[Lauren]

Ugh.

As you might have seen splashed all over the news, there was "riots" last night in Manchester when I slept rough. The media is reporting it all wrong so I thought I'd speak of my experiences.


I got there about 12pm, but some people had took their place in the barrier'd designated fan zone since about 6am that morning. The heat was very strong and the only "refreshments" that were provided were beer... on the other side of the square. Not to mention the apparent porta-loos they had set up magically weren't there. Nice one Manchester.

So I took my seat on the ground and began a very long wait as the square filled with fans celebrating and it was a very carnival-like atmosphere with people offering me bottles of water and beer and once even some food.

Nearer time to kick off (7.45) the square was PACKED, and people had to even stand outside of it to see the game. Around 7.40 we watched the screen in silence as we awaited the screen to come on. Bare in mind in this particular fanzone there were 100,000 of us packed in the barriers.... then the screen came on "Sorry we can not acquire a signal"... so we waited for further instructions, whether it was going to come back on, or telling us where else we could go.

It was then that the police started charging the door of the fan zone. I think their idea was to make us leave it so that the media couldn't get pictures of what a farce the whole event had been on the part of Manchester Council. Unfortunately, they didn't think through their plan of "charging" very well, since they forgot we were within a barrier! So people were being crushed against a barrier with the riot police charging us forward.

So people pushed back against the police, to let the people being crushed to be let out (including women and children). And then the police took this as reason enough to start hitting random people with riot shields. Obviously this was a small number of police and the others acted professionally, but the small number that started hitting us angered a small number of the crowd. So half of us were trying to escape the crushing, and the other were pushing the police back so we could.

Once they'd backed the police out the barriers they charged forward so the entrance was free so we could leave. A small number of fans did start throwing objects at police, but with 100,000 there, there'd bound to be a few idiots. Not to mention the police were also throwing objects.



Plus Manchester City Council didn't put on extra trains. I had to stay in the freezing cold station from 10pm to 7am, queueing, not allowed to lie down or sit down. The Council told us they'd booked more trains, but they hadn't. So they only had 1 train to Glasgow after the match. 1 train to transport 150,000+ fans? Badly organised.