Quote from GFresh :

Did anyone else just watch the Manchester United game against Roma? The police were totally over the top with the fans, there were old boys getting the hiding of their life whilst trying to get away. It was absolutley disgusting, now they have to wait behind in the stands for 90 minutes to let the Roma fans go home, what about the guys that have bleeding head wounds? do they have to wait an hour and a half for treatment?
Wrong, so so wrong

What about all the riots and havoc England supporters cause over seas... Im not suprised they went all out and layed down a beating, its not like England is known for its peaceful and loving football fans is it?

Quote :

No it isn't, the "passion" has nothing to do with the F**kwits that cause all the violence. It is well known that football attracts thugs that just want to fight and really don't give a crap about the sport itself.

So you think passion has nothing to do with it? Ok, so there are SOME that use football as an excuse to fight, but the majority of fans get worked up because they are passionate about the game. Look at the times the violence kicked off during the Man Utd game, it was when feelings were at their peak, when a goal was scored

Quote from GFresh :

Look at the times the violence kicked off during the Man Utd game, it was when feelings were at their peak, when a goal was scored

Perhaps that's one reason football is afflicted by violence more than other sports. The fact that it's very low scoring, and one goal is such a huge moment in the game makes the yobbos lose control.

Most other sports are higher scoring, and one goal isn't as important. Still, it's no excuse.

Ok ok, obviously when i made the observation that the italian police were reacting over the top, i was mistaken. I so don't have the time to be getting into a debate that will go round in circles. Because they are English fans that have a history of violence, it's ok that they get a beating for doing nothing. I don't suppose the police's reaction was in any way fueled by the death of one of their collegues a few weeks back either

Quote from GFresh :

Ok ok, obviously when i made the observation that the italian police were reacting over the top, i was mistaken. I so don't have the time to be getting into a debate that will go round in circles. Because they are English fans that have a history of violence, it's ok that they get a beating for doing nothing. I don't suppose the police's reaction was in any way fueled by the death of one of their collegues a few weeks back either

Actually I have watched the roit police again. If you look to the LEFT of where the "action" is you will notice that ground staff are deployed and holding back the English fans along a neat line.

From that it appears the riot police are actually ONLY clubbing the F**kwits that broke through the line. The question then becomes, would people have been beaten if they had stayed behind that line of grounds staff. The riot police came from the top so they deployed AFTER the line was broken.

Quote from GFresh :

....it's ok that they get a beating for doing nothing.

Nothing? Really, nothing? Do you believe that.

With your passion "justification" you are actually saying it's OK for me to kick your head in if your team beats my team at a game, just so long as it was due to my passion for a sport.

Yes they should have deployed the riot police both sides and clubbed both sets of fans as they were both as bad as each other but deployment on one side gives better use of man power.

Their IS NO EXCUSE for the ACTION of either sides fans. If the reason for a fight was a sports game then NZ would be a war zone because MOST of the population are VERY passionate about sports. Guess what, there is never news about fans fighting.

When the Lions cam down for a Rugby series (A HUGE EVENT HERE) the place was awash with rugby fans from the UK. Their was NO fear of violence before the visit and people actually looked forward to it. Rugby fans are known for drinking so you can't even use that "justification". These rugby fans had enough "passion" to travel half way around the planet yet still no fights.

It makes me angry when I see this kind of thing, it gives English fans a very bad name, not so much the Man Utd game but the Spurs game. I can see why the Man Utd fans reacted how they did, I wouldn't sit there while a bunch of idiots throw missiles at me...but then again I would probably move or leave rather than confront the home fans.

EDIT: Actually Ignore the whole hockey thing and watch the video of the Man Utd vs Roma fans

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYikreK6ng4

Spot the difference here...Roma fans are already at the barrier taunting the Utd fans and being aggressive. They are being gently told to move away by the stewards. Utd fans react and charge the barrier, they are for no more than 6 seconds then all leg it back when they see the riot police...end of the violence then...oh no wait the riot police then go into the retreating fans and beat them onto the ground...its disturbing to see people cowering on the ground while being beaten repeatedly, and people asking for medical aid being beaten. The situation was diffused as soon as the riot police were deployed, all they needed to do was stand at the barrier...instead they over reacted and could have potentially beaten people to death, its a complete disgrace and I hope something is done about it.

You know what? The people with brains would have cleared the area as soon as fans started rushing the barrier. All the people who got hit by the coppers had rushed the barrier and wanted to punch on with fans from the other team. Common sense tells you that you're putting yourself in danger doing this.

This doesn't justify the police actions, but there were some very dumb people there who wanted violence and ended up on the receiving end of it.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

It makes me angry .......................something is done about it.

Watch that vid yourself again. It starts with the barrier rush and you will notice that as the riot squad come down most people clear away. So the riot squad have done their job. A few people that remain at the barrier get a beating, serves the stupid morons right. The other thing to notice is that the rush took place KNOWING that the riot squad were just above them. A riot squad does not appear from nowhere.

After the sweep from the riot squad everything is calm.

Then camera angle changes again and the Man U fans are in a pitch battle with the riot squad. I would like to see the trigger for this. I am willing to bet that the Man U fans rushed the riot squad as they appear eager for a fight with them at first, until they get a good beating.

Funny howw a few cracked heads puts this moronic thugs makes them cry foul. They want to beat up the Roma fans but battons and riot squad armor are not a fair fight. Small knife to slash the other fans though, thats fine.

Comee on, the fans ARE TO BLAME. No rush no beating. If they could not understand that KNOWING the riot squad were standing there then they asked to be beaten, you can't actually say ANYTHING else.

Quote from Woz :

Actually I have watched the roit police again. If you look to the LEFT of where the "action" is you will notice that ground staff are deployed and holding back the English fans along a neat line.

From that it appears the riot police are actually ONLY clubbing the F**kwits that broke through the line. The question then becomes, would people have been beaten if they had stayed behind that line of grounds staff. The riot police came from the top so they deployed AFTER the line was broken.



Nothing? Really, nothing? Do you believe that.

With your passion "justification" you are actually saying it's OK for me to kick your head in if your team beats my team at a game, just so long as it was due to my passion for a sport.

Yes they should have deployed the riot police both sides and clubbed both sets of fans as they were both as bad as each other but deployment on one side gives better use of man power.

Their IS NO EXCUSE for the ACTION of either sides fans. If the reason for a fight was a sports game then NZ would be a war zone because MOST of the population are VERY passionate about sports. Guess what, there is never news about fans fighting.

When the Lions cam down for a Rugby series (A HUGE EVENT HERE) the place was awash with rugby fans from the UK. Their was NO fear of violence before the visit and people actually looked forward to it. Rugby fans are known for drinking so you can't even use that "justification". These rugby fans had enough "passion" to travel half way around the planet yet still no fights.

Again, you have missunderstood my argument, the thread was started about the 'Over Reaction' of the Italian police. I'm not trying to defend the fans that rushed the fence, they were asking for trouble, but it didn't require the beating they received to calm it down, it just made things worse.
They shouldn't have clubbed any of the sets of fans, they weren't fighting, there was a huge fence between them. When i say they were doing nothing, i speak of the fans that were coshed for mereley speaking or looking at the police.

Quote :

With your passion "justification" you are actually saying it's OK for me to kick your head in if your team beats my team at a game, just so long as it was due to my passion for a sport.

Yes

Quote from duke_toaster :

The Italian police ignored everything the Roma fans were doing - it's time for UEFA and FIFA to get their arses in to gear and remove all Italian teams from European competition, and potentially the national team from next year's European championships.

The police probably overreacted. There's an ongoing investigation that will likely lead to absolutely nothing, just like so many cases involving the police. In Italy? Not only in Italy, and not only in sports. I won't forget De Menezes being shot in London by some idiot who believed he was a terrorist. Everyone was cleared of wrongdoing, but I surely won't ask for all English cops to be banned from going abroad for this reason . I beg to differ. Anyway I'd be curious about the guys who'd have the courage to remove the WC team from the EC. No, wait, that's a laughable idea , but I'm sure those who have some diplomatic, political, social and economic understanding have no need for further explanation.

Woz - You have a rather early 80's outlook on the whole 'people go to football matches just to fight', im pretty sure they could have got that in Salford if they wanted!


The video is a bit crap though, during the actual game (maybe half time) they actually showed it from much further out, from the Roma fans charging at the plexiglass and taughting and thats when the Utd fans did the same. The Roma fans had stewards kindly asking them to step away, the Utd fans got a batton round the skull.
Saying they were looking for a fight is bullcrap, its the same thing with most wannabee hoolies with the police line, its all 'come on then' and all the macho bullshit. They knew there was plexi and were just looking to be berti big bollox.

Its the same thing everywhere on the continent, Italy is very well known for their rubber bullets and batton weilding maniacs who see someone and start swinging. We've seen the same from the Spanish police, the Italians the night before and only a couple of weeks back the French were at it (again, to Utd fans being crushed, throw in some tear gas to calm the situation!!) and of course thanks to the hooligans at international matches just adds to a reputation, and these moronic coppers receive all the licence they feel they need to just go in swinging.

If the 2 sets of fans which charged at each other had been left to be idiots seperated by the barrier, would all hell have broke loose? So what exactly was the reason for going in swinging, there was no attempt to move people on, it was go in swinging, there were people moving away and they were grabbed back and given a beating, so exactly how can it be justified?

'No rush, no beating' my arse, that doesnt justify the police swinging away at people WITHOUT warning (At least Menezes got that much!) because they ran at people with a bloody plexiglass barrier between then.
2 set of fans did exactly the same thing, 1 lot got the crap beat out of them, the other was kindly ushered away and offered a selection of snacks and champaigne.

Idiots, yes, deserving of anything they were on the receiving end from a trigger happy bunch of coppers, hell no. If you think otherwise Woz then your an idiot too.

From the video my views on "foorball" fans is not wrong. You will notice if you look back that I have never said ALL fans because everyone knows this is the thug minority. Its just this thug minority appear to love to travel so they can fight.

• These people are in a country that is known to have a "passion" in the way they police.
  
• They are kept at a "buffer" distance from the plexi by grounds staff.
  
• They can see a group of riot police that we have already established carry out their job with a certain "passion" that have big sticks.
  
• They positioned themselves at the HIGHEST risk area in the entire stadium.
  
• They still rush at the plexi with relish.

Sorry, I am just a realist. Would you want to be one of those officers in th riot squad, outnumbered and given a big stick to break up violent fans.

What did everyone think would happen?

Quote from Woz :

With your passion "justification" you are actually saying it's OK for me to kick your head in if your team beats my team at a game, just so long as it was due to my passion for a sport.

Quote from GFresh :

Yes

Then you are actually part of the problem football has.

The home leg could be interesting lets say...

if any man utd supporter wants revenge, im sure there will be a few roma supporters in town.

If united were to do the right thing, they should ban roma supporters for this match, for their safety basically!

The sad thing is in England we have pretty much stamped this sort of behaviour out. It's not like the old days when people were scared to go to a football match.
Theses days it a family affair, with women and children of all ages attending. You just don't see any trouble in the grounds at a premiership match.

Italy and Germany have a far, far bigger problem with hooligans than England. Even when supporters of our teams travel to Europe there is hardly any trouble any more. (I'm not talking about some so called England supporters here, just followers of our league teams) but i get the feeling people outside of Europe still think the English are the worst hooligans out there, and that's simply not true. Unfortunately our past reputation is very hard to shake off.

There has been very little trouble involving English fans recently until Man Utd's Games in France and Italy, and now Tottenham's match last night. I really don't know what's set it all off again, but it's a damn shame that because of a tiny minority of idiots we football lovers are regarded as morons again.

I was really disappointed to see this...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Woz
With your passion "justification" you are actually saying it's OK for me to kick your head in if your team beats my team at a game, just so long as it was due to my passion for a sport.

Quote:
Originally Posted by GFresh
Yes

I'm sorry, but this is just the sort of stupid, idiotic, moronic attitude that makes me ashamed to a football fan at times. I'd like to see GFresh post exactly why he thinks its justifiable. He IS a moron.


I'm hugely passionate about the 'beautiful game', i love my club and i get very pissed off with the small amount of idiots who do their best to drag footballs reputation into the gutter.

I know i biased , but I'm proud to be a Liverpool supporter. We have seen or fair share of tragedy in the past and i think that makes us determined never to see it again. Our fans have a fantastic reputation throughout the world now, i cant remember the last time we were involved in any serious trouble. (im not claiming 100% of Liverpool supporters are perfect, before you start, unfortunately young men and alcohol are going to lead to incidents in every walk of life..just head too any British city centre on a Friday and Saturday night. Far more scary than any football match I've been to)
Liverpool supporters are well known for their uncanny ability to get hold of thousands more tickets than they are allocated in European away games, which often means being mixed in with the opposition supporters yet we don't seem to get involved in any major disturbances. Long may that continue.

The fact is you can be passionate about something without it leading to trouble, fighting and rioting. Its hugely frustrating that because of a few utter morons, and people with attitudes like GFresh's ,that the 99% of true 'fans' are tarnished as well.

I'll get off my soapbox now

Quote from duke_toaster :

The Italian police ignored everything the Roma fans were doing - it's time for UEFA and FIFA to get their arses in to gear and remove all Italian teams from European competition, and potentially the national team from next year's European championships.

lets hope so, gives scotland a much better chance of qualifying.

Quote :

I was really disappointed to see this...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Woz
With your passion "justification" you are actually saying it's OK for me to kick your head in if your team beats my team at a game, just so long as it was due to my passion for a sport.

Quote:
Originally Posted by GFresh
Yes

I'm sorry, but this is just the sort of stupid, idiotic, moronic attitude that makes me ashamed to a football fan at times. I'd like to see GFresh post exactly why he thinks its justifiable. He IS a moron.

TBH, i was just trying to wind up Woz, i was annoyed that he was seeming to disregard the reaction of the Italian police, and basically blaming the Utd fans, saying they got what they deserved. I think thats wrong, and he wasn't listening to what i was saying, so i suppose i was fishing for a reaction off Woz.

Just to clear things up, i DON'T think its ok for anyone to give someone a beating because their football team lost. (It's not the first time my dry sense of humour has got me in trouble )

Quote from GFresh :

Just to clear things up, i DON'T think its ok for anyone to give someone a beating because their football team lost. (It's not the first time my dry sense of humour has got me in trouble )

Oops, please accept my apology for the personal insult then. It wouldn't be the first time the interweb has caused a misunderstanding.

And your absolutely correct about the Italian Police, and the Spanish ones last night as well. I notice that after the riot police pulled out of the Tottenham end last night the trouble ended.
All three recent cases have shown the police reaction to be completely over the top, inflaming the situation greatly.

Whoever is to blame, the only looser is football and the huge majority of decent supporters. Very sad

Quote :

Oops, please accept my apology for the personal insult then. It wouldn't be the first time the interweb has caused a misunderstanding.

No problem, it does happen a lot. Just gotta finish coding that sarcasm detector vBulletin plugin now

Quote :

Whoever is to blame, the only looser is football and the huge majority of decent supporters. Very sad

Amen!

Quote from Woz :

From the video my views on "foorball" fans is not wrong. You will notice if you look back that I have never said ALL fans because everyone knows this is the thug minority. Its just this thug minority appear to love to travel so they can fight.

• These people are in a country that is known to have a "passion" in the way they police.
  
• They are kept at a "buffer" distance from the plexi by grounds staff.
  
• They can see a group of riot police that we have already established carry out their job with a certain "passion" that have big sticks.
  
• They positioned themselves at the HIGHEST risk area in the entire stadium.
  
• They still rush at the plexi with relish.

Sorry, I am just a realist. Would you want to be one of those officers in th riot squad, outnumbered and given a big stick to break up violent fans.

What did everyone think would happen?

They're Idiots FFS, but that doesnt justify the events.
They dealt with things on the Roma side just fine moving them away, yet the coppers for no other reason than the fact they felt they had licence to go in swinging.
If voilence was the ONLY way of braking things up, then maybe it could be argued as being justifiable, but you just have to use that youtube vid as proof, someone smacked round the head on the ground in a ball and the copper is in such grave danger from the bloke curled up protecting himself he feels he better swing a few times more, ignore the bloke asking him to calm down, and swings away some more.

The problem isnt the fans, its the police mentality that they can do this sort of thing and they're above the law. They mentioned not that long ago a riot police guy was killed during a similar type incident, NO ****ING WONDER!! Sooner or later doing that to the fans someone is going to turn round and start dishing it back out!

It wasnt unprovoked, the Utd fans werent angels minding their own business, but the actions of the police were WAY out of line, and you only have to look at the scale of government dept interest in this. Even that sh*thouse swedish ref (Anders Frisk) was at the game and basically said what we all know, that they're notorious for it, but get away with it. He was ref'ing a game there a few years back and was hit by a coin or something and the game was cancelled, was maybe 2 years back.


As for the Roma fans being 'banned' it'll never happen, but what will happen is the GMP will bankroll the match for every damn penny they can and use it as a perfect reason to demand additional money for games. I think its the wrong time of year for it, you can usually tell when the match day dibble are about to request additional funding, they turn up en-mass with there TV cameras perfectly placed to capture all the action, bizarrely at the same time as something rather coincidental like the away fans being allowed out at full time rather than being held back, or very little escorting of fans etc.
Still, it wasnt the Roma fans behind the main incident, there was the usual Ultra action going on before the game but nothing most people didnt already expect and possibly a few ultra's took a beating when attacking fans too. But as its been said the British scene has calmed down considerably, being a Utd ST holder the number of bloody daytrippers probably helps, and i actually have the 'honour' of having the prawn sarnie munching lot starting the row infront of me (2nd tier, facing the TV cams - bloody great seats, esp as the 2 seats infront have been occupied for half the games, then its the tunnel into the exec area we sneak into each game ).

It'll be the same thing as with Lille though, all talk and no action. Although having Platini as #1 its no damn wonder he'd smooth things over. I think Utd got something like a £6k fine, Lille got £33k, which in my mind is 4hrs of Rio's salary, and possibly 2 weeks/10 days wage for Lille's top player.
That'll teach em.


Moosy, its also adding to a reputation that trouble follows English fans, which is far from the case.

Quote from PaulC2K :

Moosy, its also adding to a reputation that trouble follows English fans, which is far from the case.

Amen to that.

btw..less of the grief to 'daytrippers' pls No one told me when i was 6 years old that i had to come from Liverpool to support them.
I'm as passionate about the club as any red blooded Scouser.

Though why im telling a Manc this i don't know

Basically Woz is saying that if he was in the Man Utd crowd that he would tolerate being hit by missiles and taunted for 45 minutes and he wouldn't react to defend himself. Then if he ran away from the incident, he would be expecting to be beaten around the head while on the floor because he ran a few yards out of the crowd for 6 seconds.

I believe the 2nd part kicked off when the Utd fans who had been hurt actually approached the Riot Police asking for medical aid, then they got beaten again and it all kicked off with a few people trying to push away the police to stop them killing someone.

But if you try to defend yourself what do you expect apparently if your a Roma fan you can throw bottles at people and provoke people into a reaction and expect to be quietly told to move away...but if your labeled as a typical English thug then your beaten half to death. Don't forget that recently football was banned for a short time in Italy due to the widespread violence at games, in which a police officer was killed.

Someone also mentioned the other Utd game where the fans were being crushed because some idiot forgot to open the gate to the seating above, so the fans climbed the fence to avoid being crushed to death...needless to say they got a savage beaten for this, and then the police fired tear gas into the crowd

At last, people that agree with me, where were you guys when i needed you yesterday and earlier

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

Someone also mentioned the other Utd game where the fans were being crushed because some idiot forgot to open the gate to the seating above, so the fans climbed the fence to avoid being crushed to death...needless to say they got a savage beaten for this, and then the police fired tear gas into the crowd

And as a Liverpool supporter I'm shocked that this can still happen anywhere in the world.
Did no one learn from Hillsborough? Those fences have to go FFS.

From the BBC, concerning Last nights game.

"initial reports suggest there was no fan-to-fan fighting at any stage of the proceedings," said a club statement.


"As such we are seeking explanations as to why the police reacted in the way they did with our fans.
"Tottenham supporters have enjoyed an exemplary reputation across Europe this season which is why tonight's events are unprecedented.
"We will be co-operating fully with Uefa, the British Embassy and the Spanish authorities to understand why this has happened."
The police intervened midway through the first half as the away fans voiced their anger at a contentious penalty won by Sevilla.
The fighting continued into the half-time interval but died down when Spurs officials persuaded the Spanish authorities to take the police out of the away section in the second half.
Many Spurs supporters have accused police of over-reacting.
"It had been a perfect day up to then but was was spoilt by some over-zealous police officers, who started throwing their weight around, for want of a better term,"


After the penalty, a couple of fans got a bit excited about that but nothing more than shouting at the pitch. There was no violence. "Spurs fans weren't causing any trouble. The police went over and above acting as stewards."