That was a disgrace wasn’t it.
I don’t know how someone wasn’t killed that night with the chaotic mess at the end. Watching people cross a dual carriageway road with no lights with cars driving at 70mph plus was heart on mouth stuff.
The silence of the club said it all.
Almost 10 hours on a fucking 'shuttle bus' that day. No air-conditioning, toilets or water provided. People throwing up, others having to get out and having to have a piss on the roadside.
Drivers that didn't know where they were going and driving aimlessly around Istanbul. One of my buses refused to go above about 5mph uphill and ultimately broke down. Leaving us stranded on the roadside until we were rammed onto an already full coach following.
People having water and suncream confiscated in 30 degree heat or whatever it was at the time.
Extortionate prices for cans of beer (or anything for that matter) which they sold out of pretty much straight away.... unless you paid even extra to the cunts not putting it through the till.
Only one or two places providing food for thousands of fans with ridiculously long queues. Know somebody that wasted about 45 mins in one and they'd sold out before they'd even got to him. I went without food all day due to the buses and queues.
Horrible seats in the stadium that everybody got cuts on.
Car park a silly distance away from the stadium and on gravel making it virtually impossible to pass with a wheelchair. Saw some people getting carried and wheelchairs being dragged backwards.
Nobody giving directions after the game and then greeted with only about half a dozen 'shuttle buses' to take 10s of thousands of fans away from the stadium with planes to catch.
The shuttle buses couldn't move anyway as they'd let hundreds of mafia run taxis into the car park and blocked it. Leaving many as you allude to; playing chicken on the motorway in darkness or having to pay the mafia taxi drivers that had now bumped up their prices amidst the chaos to a 100 euro+ for a couple of miles journey.
People paying for tickets up to 600 euro in face value for the privilege of dealing with all of the above.
It was comfortably the worst organised event I've ever been to and considering it's that high profile and it is competed for annually it was a fucking disgrace. As was our club in the fact that they didn't even mutter a thing. Might have taken a death for them to even acknowledge it which says it all.