Violence outside Villa Park

[Genie]

One of the dads at my lads football team is Polish and he told me a couple of weeks ago there was anger at “Villas” decision to reduce the ticket allocation. 

I didn’t really pay much attention to it and assumed it was some sort of misunderstanding as allocation is usually set in stone for away fans. I said maybe they didn’t sell the tickets so they were returned.

Now I know the reason why, but it wasn’t a last minute thing, it was at least 2 weeks ago he mentioned it.

[sidcow]

8 hours ago, Follyfoot said:

I think they have lost the art of policing football in this manner. Having witnessed Football week in and week out through  the 70’s  and 80s and the 90s the police knew what to do and how to handle it. in reality tonight’s trouble wasn’t anything particularly over the top compared to the bad old days 

Exactly what I said last night. They've lost the experience in dealing with it. 

Edited December 1, 2023 by sidcow

[AlwaysAVFC]

I didn't see too much. Apart from the sound, smoke and flares flying over where they were held. I did see one or two injured police being brought into the main car park from the battle zone.

After the game, there were a few pockets of poles. Most were drunk and still drinking but not bothering anyone. On the way up to Tesco, there was a lump of a pole that I think picked off a Villa fan a little behind me. I only saw him taking his shirt off as he ran away, but someone said he was wearing a Villa shirt to blend in and decided on a target, hit and ran away. He was wearing workwear trousers so possibly lives here and turned up after work or just a bad fashion sense.

[Louis]

8 hours ago, rjw63 said:

After the same type of shenanigans in Alkmaar it’s time this shower of shit was booted from the competition.

I agree, I think UEFA need to do something with them and in my view too, I think they need to be thrown out.

[sidcow]

6 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

It had become impossible to pick out only those with tickets - and that wasn't accidental on behalf of Legia.

 

It wasn't 2,000 people suddenly arrived at the ground in one block.  People would have arrived over a period of time eventually ramping up to 2,000.  Many people like to arrive at and get into the ground early. 

I'm sure many hundreds of people arriving were genuine fans just wanting to see the game. 

Picking out fans with tickets as they rock up should be fairly easy..... Show us your ticket. 

They clearly didn't allow a single person in, even if you got there an hour before kick off and allowed the mob to grow and grow mixing those there purely to cause trouble with some damn angry more "normal" fans and penning them in with presumably families with kids etc

As I said it was absolutely clear there was no plan and a lot of panic amongst the senior officers. 

Edited December 1, 2023 by sidcow

[sidcow]

7 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

 That being said though, you kettle drunk people in a playground with nowhere to go on a freezing night, what actually were they expecting to happen?

Precisely. The second that happened there was only going to be one outcome. 

[Mic09]

13 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Exactly what I said last night. They've lost the experience in dealing with out. 

That's the thing about policing of football games in Poland. They know how to handle them. They see it every week and there is little to no trouble. 

I can only assume some idiot Legia fan was giving it the big one, some policeman talked back or handled the situation in a non-smooth way and all of a sudden it kicked off.

These Legia fans travel with their team every week. They have always played in Europe. They know how to buy tickets and know what to expect. As a fan base, they are much more experienced in Europe than we are.

Somebody somewhere made a mistake. Whether thats Legia, Police, Uefa, Villa, maybe poor communication, who knows.

Now, once it does kick off, the entire blame goes on the idiots from Legia. If there was one club I strongly dislike it's Legia. They are unbearable. They always have been. 

But until it kicked off, some wrong decisions were made at some level somewhere. 

 

[Demitri_C]

6 minutes ago, sidcow said:

It wasn't 2,000 people suddenly arrived at the ground in one block.  People would have arrived over a period of time eventually ramping up to 2,000.  Many people like to arrive at and get into the ground early. 

I'm sure many hundreds of people arriving were genuine fans just wanting to see the game. 

Picking out fans with tickets as they rock up should be fairly easy..... Show us your ticket. 

They clearly didn't allow a single person in, even if you got there an hour before kick off and allowed the mob to grow and grow mixing those there purely to cause trouble with some damn angry more "normal" fans and penning them in with presumably families with kids etc

As I said it was absolutely clear there was no plan and a lot of panic amongst the senior officers. 

You are being overly harsh. How do you know they were not asked ans they started being aggressive? You also have 38k villa fans all over the place. Its not as easy as you think.

These lot were out to cause trouble no matter what the police would have done. They done a grrat job ensuring no violence occured.

38 arrests accoring to sky

[Demitri_C]

@wedge warned us before hand what these lot were like

[sidcow]

6 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

(I'm not sure, but I have heard talk that none of the tickets had actually been issued at that point as Legia (the club) were refusing to issue them as some sort of protest against the ticketing restriction and again hoped that by not doing so they could force Villa into a situation where they'd have to allow more fans into the ground).

Wow. If that's true then it's an utterly insane decision by LW and would effectively guarantee the scenes which unfolded. 

[sidcow]

1 hour ago, Rugeley Villa said:

Blues fan I know text me saying they took the piss at Villa big time in and outside ground and it wouldn’t have happened at the blues as they would at least made an effort to give it them back. “ How very Villa “ he put at the end 

What a very Blues attitude. 

[Genie]

It’s really unusual for Police to exclude the fans like that, it must have been a unique situation. I.e. None of the fans had tickets and it wasn’t possible to safely work out who should and should not be allowed in.

 

[Davkaus]

7 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

 

It was a night that Legia and it's supporters should be ashamed of.

 

I think there are a lot of strong and confident statements in this post considering that an awful lot of it is currently rumour and speculation.

[Nicho]

I was in the north lower with the entrance on the Doug Ellis side, if we had been a minute later we would have struggled to get in I think. They were shutting the gate and stopping all fans coming through. 

Rushed past a police man on the floor surrounded by colleagues and there did seem to be panic from everyone.  

Sounds a bit of a perfect storm, Villa riled fans by lowering the allocation, fans turned up on purpose hoping to get in regardless, police didn’t manage it properly. 

No doubt there were normal fans wanting to come in and probably some roudy ones but nothing wrong with that. Others were just there to cause trouble.  

[Paul33]

23 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

That's the thing about policing of football games in Poland. They know how to handle them.

 

That simply is not true on any level. The difference over there is that the ultras have the upper hand and the police know that. Over here, that is not the case and the biggest and best "firm" is the police who were not going to give an inch of ground to them ...... which they couldn't handle !

Might add that many of the Poles who "travelled" did not come from Poland but from around the UK !!!

[Stevo985]

6 hours ago, FLVillan said:

Just listened to a clip from a phone-in from a UK-based Warsaw fan who is angry because he showed up at Villa Park without a ticket and was then "caged" into a car park with thousands of others.  What is wrong with these people?  This guy on the phone-in literally believed if they showed up in big numbers that authorities/Villa would cave and just allow them in.  And he's angry because their "plan" didn't work....

 

I heard a couple of polish fans asking where they could buy tickets at the turnstiles. I didn't think anything of it as this was before I knew about any trouble

[sidcow]

Odd seeing that horses were there last night. 

It's been years. I remember seeing a police horse charge when we played Coventry and they were running amock in the street.  Scattered them like nine pins.  Scary and impressive at the same time. 

[Demitri_C]

4 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

I think there are a lot of strong and confident statements in this post considering that an awful lot of it is currently rumour and speculation.

Rumour and speculation? You must have missed the videos of them throwing shit at villa fans from outside the stadium? And also all the videos of them throwing shit at the police?

 

[sidcow]

18 minutes ago, Genie said:

It’s really unusual for Police to exclude the fans like that, it must have been a unique situation. I.e. None of the fans had tickets and it wasn’t possible to safely work out who should and should not be allowed in.

 

That's what I can't understand. It was clearly a plan from the outset.  I can't believe a few fans with tickets weren't there 90 minutes before kick off before any mob, yet there was not one in the ground. 

Adds credence to the theory LW just didn't issue any tickets at all. 

Edited December 1, 2023 by sidcow

[Davkaus]

2 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Rumour and speculation? You must have missed the videos of them throwing shit at villa fans from outside the stadium? And also all the videos of them throwing shit at the police?

 

The key points that are rumour are the repeating of a stabbing (which was doing the rounds last night, but I don't think there's anything to back it up, there were allegedly multiple stabbings at one point. Might be wrong but I suspect it's bollocks), as well as the claim that Legia refused to allocate tickets to encourage the actions we saw last night.

The one thing we do know is that the Legia fans once in that situation behaved terribly, particularly the ones we've seen launching shit at the police and the Villa fans, but I don't think it's helpful to blend the facts with the rumours. I'm sure we'll be seeing an investigation into exactly what happened last night.

Edited December 1, 2023 by Davkaus