I watched the Euro 2016 Russia v England game in Marseille which had a bit of a horror ending. Here are my notes.
I was in the beautiful city of Marseille in South of France this weekend to watch England play Russia at the Vélodrome , and returned unscathed! While England put up a classy performance and Russia not so much, the show was stolen by the petulant behavior of some from both sets of fans along with some local youth which literally turned the streets of Marseille into a battleground as violence broke out. A reminder as to how dangerous Football hooliganism can be. This blog is just to state what I saw on a shameful night for Football.
Eric Dier's goal could be one of the most under-appreciated goals ever. A sublime free-kick when all of England seemed to have forgotten how to finish! It's not often that we say - England played very well. But when it did happen, all the spotlight was taken away by those "fans" whose sole purpose of existence (but de la vie!) seemed to be to cause chaos. To be honest, I did not see the street fight, the chasing, the chair-throwing, the stone-pelting and the tear-gas stuff - all that happened prior to the game. That was much earlier to my arrival. There are all kind of videos showing these things actually happening. I made sure that I stayed very close to the Vélodrome and got out only before the game. But what I did see happened on the opposite end of the stadium to where I was sitting and it wasn't pretty!
My ticket only said that I had a seat in the Vélodrome. It could've been along the Russians or the English (or some Mexicans who made their way clearly to the wrong tournament with the centenario thing ongoing :-D). But fortunately (explanation will follow!), I was with the English fans behind one of the goals. The Russian fans were few in number and a major chunk of them was seated behind the opposite goal. This won't have been an issue, except for the fact that there were a few English fans on that side of the stadium. You could smell danger from the set-up especially once Dier put England in front and some of the Russian fans started lighting flares (wonder how those got in, may be not!). Apparently, the French police couldn't smell!
How good is the security in France? In my opinion, security in some Indian airports is stricter. At least, I did not find any enforcement made for the Euros. In Paris, at the airport entrance, there is no automated scanning. Any scanning begins only after check in - standard stuff all year round, right? The stadium had no electronic security check whatsoever! At both the airport entrance and the stadium entrance, there is a manual check where a guy (or a lady depending on you) runs his (or her) hands to check if you have anything in your pockets. The thing is - even if you have something, they seem to be fine with it! That's how the flares and fireworks got in and there is nothing to suggest that something else won't get in! In the airport entrance, there's a man (no lady here) checking bags. You just open and show some clothes at the top and he lets you go. It probably won't matter what's underneath. In addition, there was no check when I got into my train to Marseilles and not even a ticket check while returning. Well you could argue that there is a huge incoming population. But, this is only for a month and definitely things could be improved. Also clearly, the Marseille police were ill-prepared when the fight broke-out in the city especially given the reputation of the English fans and not least, the Russian ultras.
It was a sad end to the game if you are an English supporter going by the result. But, if you think about what happened in the aftermath, you would probably be happy that the game ended level or else the Russian ultras could've gone harder on their English "rivals". Probably not! Just as the final whistle went off, a group of Russian hooligans just ran into the section where English fans - including women and children - were seated and started hitting, grabbing shirts, punching with gloves, what not! So, what do you do when a bunch of brutal men attack? Stand-up and take a selfie? No - you flee for your life. And flee they did climbing the "protective" fences as the Police watched. The only attempt that the authorities seemed to make to contain this before it developed was to request the Russian fans to be seated until the rest of the stadium cleared. Did they really think that was going to happen? Once I returned to my "bunker", I could hear the ambulances running around. Well, it really does scare you.
The game was mostly one-sided with England creating a lot of chances only to finish poorly. Rooney played a wonderful game. It was great to see the man whom you admire a lot running the show with long-range passing and show some fantastic awareness. The commitment of the man is such that he can play two games at a stretch! Why Hodgson took him off, I will never know! But Rooney too was guilty of poor finishing along with Lallana and Kane while Sterling was wasteful of possession in good areas. After the hour mark, I was looking for Vardy and / or Sturridge to get involved but the game was graced only by Wilshere and Milner as England turned defensive. The inability to actually grab that elusive second goal cost the game for England. Clearly, Russia were not up for it. But they did get the equalizer and that's all that mattered.
The atmosphere was fantastic with incessant chanting and singing as alcohol flowed. Some pictures from the game follow.
Well there is this extreme hooliganism and there are others who are just naughty. But it all depends on how far they go. I took the Ukrainian Airlines flight from Kiev to Paris. It was full of yellow shirts coincidentally with both Swedish and Ukrainian fans blessing us with some raucous chanting which half of the plane did not understand. I haven't traveled in a bus which was that noisy and I have traveled in a lot of noisy buses! The air-hostesses just had no control and they seemed as they were being indifferent after one stage. At one point, some of the "normal people" became edgy. This happened at such a stage -