You would have thought with 100,000 Scots descending upon Manchester that I wouldn’t have been entirely oblivious to the fact the UEFA Cup Final was being held at the Wastelands this week.
The difference between the Champions League and UEFA Cup are certainly highlighted by choice of venue for the finals. The 2003 CL final was held at Old Trafford, with Milan beating Juventus to be crowned Champions. A mere five years later, the other European Cup competition final is held in Manchester, but this time at the sky blue 47,000 seater stadium owned by the council. What a kick in the teeth.
Big screens around Manchester showed the final between Rangers and Zenit St Petersburg, however, disaster struck when the one in Piccadilly Gardens broke. Over 20,000 fans stood in the centre of town, awaiting kick off, when the reality sunk in that the screen wasn’t working. 11,000 fans took the advice to bus it to the velodrome on the East side of town, whilst the remaining 10,000 poured out of the gardens to try and find a pub or bar where they could see a television screen. Of course, all the pubs in the nearby area were already packed, which lead to frustrated fans kicking off.
15 police officers were attacked, with 1 needed to spend the night in hospital for surgery. Ambulance crews needed escorts to travel in to the city centre to respond to calls, of which there were 2000 between 7pm and 7am.
This night of mayhem from the Rangers fans has had disastrous effects on United fans hoping to watch their team in the City centre next week.
“We had appalling scenes in Manchester last night, but we have to put that into context,” said City Council leader Sir Richard Leese. “The estimates vary between 100,000 and 200,000 Glasgow Rangers fans that we had in the city. Whatever that number, it’s an unprecedented movement of people.”
Because of the violence in the city, Leese has confirmed that such screens won’t be used to show the Champions League final next week. “We are sorry to Manchester United fans but we are very clear,” he said. “It would not be fair to residents and users of the city centre.”
I, for one, find this absolutely scandalous. What’s the problem? Just fix the fucking screen and we’re laughing. For thousands of United fans to be denied the opportunity of watching THEIR team playing in THEIR city is scandalous. This is one of the biggest nights in the club’s history and for fans being forced to re-arrange their plans at the last minute is unforgivable.
Instead, 1000s of fans who had been planning to watch the game out in the city centre will now have to cram themselves into what would have already been full venues, which is certainly more dangerous.
Manchester City council. Says it all.
Man Utd News 24/7
Well, I won’t comment on Manchester city politics, because I don’t live there, but it seems to me that punishing United fans who actually live in the city and pay city taxes for the actions of Rangers fans who don’t live in the city and pay no city taxes is ridiculous and unfair.
The least Rangers and their supporters’ association can do is offer to help foot the bill for the city cleanup.
truly despicable…Our own fans..in our own city denied on such a rare and big night
Why does the club not arrange for fans to watch it inside OLD Trafford? When Barca got to the final against Arsenal they had screens laid onside the small stadium next the Camp Nou .. OH Yheh I forgot the Catalans own there club … Glaziers own ours !!! COME GLAZIERS OPEN OLD TRAFFORD TO US????? PUT THE SCREENs on the whole of the SOUTH STAND and lets PARTY .. can someone start a campagin?? PLEASEEE
why dont you ask the retailers of the booze and food cartons to cough up i dont hear them complaining about the mess ,after no doubt charging extortionate prices for the items bought
Typical Rangers Im afraid they have now been to two european finals and rioted in both, their fans just cannot behave themselves and we saw and heard their full array of bigoted chants and terrorist flags last night
at least their turgid style of football got punished.
shame for Untd fans to be penalised because of these idiots
Scum thats wot they R
The majority of the fans wer fine last night but because of the “couple of hundred idiots” were denied to watch the Champions league final in our own city how does this make any sense :@
Aye all because the big bad rangers supporters, pay for damages? we ploughed £40,000,000 into your city. If you cant organise and run a major european final you should have applied to host it. Big screens canceled are those the same big screens that were cancelled after English fans rioted amongst themselves? I can imagine the scenes if they told you 5 minutes after kick off that they werent going to show it at all. I love the comments though, complete hypocrisy.. carry on
Charlie – don’t confuse United fans with England fans eh? UNITED > England.
The point is, United fans are being punished because the Rangers fans decided to kick off. This is the fucking European Cup final and we don’t get to watch it in our city because of your fans. It’s a piss take.
I really feel for the Utd supporters, it should be Rangers and their supporters who are punished. BAN RANGERS from EUROPE.
Celtic took 80,000 fans to Seville and there was not one arrest on match day even though we lost.
As a Glaswegian, afraid the majority of us were not surprised at the actions of their fans. 2 European Finals & rioted in both. Says it all, & hopefully the rest of the football world sees them for what they are. We, on the other hand took nearly 100K fans to Seville, lost the final in more heartbreaking circumstances, & not 1 arrest. PLUS all the times, we’ve been to Old Trafford over the past 20 years, & always been a good atmosphere.
charlie – if you’re gonna post, take responsibility for who you represent. and, as scott said, check your facts. confusing a whole country’s supporters with those of one club? come on mate.
well now you can sink your 40,000,000 into bail money. well done.
It gets worse now manchester city council are postponing any team parade after the champions league final! A full article can be found on the BBC website
Hate to spoil the pleasure of the Rangers haters out there but it’s actually four European finals.
Twice in major euro finals and both times their fans riot. In 1972 they fought drunken pitched battles with with Franco’s paralimitary police FFS. They just cannot behave themselves. The cctv footage shows the rioting went on from just after kick off (when the screens failed) until the early hours of the morning. You tube footabge shows fiootage from all over the place. Seperate incidents involving many mobs.
As for the rangers supporters who claim we cannot organise a big event, we bent over backwards to make you feel welcome. The screen failure was due to Sod’s law, not incompetence!
Most of your fans are an embarrasment, the rest are a disgrace. Thanks for spoiling a potentially great evening for us.
lets hope motherwell do us all a favour today so no rangers in the champions lge next year
Yes, the minority of rangers (not real fans) fans who rioted spoiled the evening and put a slur upon us scots, but lets not forget manchester city council’s aggravation of the situation.
When glasgow held the uefa cup final last year areas of the city were divided off for espanyol and sevilla fans. There were many designated “fan areas”, plenty big screens, and the infrastructure was perfect.
This year, we have manchester city council telling rangers fans not to come to the city only 3 weeks before the final, then realising the stupidity of their actions and hastily trying to organise some big screens at the last minute. Its no wonder that a screen failed and there was trouble. When a city is given a major final all this sort of thing should be sorted out months in advance – screens, fan areas, policiing etc – not left until the last minute. It seems that when manchester were given the final they just sat back and rested on their laurels.
I agree that its shocking, should utd win, they wont be allowed to parade their trophy but for me this speaks more to the incompetence and laziness of manchester city council. Uefa, Fifa etc should think seriously hard about giving manchester a major final in the near future. Hosting one doesnt just mean supplying the ground and police. Its about integrating fans, hosting thousands of people, something which manchester city counciled struggled, and actually failed, to do.
NC – Manchester hosted the European Cup final in 2003, with it being held at Old Trafford. There was no trouble then.
Your argument is suggesting it’s ok that Rangers fans went about kicking the shit out of police officers, each other, and destroying the City, just because a big screen didn’t work. There were buses ready and waiting to take Rangers fans on to another big screen to watch the game. 10,000 got on the buses, 10,000 decided to stay put and go mental.
Scott
I want to clear one thing up straight away. I do not condone, nor have ever done, any sort of violence. I’m not suggesting anything that the fans did that night was ok. As a Scot, the rangers fans make me angry, particularly given that both celtic and aberdeen progessed in european competitions this year without any form of trouble. So please dont think that i’m condoning, justifying, backing, or sensitive to, the violence that was perpetrated by the rangers fans last week.
Secondly, I completely agree with you about the final being held it old trafford. It was a true spectacle. So why, this time around, the lax attitude and frankly, stupidly late, plan-making? Telling fans not to bother coming is a ridiculous thing to ask, and leaving it so late to organise fan areas and screens is unforgiveable. Why the poor attitude from MCC this time?
Also, I should add, it wasnt anywhere near 10,000 of the rangers “fans” who were rioting. Lets not tar the true rangers fans with the brush of the idiotic hooligans who decided to be wankers.
JImmy Bob – it doesnt matter if rangers dont win the league this year. Scotland gets two teams in the champs league (although i do wonder if that will be under review after the fans antics)
The fact that buses were already there waiting, in the event of a screen not working, suggests to me that Manchester Council was in fact very well prepared.
So the screen didn’t work. I think you’re jumping to conclusions when saying that is due to last minute preparations. Other big screens were put up and working fine.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1048728_rangers_fans_get_big_screens_