A scottish team 90 mins from lifting the UEFA cup

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Re: A scottish team 90 mins from lifting the UEFA cup

Postby Govangirl » Thu May 15, 2008 11:57 pm

Ice Maiden,
Everything you've just said was reiterated tonight by my 17 year-old nephew who was also in Piccadilly Gdns last night. Once they crammed them all the fans in, they wouldn't let them out even to go to the toilet and so they were forced to urinate in bottles and cans (which they then used to throw). He said that the journey from Glasgow and the hours before the match was the best day of his life but it turned into the worst because he was terrified. How sad that you and your son and my lovely nephew had to go through that.
I cannot condone the violence but it doesn't take many brain cells to see how this happened.
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Re: A scottish team 90 mins from lifting the UEFA cup

Postby Sheik Yir Erse » Fri May 16, 2008 12:52 am

Graham Spiers - The Times wrote:
"The chaotic post-match scenes at the Uefa Cup final in Manchester must be utterly galling for those thousands of Rangers fans who follow their team with pride and distinction, yet who must wonder how on earth their club is to be rid of the social poison at its core.

These recurring incidents of delinquent behaviour with Rangers fans on the road are becoming tedious as well as depressing for those of us who chronicle this football club's fortunes. It doesn't seem to matter what Rangers as a club try to do - and the Ibrox board have explored every conceivable road recently - they simply cannot gouge out the primitive element among their followers.

By sheer chance a colleague and I stumbled upon the clashes between Rangers fans and the riot-police around midnight in the centre of Manchester on Wednesday night. Earlier, in the media centre, we had received reports of a Zenit fan being stabbed, and of a number of Rangers supporters being apprehended over that incident, but what we found in the centre of town was something else entirely.

Three of us had gone back to a hotel to pick up some luggage and, one block away, the clashes between fans and the police were in full spate. We drove into a grid of wailing sirens. One Rangers supporter said to me: "It's like a war-zone down there. Some windows have been kicked in and there's fighting with the police." One colleague went off to pick up his bag and returned 10 minutes later, slightly shaken after having to pick his way around the chaos.

The experience earlier in the day in Manchester on Wednesday was also depressing. The blight of bigotry has haunted Rangers FC and, while the club has pleaded and pleaded with fans to stop singing their sectarian dirges, the evidence of Manchester city centre over that period suggested they have made little progress in winning this battle. A range of songs which bellow about "Fenian bastards" and "F*** the Pope" remain the routine chant of too many Rangers supporters. You couldn't walk 50 yards in Manchester city centre without being assaulted by one such chorus.

This is a sensitive subject for Rangers. The club has begged Scottish reporters and editors to play it all down, because it "harms the image" of Glasgow and Scotland. Rangers themselves have hired a PR agency over the last two years, asked to perform what is euphemistically called "damage limitation" when it comes to these repeated embarrassments for the club. The PR boys have a tough job.

As a club Rangers are very familiar now with having to issue declamatory statements in the aftermath of such scenes as Manchester. A recurring phrase - and it was used again by Rangers yesterday - is that it is "a small minority" which ruins it for the rest.

The problem for Rangers is, this isn't a small minority of fans at all, but a large minority of them which indulges in such drunken, or aggressive, or bigoted behaviour. It is an on-going blight upon a very proud and distinguished Scottish institution.


'It's somebody else's fault' is NEVER an excuse for violence. This is not aimed at Rangers fans in particular, but all Scottish fans in general - take responsibity for your actions! Your actions are not someone else's fault.
Last edited by Sheik Yir Erse on Fri May 16, 2008 2:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A scottish team 90 mins from lifting the UEFA cup

Postby Ninja Mania » Fri May 16, 2008 2:52 am

Sheik, I think in this instance, the actions of the third party were a lot to do with the event that followed.
The truth will come out in the end, but from what I hear, the stewards knew well in advance, that the plug on the big screen would be pulled before kick off. Reasons given were the volume of fans crammed into the said area.
Reports of the Chelsea casuals involved are also coming to the fore.
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Re: A scottish team 90 mins from lifting the UEFA cup

Postby peenkles21 » Fri May 16, 2008 11:08 am

Tieme to add my tuppence worth......

The problem for Rangers is, this isn't a small minority of fans at all, but a large minority of them which indulges in such drunken, or aggressive, or bigoted behaviour. It is an on-going blight upon a very proud and distinguished Scottish institution.


Would the above phrase be so different if you substituted Scotland for Rangers?? Ok maybe not aggressive part.
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Re: A scottish team 90 mins from lifting the UEFA cup

Postby MJ » Fri May 16, 2008 11:59 am

You can't blame Manchester City Council and the screens going off for:

1: A Wetherspoons pub on Oxford Street being smashed to pieces and a main road being shut at 3 in the afternoon
2: Singing the illegal "Billy Boys" live on national news
3: A fan being stabbed IN the stadium
4: A "small minority" rioting all night in Manchester City Centre. Remember even 10% of the supposed 200,000 is still 20,000!
5: Sexual assaults on local women (source Manchester Evening News)
6: A policeman being kicked on the ground by a mob
7: The trouble in Glasgow that hasn't been mentioned in the press

Having lived in Glasgow and seen women with prams out shopping being knocked out by thugs in Rangers colours then I am not surprised in the slightest.

In fact on Wednesday lunchtime I was walking home for lunch when a BMW with two Rangers fans (in colours) slowed down at spat out the car window at me.

Then 5 minutes later I was surrounded by a group of 5 rangers fans and told "you'll never get out alive fenian bastard"

I wasn't wearing colours, just a shirt and tie and a green jacket. (That must have been the problem obviously)

I am sick, and I mean sick of "The People" having (illegally) free reign in my city.

Peenkles : I have witnessed shocking sectarianism at Scotland games directed at catholic players. Spot on for highlighting this

Scotland : The best wee (bigoted) country in the world :x
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Re: A scottish team 90 mins from lifting the UEFA cup

Postby the ringmaster » Fri May 16, 2008 9:21 pm

Just making the point that the majority behaved and that the minority of thugs who caused trouble have probably never been to ibrox , so its bit much to tar us all with the same brush :evil:
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Re: A scottish team 90 mins from lifting the UEFA cup

Postby Govangirl » Fri May 16, 2008 9:44 pm

There seems to be two very similar threads now on the same subject.
MJ - stop kidding yourself that this is only a Rangers problem. The 'minority' are in the two camps.

Ninja Mania is right - there was a mighty panic when they realised they had crammed too many fans - 16,000 too many! - into the Square and the only way to disperse them was to pretend the screen had broken. Why can't England organise things properly? The Olympics? Don't make me laugh!!!!
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