Then they absolutely dropped the ball.
England fans, what is wrong with England fans?
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Good point about the distances. Especially out west here, we're so isolated. As you say, sporting rivalry can be a two-hour drive to Seattle (the Sounders and soon the new NHL team) or an eight-hour drive to Calgary (no football, just NHL). Amazing that our closest Canadian MLS team is Toronto, over four thousand kilometres away!
I don't necessarily feel comfortable focusing on the working class, though. My family origins are working class, after all, and I'm a northerner, a Manc at heart, and will always be—I joke that I'm from Vanchester. Or Mancouver. But some of that class baggage does fall away when you move out here. Vancouver itself is emblematic of that, starting life as an outpost, a backwater, Terminal City, a dark and dirty place typical of so many port towns. And now it's an expensive jewel that most can't even afford.
I wonder why it is that England fans don't tend to get together in the way Italian or Portuguese fans do. It might be because people of English descent, as you point out, are second-, third-, or even fourth-generation immigrants and are dispersed more evenly throughout the city and its suburbs, but then again, I have all those memories of watching England in those various pubs and restaurants over the years, and they were as feverish and celebratory as the Italians and Portuguese on Commercial Drive. So I don't know. And I'm first-generation, so maybe I experience it more like newer immigrants do.
Loser football culture with drinking problem. Yes not every English is like that, but your people has the worst football culture. Laughing at those trying to defend it with lame excuses.
My work colleague stewards at Arsenal and was lucky enough to steward at Wembley for the Euros. He said stewarding England fans is the worst experience he’s had and won’t do it again.
You say that but if they were there you’d probably be complaining about why there are cops at a football match in riot gear.
So, just let the boys have some fun, it's only banter la?
Always excellent Jonathan Liew tries to make sense of it all in this piece.
I was really busy yesterday and just found out about the events that have happened after the final and all the racist abuse the English players have received.
Didn't realise how classless and disgraceful the English are.
These things happen during a rival club match, not during the 2nd most watched international football game.
I hope UEFA takes some action and gives out some bans. A whole European qualifying campaign with no home fans and no fans allowed to travel should give a good lesson and hopefully no English hosts for CL final and EL final anytime soon.
Didn't realise how classless and disgraceful the English are.
These things happen during a rival club match, not during the 2nd most watched international football game.
I hope UEFA takes some action and gives out some bans. A whole European qualifying campaign with no home fans and no fans allowed to travel should give a good lesson and hopefully no English hosts for CL final and EL final anytime soon.
What a writer. Great read.
No other reason only drunken thugs, and there is no place for these in sporting events.
Disgraceful behaviour. We won't be hosting the World Cup any time soon.
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I agree with this, I’m amazed the FA haven’t released a statement re the jibbers and instances of fighting on concourses, unless ive missed it.
there’s clearly massive safety issues regarding Wembley if hundreds or thousands of ticketless fans can force their way in. It’s a shame it needs to be policed heavy but this leaves no doubt to me, there’s English fans saying themselves they were scared and in no rush to go back to Wembley, never mind away fans, that’s a sorry state.
UEFA need to force the FA hand and ask questions, impose fines and ensure a safer future for all kinds of fans.
Sounds like Wembley Way has a major issue. It can't be policed well because of the housing that's been built up there.
Lets see these neanderthals try this at next years world cup in qatar. The authorities over have severe penalities and zero tolerance for alot of stuff. You dont behave over there and you'll be crying in your cell hoping the british embassy can save you.
Unfortunately that’s how it works in the U.K. now. The government and a vocal minority section of the public are too narrative driven and the police are overly concerned with how they’re perceived by the government and the public. And this is the result…. Entirely predictable. Police too afraid to police and the FA and Wembley too afraid to have police policing.
Aye good read. Important as well to mention the very little trouble post game. (Apart from having a firework hit me) Not that England fans deserve a pat on the back for purely not trashing the place in defeat. But did get that sense leaving the pub and on the train that people were just tired and done with it all. As well as hearing all sorts of random accents. Pretty calm all things considered and despite disgraceful attempts by some on social media to scare monger.
It really doesn't bode well for the WC Cup bid. Fair enough the fans were out of order, but how was their such a failure of security?
Was this an unprecedented situation, possibly influenced by lockdown derangement, and that many ticketless fans just don't normally turn up?
Presume UEFA and Wembley will have a few questions to answer.
The FA have made a statement on it and said they'd be carrying out a full review.
FA chief executive Mark Bullingham told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme on Monday: “We will do a full review and we will work with the police to catch anyone involved and make sure we can prevent it ever happening again.
“Anyone caught will obviously be banned and have the right action taken against them
The FA said the review would be conducted alongside the police, the Greater London Authority, the Safety Advisory Group and tournament stakeholders. The governing body defended the level of stewarding and security in place for the match, saying it “exceeded the requirements for the match” and was “greater than any other previous event at Wembley Stadium”.
A spokesperson added: “The behaviour of the people who illegally forced their way into the stadium was unacceptable, dangerous and showed total disregard for the safety and security protocols in place.
“No steward or security staff should be subjected to this type of behaviour and we thank them for their support on the night.”
Bullingham said some “drunken yobs” had tried to force their way in, and added: “We run a stadium, not a fortress. We have got a fantastic security team at the stadium and they had never seen anything like it.”
He apologised to any supporter whose experience had been affected as a result of the security breach.
https://m.independent.ie/sport/socc...ands-euro-final-defeat-to-italy-40645572.html
So. Fcuking. What.
WE are at the forefront. WE are garbage. WE are the vile on the screens around the globe.
You don’t whatabout Racism. Ever.
Ok, a radio interview, suppose that’s better than nothing.
Riots broke out in Paris as France loses to Portugal in Euro 2016 final | Metro News
I mean, it doesn't excuse the English in the slightest, but aren't people reading a bit too much into England having this unique problem. I think one of the less considered issues, is that European police forces are generally a lot less tolerant of this nonsense and so it gets nipped in the bud before it escalates to what we saw at Wembley. This applies across the board, not just football. Here, any sort of police force is automatically turned into police brutality by the media. They can't win.
I mean, it doesn't excuse the English in the slightest, but aren't people reading a bit too much into England having this unique problem. I think one of the less considered issues, is that European police forces are generally a lot less tolerant of this nonsense and so it gets nipped in the bud before it escalates to what we saw at Wembley. This applies across the board, not just football. Here, any sort of police force is automatically turned into police brutality by the media. They can't win.
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The type of person that is willing to uproot their life and emigrate is usually not the type of person that would be involved in this shit, the furthest these people ever go is Spain for a week.
Not sure what you mean by this? Wembley stadium is built on a separate circular dome. It shouldn't be hard to set up lines of stewards or police stopping people getting to that bit without a ticket.
Sounds like they ludicrously under estimated the amount of police and stewards needed.
Henry Winter was on the radio was saying yesterday that it is a awful set up round Wembley to police. There is a steward on Talksport he is saying the stewarding was OK for the expected number, but there were thousands more in the ground than the expected number. Could be 10 to 15 thousand more. The police were very late dealing with the situation as well.
100%. I think the enquiry will reveal that they scaled back security to save costs as they were only at 75% capacity.
The reality is, they should have scaled up above and beyond 90,000 fans numbers.
Separately, Wembley Way is a doozy to police. The ramps give a natural division point. When I saw Fleetwood Mac there I had to show my ticket several times before I got anywhere near the stadium proper. Admittedly I think that was to avoid overcrowding on some of the external tiers, but as a working example it’s relevant.
Hundreds of thousands of fans knew that there were 30,000 spare seats in the stadium. Snapchat, Telegram, Signal and TikTok were awash with schemes to overwhelm stewards. The accepted wisdom was “If you can get to a seat, you’re there for the duration”.
Wembley is not difficult to Police. They didn’t have enough. That’s the problem.
That was why I was surprised that they didn't up the attendance. It was rumoured they were going to.
You also have the example of Lyon-Besiktas in the stadium. We have the exact same type of fans in France, the main difference is in the police response or how things are anticipated.
They needed a root and branch rethink after England got to the final.
They can turn Hyde Park into an impenetrable fortress and accomodate music festivals. Wembley is a cake walk to Police as it has so many fire-break sections. They didn’t do enough. Not enough proper barricading, not enough mounted police, not enough police in general, stewarding levels were too low.
The suggestion that it’s a hard place to manage is a flat out lie and I’ve heard it parroted far too much. If you’ve never been, or have only been once or twice, take a fresh look at photos or on Google maps street view.
I’d wager that most that got in were not those that had got smashed and bagged up all day, but sensible groups of lads that planned well and got a pay off. The media is covering the overwhelming of stewards, but my friends little brother got in. He’s 15. Apparently he didn’t have to do all that much aside from run fast, then walk about looking for a seat.
What does your friend think of him doing that, out of curiosity.
They were talking to a guy from North London, he was there to support Italy. They got eight tickets, four adult, four children. They had on Italy shirts, why shouldn't they. Bottles were thrown at them. He said he would never take his kids to this sort of game again. He also said he has followed Italy at World Cup etc and at those you cannot get near the stadium without a ticket. That seems to be what needs changing.
English people cannot hold their drink simple as that. A couple of points and they turn into brainless morons.
The steward who they talked to, said he got to the stadium at 8.30 in the morning and there were already people wasted at that time. A steward talking now says if someone runs past them, they have to let them go and just try to prevent more getting in.
It appears that lads were tailgating fans who had tickets, squeezing through the turnstile with them, then once they got in, they opened the doors for their mates.
Honestly mate, he doesn’t really care and not do I. I jumped the fences at Glastonbury when I was 19. I’ve done the same at other festivals when I couldnt get tickets up until I was maybe 23.
It’s certainly not right. I understand end to end the morality of it. It’s garbage behaviour
But it’s also the nature of people. I’m not really remorseful of getting into Glasto all those years ago. I know I shouldn’t have done it, I wouldn’t do it now, but that’s what growth is.
I’ll criticise the shocking scenes of violence and thuggery. But a 15 year old kid getting into Wembley for the Euros final? It’s minor.
We don’t need to criticise him doing that. But it serves as perfect illustration of just how easy it was.
Yeah that’s fair enough, I just wondered the mindset or how it was looked at by family after seeing the trouble caused in there by rushing stewards.
I think Glastonbury is different as it’s just huge fields and not a ticketed seat numbered stadium, like the chances are those going into Wembley forced families out of their seats and there is limited room. that’s not happening in a music festival.
happened far too easy by the sounds of it though yeah, I also can’t believe the turnstiles were not manned to stop tailgating, this is basic stuff.
Mate, there were people that went from Saturday night all the way through to Sunday night.
The scale of Cocaine-Alcohol culture in this country is obscene. Pair those and It removes the natural ‘finish’ point of a huge drink session and enables this to a far higher level. People are 10 beers deep and still running and swinging punches. Large groups of them.
To avoid any suggestion of me being a puritan. Obviously cocaine and alcohol are delicious and enticing. I’m not really condoning people having a narcotically driven good time. But wrap tribalism around coke and beer and it never goes well.
I know we’re kind of in agreement. But Wembley was basically ‘just a huge field’ on Sunday night. 1 in 4 seats were vacant.
I feel so sorry for the stewards and police on duty. Their employers let them down.
Well let's hope that there is some naming and shaming of these people and that some of them were not getting behind a wheel of a car, van, bus the next day.