[YNWA1892]

Did anyone else watch this last night on the BBC.

I didn't realise that Hooliganism was so bad in the Ukraine & Poland and personally I wouldn't want to visit there and would definitely not go to a football match there.

Is anyone going to watch any matches in the Euro's this summer?

[Stu V]

Like the bad old days of the 80's in the UK. Right wing thugs infiltrated the Chelsea support back then and still exist in small pockets today. And before anyone says it, I wasn't referring to JT.

How on earth UEFA awarded them the finals is anyones guess

[davepuma]

I seem to recall seeing far worse in either one of 'Cockney Geezer' Danny Dyer's or 'Bald Geezer' Ross Kemp's programmes. I visited Poland many years ago and it was rife then. They assumed that if you were from the UK you were automatically up for a ruck. Strange attitude.

The programme was shocking but nothing I didn't expect. I would imagine that unless their local police force/army clamps down immediately it could get out of hand and their reputation will be tarnished beyond repair. It's only when you have a global event that people from outside actually see inside.

[YNWA1892]

Completey agree with the posts above, I never knew it was as bad as that in Poland & Ukraine, this was probably due to not seeing them on the European stage a lot.

I remember when Leeds had problems in Turkey and yes I agree the English have a bad name due to problems in the 80's & 90's but we have behaved fairly well in the last few tournaments yet still get branded because of the past.

I really hope it doesn't get out of hand.

I'm also amazed that they awarded them the tournament especially after seeing that documentary.

[thfccambs]

Been to Poland twice with England and Spurs, both times there was trouble nothing on a large scale though,it was like going back to 70.s, especially with there fashion.
Been shakhtar donetsk apart from having a petro, bomb thrown at us it was probably one of my best away europen trips i've ever done.

In all honestly your find trouble in any european country if your looking for it. Remember before WC in South Africa reports that your have your feet cut of for your trainers.

Wouldn't think twice about going if i was allowed.lol

[thfccambs]

Originally Posted by YNWA1892

I'm also amazed that they awarded them the tournament especially after seeing that documentary.

You serious? Italy and Germay for me are a lot worse. Jesus in Italy if the Ultra's don't get you the Italian Police kick the **** out of you.

[YNWA1892]

Originally Posted by thfccambs

Been shakhtar donetsk apart from having a petro, bomb thrown at us it was probably one of my best away europen trips i've ever done.

Was that near to the stadium and why did it happen was there trouble from fans before inside the stadium?

Originally Posted by thfccambs

You serious? Italy and Germay for me are a lot worse. Jesus in Italy if the Ultra's don't get you the Italian Police kick the **** out of you.

I've seen the Italians on a few shows, I think one was a Danny Dyer show, I've not seen much about Germany

I was agreeing with Stu V with regards to them giving them the tournament.

[Houghsx]

Trouble is with any media program, its tailored to what they want to show or portray.
Im not saying its not an issue, it clearly is but things can be edited to make it look even worse and wide spread.
What about the thousands of fans that don't cause an issue?
I think the real issue was with the lack of police action and no segregation between fans. I bet if fans mingled like that here we would have an issue. Who knows, maybe they knew the cameras where on them? Also, the complete denial by those in power! "they where pointing to the opposition" really!...
Look at places like Italy/Turkey/Spain they have also had trouble, people being stabbed to death and racist comments.

[gosties]

Last summer Dundee Utd had the pleasure of a visit from fans of Slask Wroclaw. Their fans wrecked four pubs, shopping centres were closed as gangs of Polish fans roamed the streets attacking anyone unfortunate enough to cross their path. They were not selective of their targets Men, Women & Children, even women with prams they seen as legitimate targets.

So my view of Polish fans is they are "hooligan scum".

[FZR400RRSP]

Is fighting a national pastime for poles?
Just this morning a colleague was telling me two polish blokes were kicking hell out of each other in his Aberdeen gym the other day.

[Derek S-H]

I was born and raised in Britain though my parents are from the West Indies, and my blood ran cold watching this programme.

I love my footie and it's a given now that you can go into most football grounds these days and not get any hassle from Far Right neanderthals because of the colour of your skin.

But this was time warp telly. Don't Platini and any of the other UEFA ostriches go to the countries they award their tournaments to?

They say that Poland and Ukraine can only benefit culturally from having so many foreign visitors in one place, Sol Campbell and monitors of Far Right extremists say that they should have earned the right to have the tournament after cleaning up their act, not before.

I can see both sides of the argument, but after seeing the completely unprovoked and shocking treatment dished out to those totally innocent Indian visitors, you can only hope and pray that it is not a disaster waiting to happen.

UK sports broadcasters are very skilled at editing out racist chanting, or cutting away from showing any live violence, so we may not get a true sense of what's going on whilst it's happening. But can you imagine being there and getting caught up in it?

What is wrong with these people?

Derek

[alexs2]

Please link to copyrighted text as opposed to cutting and pasting huge slabs of text and acknowledging copyright.

[liamt]

Originally Posted by YNWA1892

Completey agree with the posts above, I never knew it was as bad as that in Poland & Ukraine, this was probably due to not seeing them on the European stage a lot.

I remember when Leeds had problems in Turkey and yes I agree the English have a bad name due to problems in the 80's & 90's but we have behaved fairly well in the last few tournaments yet still get branded because of the past.

I really hope it doesn't get out of hand.

I'm also amazed that they awarded them the tournament especially after seeing that documentary.

we were never worse than lots of other places. the difference is that our press try to drag us down and other national press hide bad stuff. germany and netherlands were worse than us. germany can still be bad.

i need to watch this program. it seems fifa wants to alienate fans with racist countries, bought world cups and then the joke that is the Qatar WC where being homosexual is illegal and we would have to change the WC to winter.

sep blatter is the scurge of football.

[davepuma]

Originally Posted by Derek S-H

UK sports broadcasters are very skilled at editing out racist chanting, or cutting away from showing any live violence, so we may not get a true sense of what's going on whilst it's happening. But can you imagine being there and getting caught up in it?

I'm sure there will be documentary crews there to cover this side of it, which as you say is hidden by the sports broadcasters. I seem to recall seeing a BBC documentary about violence at a recent world cup. There was little mention of trouble in the live match broadcasts or even in the news but there appeared to be lots of trouble. Unfortunately when you have opposing fans, alcohol and old scores to settle and so on, trouble inevitably occurs. My fear is that the Polish and Ukranian hooligans want to put themselves on the map and surpass anything that has gone on before. I'm sure YouTube will be littered with videos during and after the tournament.

[kopchoir]

Originally Posted by alexs2

Please link to copyrighted text as opposed to cutting and pasting huge slabs of text and acknowledging copyright.

I couldnt as its not out in the sunday times till this sunday i also had permission to post it.

[alexs2]

Originally Posted by kopchoir

I couldnt as its not out in the sunday times till this sunday i also had permission to post it.

Please then wait until it's released as not only do I not have anything to confirm that(although I do not doubt what you have said),but I have to trawl through every post here,and that includes slabs of copied text.

A link is therefore better from the copyright angle,and from reducing the moderator workload.

[kopchoir]

Thats fine but thought as it was the Heysel stadium disaster anniversary yesterday thought it was more poignant.
I could get the chief football editor of the Times to email you to clarify its posted with permission status ???
But ill wait also a lot of articles are behind paywalls these days so just trying to help out.

[Kebabhead]

ITV did a piece the other night about how brutal the police are over there so fans can expect trouble from both sides

[alexs2]

Originally Posted by kopchoir

Thats fine but thought as it was the Heysel stadium disaster anniversary yesterday thought it was more poignant.
I could get the chief football editor of the Times to email you to clarify its posted with permission status ???
But ill wait

Please......


Just wait.


On average,John and I have to wade through hundreds of posts,and several reports every day here,and anything that can reduce that load,given that we both have other jobs,is much appreciated.

[djdhrubs]

Whilst I admire his up and at 'em approach, he's kinda making himself a target isn't he?

Euro 2012: Mario Balotelli threatens to 'kill' banana-throwing fans | Football | The Guardian

Genius works in strange ways...!

[ArabChris]

We had the pleasure of polish fans coming over to us last year in the europa league

Just thugs holding knives and threatening everything that moved lol was a strange thing to see in this day and age, certainly made for an atmosphere i suppose....

[Gunhawk]

Watching the Sky Sports News undercover report from a couple of weeks ago was fairly eye opening stuff to. That focussed solely on the Ukraine firms who fight each over regularly in organised punchups.

Seems they have the warped view that English supporters are all like Danny dyer and up for a fight and see the English as the big scalp to fight and beat. So I think we are guaranteed to see our fans get targeted, just so they can say they beat up an English fan.

What's more worrying is that the Ukraine firms who normally fight each other are joining forces for the tournament!

I wouldn't go to the euros if I was black / Jewish etc after watching the panorama programme and even as a White person I wouldn't go as I would probably get targeted for being just English!

What I couldn't believe was the chief of police in Poland ( I think) that was insisting the Nazi salutes were just the fans pointing to the pitch in support!!!! If they think their supporters are all angels then I can see that foreign fans are going to get blamed for the violence (that will kick off) by the authorities anyway,

[djdhrubs]

Originally Posted by Gunhawk

What I couldn't believe was the chief of police in Poland ( I think) that was insisting the Nazi salutes were just the fans pointing to the pitch in support!!!!

They had a finger of their other hand under their nose cos the stadium was very smelly!

[RMCF]

I only got to watching this the other night, and did a bit of reading on it afterwards.

I would take all this with a pinch of salt tbh.

OK so we saw the odd incident, but a lot of the docu seemed to focus on the Krakow derby. This is between 2 teams that have a long and hated history, almost like Celtic and Rangers in Glasgow.

But there aren't any games in Krakow in Euro 2012. As I read in a paper, its like hosting the Euros in England, with a game being at Wembley, yet highlighting the Old Firm derby as something that people should expect to see.

Also, a lot of 'evidence' against another venue was the odd bit of graffiti on walls scattered around the city.

I get the feeling nothing much will happen in Poland in the Euro's. I think we might hear some racist chanting in the Ukraine, but that will probably be edited out of the mic's for us by UEFA/TV companies.

[SBT]

No worse than it was here in the 70/80's and it didn't stop us going then.

[neilios]

I dont think either country has a record of violence at major tournaments,unlike us the germans and the dutch,italy can be quite a scary experience as well...

[SHATNERSTACTIC]

Currently doing the rounds on twitter

You Tube

TBF I've seen worse at premier league grounds in the past decade, Man United fans at West Ham springs to mind.

[John]

Was that a Steward and a photographer getting attacked ?

[kopchoir]

Also talk of a spanish fan being murdered as well

[Bonessi]

Originally Posted by kopchoir

Also talk of a spanish fan being murdered as well

Nothing to do with football it seems, he's been missing for a month according to the following...

UEFA Euro 2012: Spanish fan found murdered in Ukraine | News | NDTVSports.com