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

[hammocity]

He probably just does a lot of overtime.

Seeing as he earns officially $65k as the President of Turkey that’s a lot of overtime!

 

[Alex - City Matters]

From a City Matters point of view Alex asked for feedback and we got plenty of emails. As I'm sure you can appreciate it's taken a while to go through it and categorise everything. We're in the process of drafting a proper report using general and more specific feedback. I think it's a really important topic and doing it properly is important. We're not just going to let it drop.

I’d have to echo Dan’s comment.

I have received just shy of 59 emails from supporters, as well as quite a number of tweets and Bluemoon messages. Of course, we are also using the information on this thread, and the articles by the likes of Gary James, City Xtra and so on.

A lot of the information shared has been pretty consistent with the sentiments shared here and on social media. But the brevity of the experiences shared with me has illuminated some really harrowing personal stories.

The report is already at around 12/13 pages and I have only just reached the fan zone. It has proved difficult to juggle a full time job and such an undertaking, but I feel very strongly about the issue and want to do it justice.

I have also been invited to the meeting with Andy Burnham. His record as an advocate for fan rights, such as supporting the second Hillsborough inquest, is to his testament. As well as influencing UEFA and the club, part of the reason for our report is to record as much of the experience as possible for any decision maker and I am hopeful that the Mayor will take up the matter even further than his public comments.

 

[BringBackSwales]

I’d have to echo Dan’s comment.

I have received just shy of 59 emails from supporters, as well as quite a number of tweets and Bluemoon messages. Of course, we are also using the information on this thread, and the articles by the likes of Gary James, City Xtra and so on.

A lot of the information shared has been pretty consistent with the sentiments shared here and on social media. But the brevity of the experiences shared with me has illuminated some really harrowing personal stories.

The report is already at around 12/13 pages and I have only just reached the fan zone. It has proved difficult to juggle a full time job and such an undertaking, but I feel very strongly about the issue and want to do it justice.

I have also been invited to the meeting with Andy Burnham. His record as an advocate for fan rights, such as supporting the second Hillsborough inquest, is to his testament. As well as influencing UEFA and the club, part of the reason for our report is to record as much of the experience as possible for any decision maker and I am hopeful that the Mayor will take up the matter even further than his public comments.

To my knowledge you are the only person connected to the club who has out any effort in to communicate to the fans about the shithouse organisation at Istanbul and that is a great credit to you Alex, thanks

 

[Gordyola]

Please everyone who's submitted here.

If you email your experiences to alex.howell@citymatters.co.uk he is collating them to submit to the club and will ask them to take up the matter formally with UEFA.

It's all well and good fuming on here but if you don't try to tell the club exactly what happened in writing they can't do anything about it.

Mods can we get a stick at the start of the thread for that info? So many people posting their experiences here but it's not an official channel.

Bump

 

[dooie68]

A friend of mine who went to Istanbul picked up the local newspaper the following day, the translation into English Idtambul receives Top Marks for hosting a successful final

 

[pride in battle]

Not quite, I was running late and decided to use the Metro, while walking towards the stop I bumped into 2 ladies who were a bit lost, told them to stick with me, even though I had no idea where I was going. One of them was 70s, the other 86 and with a walking stick, what intrepid ladies they were. The younger of the 2 became the only person I've ever met who was in Vienna for ECWC Final, very impressive.
Long story but, after 5 different Metros, no seats available on any of them, we did get to the ground ok.
Another long story but somehow they found me again after the game and it was 5am when I eventually delivered them to their hotel in Taksim. That first pint after I left them tasted like nectar but I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Yes we were ripped off by the stadium, bent police collecting fag packets in a carrier bag, the catering, the taxi drivers et al but it was still the best trip I've ever been on.

Someone should copy this and send to Danny Wilson at City, fair play to you for helping them mate otherwise they would have been ****** buy the real story is the 2 ladies, one in her 70s and one 86!! and they travelled to Istanbul to cheer the lads on...fucking AMAZING story

 

[nw42]

Someone should copy this and send to Danny Wilson at City, fair play to you for helping them mate otherwise they would have been ****** buy the real story is the 2 ladies, one in her 70s and one 86!! and they travelled to Istanbul to cheer the lads on...fucking AMAZING story

I agree 100% that they are the story, they weren't phased at all, took everything in their stride and I'm sure they looked back on it as a great adventure. I was more concerned than them, forever telling them to keep their hands on their handbags as I tried to clear a path to get get us on and off the Metro carriages, don't get me wrong, we received a bit of help with directions, in particular from a couple of young Syrian lads, they were golden, I'm sure the vast majority in Turkey are decent but all the while you just knew there were wronguns lurking, had I been on my own I wouldn't have had any concerns whatsoever.
I think they travelled out there with the tour company everyone was mentioning beforehand, is it Sports Tours? I've no idea what their commitment to the ladies was but clearly, for whatever reason they were left to their own devices in terms of getting to and from the game, maybe that was the norm, I've no idea. They are members of Poynton OSC and use their coach to home games.
One thing that blew my mind is that they were from Hazel Grove, that's my home village, to bump into them all that way from home, in a city of 20 million+, beggars belief.

 

[johnnytapia]

They aren't arsed mate. If we were one of the corporates suffering a similar fate they'd be all over it. Us peasants in the trenches are just disposable cannon fodder. As much as we'd like to believe we're more valued than that we aren't.

I think Blue Mist was implying are they actively trying to get everybody's experiences... which they're not. It's us trying to find a voice to anybody that'll listen. So they're just waiting for it to blow over.

Martin Samuel might be a good person to contact. Isn't as anti-City as the rest and quite good at pointing the finger at those who are really to blame.

I flew with the club/ sport options and the corporate allocation did too. Prior to departure the corporate were handed gold-coloured wristbands (this gave them access to things like specially arranged restaurant on the Friday night. I thought they were going to get specially arranged transport. On the flight back, the City employees who work in corporate were full of the horror stories on this thread. They’d used same buses.
There was never a chance I was using those buses. As pointed out above, it never made sense to use the buses. I think the constant messaging about City must use the buses/ it’s a 30 minute walk with the metro / you’ll end up with the Inter fans etc put people in a particular mindset: we really do need to use the bus. They (UEFA) generated a sense of unease for City fans using the Metro.
Experience told me, trams don’t get stuck in traffic; Istanbul had “previous “ regarding travel; after spending the Friday in Istanbul I could see traffic was an absolute shitshow 24/7.
Metro was superb. Flew back. 90 minutes after the game...the Efes was flowing

 

[Norman kneejerk]

My takes from the trip.
Venue chosen to keep fans away from the centre could easily have chosen one of 3 big stadia nearby.
The walk itself 4 miles or so in the sun to the buses was a health risk to older blues was wobbling myself til I got a bus.
Poor guy next to me in the buses had cancer and had to have a piss every hour or so.
Uneven surface already mentioned, rip off water prices, needed oxygen to get to back seats, no way coming back down til end of game.
How I ever found a bus I will never know finished walking down hill wrong way then turned for some reason , no signs at all , very simple to show people the way, buses haphazardly spread to different destinations.
But was best feeling to get to get back to Sultanhammey fire some beers down at 4am absolutely gagging, and take everything in as the sun came up.

 

[Edghill OG]

I flew with the club/ sport options and the corporate allocation did too. Prior to departure the corporate were handed gold-coloured wristbands (this gave them access to things like specially arranged restaurant on the Friday night. I thought they were going to get specially arranged transport. On the flight back, the City employees who work in corporate were full of the horror stories on this thread. They’d used same buses.
There was never a chance I was using those buses. As pointed out above, it never made sense to use the buses. I think the constant messaging about City must use the buses/ it’s a 30 minute walk with the metro / you’ll end up with the Inter fans etc put people in a particular mindset: we really do need to use the bus. They (UEFA) generated a sense of unease for City fans using the Metro.
Experience told me, trams don’t get stuck in traffic; Istanbul had “previous “ regarding travel; after spending the Friday in Istanbul I could see traffic was an absolute shitshow 24/7.
Metro was superb. Flew back. 90 minutes after the game...the Efes was flowing

I knew the ones that paid for the day trip didn't get any preferential treatment per se. I even pointed out to some before going over there they hadn't listed transfers as part of the 'subsidised' package on the City site. I got speaking to some with the wristbands on one of the shuttles and it broke down, so they were in the trenches with the rest.

Everybody's circumstances were different. I was in Istanbul about 21 hours. My plan was to spend a few hours in town and then go to the stadium. In hindsight I wish I'd either got the metro into town from the airport or waited until 1 when the shuttles went directly to the stadium. I ended up fucking the fanzone in town off after the first trip and just wanted to get to the stadium to be on the safe side. After the game I needed to use the shuttle to get back to the airport.

Sounds like although the metro was efficient it was full. It simply wouldn't have been able to accommodate an additional 20k city fans using it.

As I've already stated I believe the estimated times were all grossly underestimated on purpose to ensure that we didn't take the metro. If I knew beforehand the 4hr 10 journey time I was supposed to undertake was going to take 9 (without queing) I'd be looking at alternative transport.