Just want to echo the thoughts of many on here.
Been all over the world following City, met some cracking sets of fans and some real arseholes, but inter were right up there with the very best. Whenever we bumped into them throughout the day they were talkative, kind and respectful before and after the game. We didn’t see or hear of any trouble at all and even whilst out for an early morning walk on the Sunday I bumped into a group of perhaps 7 on the seafront who I stopped and had a chat with for perhaps ten minutes before taking photos shaking hands and going our separate ways.
The locals too were exceptional with many coming up to us during our stay and taking photos and helping us with directions and other sorts of help. We were on the metro going to have a gander at the team hotel early Saturday afternoon when this local came up to us but didn’t speak English and we obviously didn’t speak Turkish. In his efforts to make himself understood he was becoming almost distraught until some other English speaking locals intervened to explain that he thought we were going to the stadium and was trying to tell us that we were on the wrong metro line. When we explained our intentions, there was a realisation with more hand shaking and pictures The friendliness we were shown was boundless.
Got to give a word of thanks to Stewards and (I almost hate to say it) but police inside the stadium who furnished dozens of requests from City fans to take pictures, and be in pictures. That was a great gesture and carried out without fuss or complaint.
A quick word about the stadium, I honestly don’t think that it would have got a safety certificate in England, amongst other things the gap between the edge of the seat and the seat in front was minimal and the seats didn’t fold up, which made passing someone rather hazardous, the steps were too steep and narrow and I saw several fans stumble and fall.Finally the location and transport links were abysmal.
We were undecided as to how to get back to our hotel and decided to try our luck on the Metro, we stopped en route to the Metro to try and get a cab, but the robbing gits wanted 300 Euros to go 10 km, so we carried onto the metro. Now we left when the vast majority of City fans left the stadium and the Inter fans had been gone perhaps 15/20 minutes.
I’m sad to say for those that got caught up in the bus Jam, that there were no queues for the Metro at all, we were on a train within 5 minutes of entering the station and this pulled out within 5 minutes of us getting on, and was nowhere near full. The train was perhaps twelve to sixteen carriages long and one of the station workers said that the the trains were lined up ready to come into the station as the previous one left and would run every few minutes for as long as necessary..
When we got to the last stop another local who was Egyptian and had been living in Turkey for five years approached us and asked us if we needed any help continuing our journey, he then spent time with us securing a cab back to our hotel where we arrived within an hour of leaving the stadium and in time for a re run of the game on the telly
Perfect.
Incidentally the Egyptian fellow was a”Rag” , but a good one.
All in all bearing in mind the result, one of the best away weekends ever.
