Lille OSC 0-0 Everton
42,000
What an utter joke. While supporting an English club has its downsides sometimes because of the way we get treated, well thank God we dont play in France all that often. And thanks to the game being such a non event, the way the local police treated our fans is now the headline to come from the night.
There was already a little trepidation from those of those who were only arriving the day of the game, after a group of around 100 Lille fans had attacked a bar full of Everton fans the night before. It was fairly obvious that would somehow come back on us, given the French police's well earned reputation for their treatment of all English fans. So after an early morning flight, we found our way to the Grand Place, main square in Lille around 10-11am. Not many around by that point, but bars already packed, and fans just settling in, hanging flags etc. and a good mood all round. Had a little bit of a sample of the atmosphere, then went off in search of food. To be fair, Lille is a lovely city. Beautiful to look at, and so full of bars and restaurants, even with so many thousands of traveling fans, getting a drink or something to eat, even in small little bars wasnt a problem! Went for a crepe (which is my own personal tradition whenever Im in France, stemming from a school trip now many years ago!) and a few drinks, before heading off to find the Metro station and buy our tickets to beat the crowds later. The square was now absolutely heaving, and a bit tougher to get in the bars actually surrounding the square, so having spotted a supermarket up Rue Nationale, we took a walk up there for my dad to buy beers, something plenty had obviously already done, as lots of the fans in the square were surrounded by crates, rather than plastic cups!
The supermarket was the first worrying sign that things were about to take a turn. Walked in, found our way to the beer section at the back with one or two others, and the manager came out and chased us, they had just put up a sign stating that due to municipal law, they were prohibited from selling alcohol because there was a game on. To further reinforce that, they now had a bullet proof jacket clad cop sat outside the shop entrance. Thats not intimidating at all is it? And I cant imagine the locals are all that comfortable either walking around their home town and seeing cops standing about menacingly either. But oh well, we carried on walking, as there would very obviously be someone who was willing to sell us beer, and it didnt take long to find a little woman running a corner shop with a quite large alcohol section who was more than happy to sell alcohol to us! Municipal laws right? So we headed back to the square, and just as we got to the corner of it, a lot of our fans came running back the opposite way towards us, followed by a pretty loud explosion, with people running past telling us they were using tear gas. So naturally we headed back. We went down a side street to try to get to the other end of the square, and the second quite worrying thing was spotted. A little side door of a small building with a large group of men, dressed all in black, wearing bullet proof vests underneath, all with quite lethal looking batons hanging from their belts. Reinforcements?
By the time we worked our way around to the other end of the square, things had calmed down. And after a little walk to find Lille's club shop, we set up camp in the square for a while to get into the atmosphere. Obviously all the talk going around was about the trouble and people trying to find out what had happened. Through a combination of tales I heard last night, and what has made it into the Echo and online, it seems that trouble all kicked off when Merseyside Police spotters informed the local plod that they had seen a known drug dealer and a known hooligan so sort them. Rather than doing this with any form of subtlety, or understanding of the situation, the local police sent in undercover plain clothed police, very heavy handedly to arrest this drug dealer. Other fans around, obviously not realising they were police since they werent in uniform, and all they had seen was a gang of fellas come steaming and start beating down on a lad, started throwing things at the police. That was all the prompting they needed, send in the riot squad with the rubber bullets and tear gas. Who gives a toss that there are families and elderly people around, they're English and they're football fans, so they quite clearly deserve the treatment we save for their sort, and seemingly just love dishing out...while there was still a great atmosphere in the square for the rest of the day, there was a definite uncomfortable edge to it, and from the square all afternoon, you could see in the gaps between the buildings, more and more police vans and riot squads gathering, just waiting for another excuse to go and crack some skulls.
Headed away from the square after that as my dad was after some tea, and again, despite how many of us were there, we found a good little bar with just a few Blues in, and no trouble at all getting served. It's at this point, I want to say just how great the locals were. I would imagine a lot of them held pretty similar views of English football fans to the police before we came, but they were great. All getting involved, enjoying the atmosphere, and a lot of them even singing along when songs got going by the end! So after that, time came to head back to the square to get the Metro to the ground...only to now find that the police were blocking the main entrance to the station as so many were trying to use it...well obviously, theres a game on in 2 hours! Luckily for us, when we had gone looking for the Metro earlier in the day, we had stumbled on another entrance to the station around the corner, so ran ahead and used that! So we at least ended up nearer the front of the scrum than everyone else! The Metro journey was...interesting! It was just after 5, so was also packed with people heading home from work, who looked like they didnt have a clue what had hit them when thousands of English were descending on them singing songs about 'soixante mille Seamus Coleman!' Some of them were getting into it though, there were two girls around my own age squashed in next to me who were joining in by the time we got off!
And finally, we are at the ground! It's a brand new ground only a few years ago, and is completely state of the art, and while its in the middle of nowhere, to be fair to Lille, unlike most new grounds built in the middle of nowhere here, they have built around it so there were still places to eat and drink when you got there...though I wish Id made use of them rather than waiting to get inside...more on that later. Now, actually getting inside. Despite the fact there was virtually nobody in the queue to get in ahead of us when we got to the turnstiles, we were still made to wait by stewards before approaching the turnstiles. When they finally let us in, we found out why...scan your ticket, in we go...and into a sheer wall of stewards and gendarmes...I was sent to the woman steward as expected...and given the most aggressive full body search Ive ever had. Even more so than at Old Trafford the other week, which is really saying something...pockets emptied, jackets unzipped, wallets and camera cases opened, t-shirts lifted, pant legs lifted, and of course, checking to make sure I wasnt concealing anything in my bra...finally clear of that and feeling suitably violated, I go through only to be met by a female gendarme, who also has to search me! So same again, she took my bag and handed it over to a colleague to ransack, and I get a second sexual assaulting. Finally deemed risk free, I go to get my bag back and find my dad arguing with stewards and police...it appears my bag has a dangerous forbidden item and they are going to confiscate it until the end of the match...what is this dangerous piece of contraband I might be packing you ask? My camera maybe? A can of coke? Razor blades perhaps? A weapon? A dangerous flag on a pole and without a fire safety certificate? No, a 6 inch tall plastic toy I bought in a comic shop earlier in the day. Yeah, I spent 15 Euro on a piece of geek memorabilia just so I can throw it at some Frenchies! Nope, no reasoning with these people, so on top of likely being locked in, and having to find our coach after the game, I also had to find Lille's away fan contraband stash! Luckier than some, all this rigmarole meant some fans were still coming in 20 minutes after kick off.
If you think this is all sounding so rosy, it gets better yet! Went up to my seat...and what a load of shit. Right next to an 8 foot tall fence that obscured all but around 1/5 of the pitch. Screw...that. Id noticed the back row had no seats as it was an access point, so figured Id just set up camp there and deal with moving if a steward said anything. No such problems, the away end was chaos, not a steward in sight all night, people just standing wherever they wanted, on stairs, in big groups at the front, and some in the home end next to us (which was full of Blues anyway) even scaling the fence to come in and join us. I said earlier Id mention the food...theres a reason football grounds dont sell hot sandwiches...looking at what food was available, asked for a kebab, they didnt have any. So asked for a chicken panini, which they informed us would be about 10 minutes to warm it up. Oh thats okay, as it took nearly that amount of time for the server to figure out what a Red Bull was anyway. And to make another chicken panini for the lad who came back saying his was cold in the middle. Obviously thats a common thing, since when mine finally came, it was red hot in the centre and freezing at both ends. So Ive probably paid 4 Euro for a nice spot of food poisoning. Nom!
Finally, for those who survived all that, the game! It was crap. Crap team selection, leaving out 3 of the players who made such a positive difference on Saturday, Naismith, Coleman and McCarthy, playing players out of position, and having absolutely zero urgency. The epitomy of a bore draw. I remember actually feeling we might score once, when Lukaku set up Barkley immediately after coming on as a sub, but the keeper got down well enough to take the pace off the shot and allow the clearance. Other than that, utter crap. Whats the point of working so hard to qualify for Europe, then making changes and playing like that, prioritising League games, so we can qualify for Europe again? So we've got more fixture congestion to moan about next season? Bull, what a load of crap.
Its
here, its finally here! Got my passport, my flights, my tickets, my
Euros, and Thursday morning just cant come soon enough. Its been five
years since my last Euro away,
