'They were being crushed and then had tear gas sprayed in their faces'
Manchester United fan (and MUST committee member) Oli Winton was in the visitors' end in Lens. Here he gives his graphic account of the unfolding events on a terrifying night Thursday February 22, 2007 The Guardian I was in the away end with my dad and a couple of friends and from what I saw it was a miracle that nobody was killed. What the press are reporting tells only half the story because it was a whole evening of continuous events rather than just one terrifying crush. I saw women and children doubled up on the floor because the police had fired tear gas in their faces and when fans started being carried out I did wonder whether people had died. Most United supporters, families included, went to the match expecting it to be a modern World Cup stadium but I've been to France with United before and I know how heavy-handed the police can be. There always seems to be at least one incident and this one could have been fatal. As soon as we got into the stadium we knew we should make our way to the other side of the away end. There was only one entrance, the concourses had been locked and it was obvious there would be people coming in late. There were no signposts outside the ground and it had taken 20 minutes walking around the dark paths and narrow alleyways around the stadium to find the right entrance. We finally found a place to the left of the goal and when the game started we realised people were climbing the fences to our right. At first we thought it was just a few idiots looking for trouble but it quickly became apparent something was seriously wrong. The terrifying thing was seeing stewards carrying out people in their arms. We've all seen the images of Hillsborough and it looked to us, in that moment of panic, like they were dead. All sorts of rumours were going around, all sorts of things were flashing through our minds - is this as bad as it looks? Then texts started arriving from people watching on TV asking if we were OK. I was getting texts from America and Australia and it felt like they had a better idea of what was happening than us. People started trying to get away from the area where the fans were being crushed and were moving over in our direction, coughing and choking and spluttering because of the tear gas. There were women and children among these supporters and they were in obvious distress. They were being crushed, they couldn't breathe and then tear gas had been sprayed in their faces. The police were in their Robocop uniforms, had their batons drawn and it felt like they were enjoying it. What the media don't seem to have picked up is that the police continued to treat everyone this way after the game. We were kept inside the stadium for 40 minutes. The riot police were behind the steel gates. They couldn't see us, we couldn't see them. All of a sudden some black gloves appeared at the top and started spraying tear gas indiscriminately in our direction. People were just dropping to the floor. They finally let us out and there were dozens of riot police charging into us. By this stage it did result in some fighting. I saw one policeman being attacked. But it was under extreme provocation. Everyone was absolutely furious about the way we were being treated. We were locked into a car park and kept there for 45 minutes. The police's attitude seemed to be that they wanted us to attack them. They had their batons out and their tear-gas canisters. One man, in his 70s, said to one policeman: "We would never treat you this way in our country." The policeman told him: "If you don't like it, stay in England in the future." The United fans were unbelievably calm and patient but eventually they started heaving forward like a rugby scrum. The police lines broke but they did everything possible to smash us over the heads as we passed. It was an absolute nightmare. Please use [email protected] for general discussion. To unsubscribe send a blank message (from the email account in question) to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Join as a full member of IMUSA today: http://www.imusa.org/join.htm Yahoo! Groups - Join or create groups, clubs, forums & communities. Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/imusa/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/imusa/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups - Join or create groups, clubs, forums & communities. is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
