is what makes me return to this site day after day, knowing that there is always a different perspective.
I am not taking the piss either.

Yes you are, it's what you do, you work for the Water Board.

Anyway, whilst I'm in disagreement with a lot of what Blurred has had to say on the issue......... (insert Voltaire quote here).

Agreed. Decent debate is the cornerstone of this site, if not civilisation at large.

Although Wikipedia now says it's not a Voltaire quote, but a later biographer's attempt to condense his worldview. News to me, and as ever with Wiki it needs corroborating, but there you go. For those who know not what the chuff me and Brucey are on about, go here

On this occasion I believe Wikipedia to be correct. A more reliable source, the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, lists it under the intriguing heading "Misquotations", wherein it is said:

8. I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
(to Helvétius, following the burning of De l'esprit in 1759)
attributed to Voltaire, but in fact a later summary of his attitude by S. G. Tallentyre in The Friends of Voltaire (1907);
see Voltaire (29)

On the same subject Voltaire is alleged to have said:

29. What a fuss about an omelette!
(what Voltaire apparently said on the burning of De l'esprit)
James Parton Life of Voltaire (1881) vol. 2, ch. 25; see misquotations (18)

I also note that 'Beam me up, Scotty' is a misquaottion.

[blurred]

I also note that 'Beam me up, Scotty' is a misquaottion.

Indeed, and a famous one at that. Ranks up there with 'play it again, Sam'.

[Montreal Wanderer]

I also note that 'Beam me up, Scotty' is a misquaottion.

Indeed, and a famous one at that. Ranks up there with 'play it again, Sam'.

Woody Allen made me aware of the Casblanca one (if I didn't already know) but I hadn't realized Kirk was the same. I am trying to figure out how I could possibly have spelled misquotation the way I did (my left hand is usually the slow one.).

[Crouch > Davies]

Very briefly, as would be here all night:

- Long week. Wouldn't have missed it for the world though, even though I'm never bothered about the atmosphere etc etc.

- There has been a tremendous hoo haa about the blag tickets etc. I missed most of it as I was in Greece and thankfully sheltered from the outcry in the tabloids. My take on it is quite simple - if you haven't got a ticket you shouldn't be in the ground. The situation in the ground was very serious. God forbid there was an emergency as the aisles were crammed full. And I don't mean just a little bit, I mean rammed, not going anywhere. If Liverpool would have scored first to take the lead, I am CONVINCED that someone would have died. It wasn't a situation I wanted to be in.

- Liverpool fans need to take 50% of the blame. UEFA need to take 50% of the blame. I'll get onto our fans in a minute, but UEFA chose the venue, UEFA chose the tickets, UEFA chose to give a ridiculous amount of tickets to UEFA Families (that makes me shudder just typing it) and to the locals. I have no problems with the locals being given tickets but they promptly went and sold them for £2500 outside the ground. Asking for bother. I hope the Liverpool fan suing UEFA wins his case. What a can of worms that would open. UEFA have come through this episode with not enough damage, IMO.

- But Liverpool fans have had their reputation tarnished yet again, and to be totally honest, I can't defend them. I have never been involved in football violence EVER, but there were 3 occasions when I wanted to lamp a fellow Red. All wearing black tracksuits with mirrors on (the weather in Athens is overrated, btw, it pissed it down for the 36 hours I was there) and all probably off their trolleys on drink and drugs. "The Scouse Way" (which is any way they see fit) was in evidence far too much for my liking. We have a dickhead element. Show me a club who doesn't and I'll show you a liar. The problem is our dickhead element is growing at great speed and they are all Scallies. Scallies, Chavs, whatever you might call them, are a problem everywhere, but they are becoming a MASSIVE problem at Liverpool. You don't so much notice them at Anfield, but on the road they are a total embarassment to the club and proper fans like myself, like Galactico, and like the other proper Reds.

- The ticketing was a fiasco. I'm not on about the ballot etc etc, but that stadium isn't big enough for a European Cup Final involving one of the best supported clubs in Europe. It wasn't even that impressive tbh. That's UEFA's responsibility. What isn't UEFA's responsibility is the fact that the Greeks don't deal in the ways of organisation. They're great people, I love them to bits having been to Greece plenty of times, but they are as disorganised as
they come. They are so incredibly laid back. The Greek police were totally pleasant (when the going got tough, they got going. I have no problems with them at all, they couldn't have been more helpful. I didn't try and rush the entrance so I didn't get hit with a baton or tear gassed) but they were letting people in with driving licences for goodness sake. Someone was on the ball, well and truly as there were no turnstiles at the ground. And if someone is going to exploit that, it's going to be Liverpool fans.

- The forgeries going around were stupid. One I saw was even the wrong colour, but they still got in! It was only when it all went off that everything got beefed up. In I went, I got searched 3 times (and trying to explain my asthma spray 3 times was amusing) and my ticket got checked 6 times. Now, if this had been the case all the way through there would have been no problem. It was beyond a problem when it was noticed. I was lucky to get in - another ten minutes maybe and I would have been struggling. My friend had a genuine ticket, he only got in because his fictional seven year old son "has just gone in." My other friend blagged his way in to the corporate section (and got a free goodie bag!) and my other friend got passed a ticket through the fence at half time. It's human nature. Most of these people who descended on Athens should have had a ticket anyway as they had been to the qualifying matches. They felt they should have been in. I can understand that. I can't abide by people with real tickets missing out, that is totally bang out of order though.

- UEFA should conduct a massive investigation into all this to ensure it doesn't happen again. Ever. They won't criticise themselves of course, but I bet we're looking at bigger stadiums from now on in.

[hisroyalgingerness]

you shouldn't have bothered, we've moved on and don't care

[superjohnmcginlay]

you shouldn't have bothered, we've moved on and don't care

UEFA havent:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 717793.stm

[blurred]

I actually missed this first time round, and was in here looking for something else.

always one with the personal comments. It suggests you know your talking from a weak position. How do I not know what I'm talking about? What out of what I've said lacks knowledge that I could not have reasonably gained in a life of visiting football grounds/travelling the world longer than you've lived?

The way that you don't know what you're talking about, Commie, is that you were not there. You've seen the same 60 seconds of video footage looped on SSN or BBC or whatever and are generalising as a result of that. There are gobshites on RAWK who were labelling all our fans as scum, or thieves, or hooligans or whatever, neglecting to note that 95% or more of those in Athens behaved perfectly reasonably and were law-abiding. You talk in generalisations about football grounds, which you have every reason to, but you can not talk about the specifics of the situation on the ground in Athens because you were not there. The majority of your comments that I have read support this assertion that you do not know what you are talking about, and do not get what I am talking about and trying to tell you as someone who was there and experienced it.

Turnstiles at all grounds create bottlenecks. But each week do 5,000 pissed up fans turn up from overseas without tickets for each of those Liverpool games? And your fans brazenly flouted the ticketing position and you don't see this as an issue - blaming the officials instead. Yes it's the officials fault that lots of ticketless fans joined the queues in the first place adding to the bottleneck. Perhaps if Liverpool fans hadn't made such a reuptation in Europe they may have been treated a little better?

You seem to be missing the point that if fans did that at Anfield each week they would not get in, which is why it does not happen. It does not happen at other European finals. It did not happen in Istanbul (or at least nowhere near on this scale, I'm sure there were a few got in on blag tickets or found a gap in the fence, but tickets in the main were much more readily available as the allocation was some 3,000 more). There were bottlenecks at the Milan end, also, with the same farcical 'ticket checks', and the Milanese took well over half an hour to an hour to get in.

Where there is opportunity, crime will exist.

Suppose a city in which you left your car door open, keys in the ignition and the engine running: how long would it take before it was stolen? If you had it locked and alarmed with no keys in, how long then? This is the analogy I am making.

You moan at officials but won't decry you criminal elements or accept they are as much to blame. Blinkered.

I've not condemned the criminal element? I've not accepted we're partly to blame? Please, read through my comments in this thread. I've called certain sections of our supporters scum, I've distanced myself from those who stole tickets and rushed ticket checks and created violent and dangerous situations, and I've accepted that each side has a part in the blame. If you've missed that would you like me to say it again? Or just dig up where I've already said it?

[communistworkethic]

No Blurred - you're the criminal element as much as anyone else. It's the fact that people like you can't see that that is one of the biggest worries.

I didn't speak about the specifics, I spoke in general terms about attending football, something I've more years experience than you of.

[CrazyHorse]

You seem to be missing the point that if fans did that at Anfield each week they would not get in, which is why it does not happen. It does not happen at other European finals. It did not happen in Istanbul (or at least nowhere near on this scale, I'm sure there were a few got in on blag tickets or found a gap in the fence, but tickets in the main were much more readily available as the allocation was some 3,000 more). There were bottlenecks at the Milan end, also, with the same farcical 'ticket checks', and the Milanese took well over half an hour to an hour to get in.

Eh?
If you say it doesn't happen at Anfield/other finals (and I believe you) why did like 10,000 LFC fans decend on this final ticketless with a view to getting in the game illegally? Was there some mass organisation beforehand of the fans? Or do these same people continually try to get into every game ticketless but are turned away for the other 99% of the games?

[blurred]

Eh?

If you say it doesn't happen at Anfield/other finals (and I believe you) why did like 10,000 LFC fans decend on this final ticketless with a view to getting in the game illegally? Was there some mass organisation beforehand of the fans? Or do these same people continually try to get into every game ticketless but are turned away for the other 99% of the games?

I think over-generalising and saying that 10,000 fans descended upon the OAKA stadium without tickets with an intent of getting in is unfair/untrue. I'd say the figure is probably a quarter of that, if not lower (unless you are counting those with fake tickets (knowingly or unknowingly) as not having tickets, in which case it's probably under half of you estimate).

There was no mass organisation beforehand, and certainly no real co-ordination that I was aware of. The best way that I can describe it is as follows:

Suppose Bolton reach the UEFA Cup Final and you get 15,000 tickets, but there are upwards of 20,000 who wish to go. Those without tickets would probably go over to the city in the hope of picking up a spare/touted ticket, and of course the easiest place to do this is either a) the main gathering of fans in the city centre, or b) at the ground.

Unfortunately with the allocation and demand for Athens, there were literally thousands of people desperate for tickets, and the scenes at Irini station (the metro closest to the ground) even 3 hours or more before kick-off were incredibly busy with hundreds of people milling about.

Doubly unfortunately was the fact that it was possible to get through the cordon of riot police that manned one side of this station without a ticket - people just asking to go through to go to the toilet were being allowed, and this was the first of the supposed 'ticket checks'. Once beyond this line, you were in with the majority of fans who had tickets, and who were proceeding to the stadium. From this point on, however, even hours before the game, such was the crush and disorganised nature of the organisation, that it was possible for people to end up getting through any subsequent checks without a ticket.

Those fans who went up to the ground in the hope of picking up a spare/touted ticket ended up seeing how ridiculously easy it was to get beyond this first line of police, and from there could see that any ticket checks beyond that point were farcical, owing to the way the Greek police decided to funnel thousands of fans through bottlenecks.

I'm aware there is a relatively small element of Liverpool fans who'd love to bunk in to each game - either by slipping the turnstile operator 20 quid, or trying a 'double click' or whatever, but if more than 50 succeed at any ground in this country on any given day I'd be surprised. They do not act in this number at any other game, because it is not possible to do so.

[blurred]

I didn't speak about the specifics, I spoke in general terms about attending football, something I've more years experience than you of.

Indeed, and when the topic of conversation is experiences of football in the 80s and 90s I'll bow to your superior knowledge.

When it comes to following your team to major finals, especially in Europe, I'd wager I've got more experience than you, and can most definitely deal with specifics.

[communistworkethic]

I didn't speak about the specifics, I spoke in general terms about attending football, something I've more years experience than you of.

Indeed, and when the topic of conversation is experiences of football in the 80s and 90s I'll bow to your superior knowledge.

When it comes to following your team to major finals, especially in Europe, I'd wager I've got more experience than you, and can most definitely deal with specifics.

oooh big woo! I've been to plenty of games with more people in attendance than Athens.

[Zulus Thousand of em]

Getting silly now boys! The naughty step beckons.