Similar to everyone else’s story -
- Traffic was horrendous getting from SAW airport to Istanbul centre, circa 2 hours in a taxi .
- Trying to get to the stadium was a nightmare, we left istanbul centre about 4pm and got to the fan park around 6.30pm, taxi driver took us to basaksehir’s stadium in error, another massive detour. We agreed a price upfront so he wasnt doing to ramp up cost on the meter, he just didn’t have a clue where he was going, we had to provide sat nav on our phones for him.
- Dropped about half a mile from the stadium, had to navigate the locals trying to flog water, flares, scarves, flags etc, cut through a gap in the fence across a car park to the stadium, then up the hill to the fan park, feel sorry for anyone who wasn’t good on their feet or elderly as it was quite a stomp.
- Fan park was ok. Not enough space to get a beer easily once majority of blues rocked up. The toilets being in approx 50 converted motor homes was interesting to say the least. The motorhome toilet attendants started getting arsey about 8pm ish, they were wanting to shut up the toilets while there was still hundreds of blues trying to use the facilities, several arguments and blues being threatened to be locked in to the motorhomes was enough for us to take a stroll to the stadium.
- Getting in the stadium was a shit experience again, hundreds of blues coming from all angles meant there was a crush to get through the first checkpoint….all the blues were well behaved and respectful of each other but due to the set up and kettling effect the small narrow entrances had it was uncomfortable….shades of the scousers in Paris, although not as bad as City were all being respectful to each other and no pushing in etc.
- Stadium itself wasn’t fit for purpose. Staff were selling sandwiches and water out of boxes on the floor, was like being in the grand bazaar, shambolic. Queued for about 30 mins to try and get a drink from about 35 mins into 1st half, service at the kiosks was the worst ever experienced, card machines stopped working, the Turkish workers arguing with themselves, 2 women workers refused to work and just sat down crying in the kiosk, one staff member was trying to overcharge constantly when people were paying by cash, led to arguments and many blues just walking off without paying for their drinks as he was taking the piss.
- The worst experience was trying to get on a shuttle bus after the game, getting to the car park was a nightmare, most of the buses already completely full. Got told there was more buses deeper into the car park that were empty, cue a mad stampede from blues as everyone was fearing being left stranded, we eventually found a bus back to SAW airport & managed to squeeze on. Close to 3 hours on the bus getting to the airport, over an hour just to get off that car park. Utter chaos.
Overall another real shitshow from uefa, Who we saw exiting the stadium from a separate exit from all us plebs in their motorcade, probably back in their 5* hotels before we even found the buses…..the fans obviously mean fuck all to uefa, pretty shocking that City haven’t come out and made comment on it yet.
Thankfully we won otherwise that day would have been 10X worse.
Fuck uefa.
