Istanbul CL Final chaos | City Matters statement (p 133)

[Eds]

Have the OSC made any noises?

Surely that’s a rhetorical question?

 

[Edghill OG]

The metro cleared all the inter fans within an hour. They'd gone before we finished celebrating. . Trains held 2400 people each (= 60 buses).

There's no disputing that the metro would have been a better option but they clearly didn't want us mixing. By all accounts the Inter fans were great but I'm sure the stick of getting in trouble with the Turkish authorities was a pretty large stick. Add 20 thousand blues onto that mode of transport and see if the feelings are as cordial.

Maybe it could have worked after the game but I've also heard of people being turned away and what time did the metro actually close?

To the game they should have had alternating dedicated trains for each club but with the 3 changes or whatever it was they obviously wanted to reduce the headache of having to police it.

 

[Vic]

I appreciate the difficult logistics but will there be alternating trains to Wembley Park next year?

 

[Brightwell Bros.]

The metro cleared all the inter fans within an hour. They'd gone before we finished celebrating. . Trains held 2400 people each (= 60 buses).

I had the briefest of brief stints working for a coach company, and knew that it was almost impossible to clear 20k from a site 25km away in under 4 or 5 hours even in perfect road conditions. I should have charged UEFA a consultancy fee.

 

[Blue Mist]

Told told keep schtum by who? Or is it whom?
At least 20,000 City fans were treated like shit. Several thousand more who bought tickets directly from UEFA were probably treated in a similar manner, so it's not as though the club can sweep it under the carpet.
Even fucking UEFA themselves have admitted it was "less than perfect" so why are the club scared to voice an opinion?
I'm 66 and spent over two and a half hours stood up on a hot sweaty bus after standing for over two hours at the game. - And that was about as good as it got for the vast majority of our fans irrespective of age.

I assume the reason no one at the club has said anything is because Mansour has told them to not to.
The orders come from the top.

 

[Vic]

I had the briefest of brief stints working for a coach company, and knew that it was almost impossible to clear 20k from a site 25km away in under 4 or 5 hours even in perfect road conditions. I should have charged UEFA a consultancy fee.

And if the journey takes twice as long as expected, so the buses can only do one trip instead of two... It was obvious on the Friday that the buses would not cope.

 

[Brightwell Bros.]

And if the journey takes twice as long as expected, so the buses can only do one trip instead of two... It was obvious on the Friday that the buses would not cope.

Ha, yes, I don't think you need to have worked in events to have figured out the problems in the plan.

I would be interested to see how many buses/drivers they had for the whole event, though. You would have hoped they were all backed up for post-match and if saw more than 20 I'd be shocked.

 

[edinburgh123]

Ha, yes, I don't think you need to have worked in events to have figured out the problems in the plan.

I would be interested to see how many buses/drivers they had for the whole event, though. You would have hoped they were all backed up for post-match and if saw more than 20 I'd be shocked.

I only saw one person with a Uefa security/steward top on at the bus 'area; after the game. And he told everybody not to panic there were 150 buses. When I told him unless they had room for 130 people each it was gonna be a tight squeeze getting 20,000 on them (since we were all told to take the bus), his use of English deserted him

 

[Brightwell Bros.]

I only saw one person with a Uefa security/steward top on at the bus 'area; after the game. And he told everybody not to panic there were 150 buses. When I told him unless they had room for 130 people each it was gonna be a tight squeeze getting 20,000 on them (since we were all told to take the bus), his use of English deserted him

Maybe 150 in use for the whole weekend, but there was never in a thousand years 150 buses parked up for City fans post-match. And like you say, even if they were some people would have been stood for 3+ hours.

Should have opened the fan park after, but sounds like that wasn't much better organized.

 

[robsta]

I only saw one person with a Uefa security/steward top on at the bus 'area; after the game. And he told everybody not to panic there were 150 buses. When I told him unless they had room for 130 people each it was gonna be a tight squeeze getting 20,000 on them (since we were all told to take the bus), his use of English deserted him

I also only saw one UEFA steward. Could be the same guy and when we and others asked him which way to the buses for Yenikapi he sent us down a packed road to the buses for the Airport. We eventualy found the Yenikapi ones but no thanks to him and all full until we later found a line of empty/locked buses that were a mix of Aiport and Yenikapi.