My team has just been in a European final, and all people will now talk about with me is the fighting. They may well have put paid to us playing any friendlies in England again.
Rangers are headline news in every news bulletin in the country right now, for all the wrong reasons thanks to these erses who cannot be trusted to behave in a civilised fashion.
Now here comes the BUT, and although its a but it in no way condones or excuses their behaviour.
Manchester was not ready for us, didn't want us there, and did nothing to accommodate us. I was in the Albert Square fanzone. There was nothing open in it, except the bar and the UEFA merchandise. There were no burger vans, no extra loos, not even any extra bins, we had to try and keep our rubbish in bags and put them near the existing bins when they were full. The ladies public toilets in Albert square had 7 cubicles. Not even enough for a busy pub, never mind a fanzone containing however many thousand people, quite a lot of whom were women.
One guy next to us had to stop another bloke who was standing relieving himself where he was standing, in the middle of the crowd. The self policing in our area was pretty good most of the day. The first we knew of the problems of Picadilly gardens was when 4 or 5 guys came and stood next to us at the start of the second half and told us all about it. When Zenit scored their first goal, there were bottles flying etc, but the perpetrators were soon told exactly where to go. However that I'm sorry to say, didn't stop them (and/or others) from doing it again when the second goal went in.
It's hard to make this not sound like a rambling rant, as I'm just in the door from Manchester, and am trying to think through in my head what exactly happened. Overall though - I thoroughly enjoyed my day, the bus down was great, the atmosphere among most of the bears was excellent, and a party atmosphere during the day. Everybody was very friendly, and the zenit lads and lasses who walked through the area periodically were welcomed and applauded.
Sadly however, we have given the enemies of our club carte blanche to attack us, and we have no ammunition with which to come back at them. Today has gone from the day where we should be walking around with our heads held high, proud to have made it to a UEFA Cup final, to a day where I have been sitting watching sky sports news for almost an hour and I have yet to hear anything about the actual match, it's all been about the muppets
Very sad to say that the morning after my first experience of a European final with my team, the over riding feeling I have is one of sheer anger. I feel really sorry for all the guys who have worked so hard to enhance our reputation abroad over this season. All their hard work and effort ruined in a few hours
TigerShaw