20,000 fans, 3000 tickets

[Fenway Frank]

German fans really do turn out for their team don't they ? What are the other 17k going to do when the match is on ? ?

 

[morty]

 

[morty]

Just copying the recent march from The Queen of Iceni to Carrow Road frankly 

 

[Fenway Frank]

Match delayed as the spare 17k ( why were they allowed to travel to the ground ? ) have decided to have a few punch ups at the Emirates 

 

[morty]

Match delayed as the spare 17k ( why were they allowed to travel to the ground ? ) have decided to have a few punch ups at the Emirates 

As much as you may admire their passion and fanatical support, it seems like Britain has taken great strides to calm our hooligan problems from years gone by, and Europe has gone in the opposite direction. I get the impression that next years world cup in Russia is going to be absolute carnage.

 

[OldRobert]

Foregone conclusion imo.

 

[Canaryboy]

Doesn't help that Cologne is a Ryanair and Megabus destination, those fans could probably get to London and back for about thirty quid, and those megabus's leave at weird times so they could probably get drunk in London and be on their coach home at 4am for sleep and it would all cost them no more than it would for me to go and have a decent night out in Leeds or Sheffield. 

Those 17,000 could potentially have spent less on their little adventure than it would cost me to go and watch a game at Carrow Road from Yorkshire.

 

[splutcho]

I find it a little odd people were getting angry about Koln fans in Arsenal areas. They were gonna be empty seats anyway. I think it's a damn shame that football is so tribal you can't sit next to a fan of the opposing team without trouble. Plenty of other sports manage it.

 

[Canaryboy]

Loads of those empty seats will have been dished out to corporate sponsors etc, who then flog them to ticket touts who then flogged them to Koln fans etc.  

Its all a massive con, same at Wembley where tickets for entire blocks are dished out to corporate associates and they all get sold on the black market. When I paid a ridiculously amount of money for a play off final ticket everybody on my row and the two or three rows forwards and back and all bought from the same dodgy reselling site. Those tickets had never been 'general sale', its cronyism. 

 

[splutcho]

Yep, this happens at gigs as well. I think Channel 4 did an undercover documentary at one of these reselling sites and they literally have hordes of people each armed with multiple credit cards frantically buying tickets as they go on sale to go straight on their site at 3 times the price. After I saw it I was certain something would be done about it, but nope.

 

[Fenway Frank]

The Mirror - " fans were seen waving scarves and chanting songs " ?

 

[morty]

If English fans had done this in Germany there would have been outrage, that is my main issue here. It was funny watching the mood swing on twitter last night, proclaiming the Germans amazing fans for their march, then saying "Oh wait" as they were filmed trashing things and fighting, to "Disgusting" as they fought with stewards at the ground.

 

[Canaryboy]

Probably a fair point that we've basically just had a dose of what England fans have been doing all over Europe for 30 years (a point made by various journalists). 

Stuff like this will scare the FA and clubs though because it sounded a bit like the fans could have rushed the stadium and Koln fans with home area tickets were trying to get into the away enclosure, reminiscent of Hillsborough when loads of Liverpool fans turned up without tickets and too many of them squeezed into the middle pen. 

How long until we see retina or thumb scans for entry to grounds due to things like this + the terrorism threat?