Disappointing reports back from those who went to PSV.
Heard a couple of things at work today about PSV's lack of crowd control and some of our idiots on the fringe.
This post is off YNWA from one of the lads who is a Liverpool FC steward and travelled in his 'official' capacity. My Uncle's a steward at Anfield but he didn't go this one so I will try and get some further news off him...
"I opened my front door at 3am this morning.
I'm still in shock and anger after what I witnessed. It was a combination of pissed up and sober ticketless Liverpool fans, arrogant, incompetant and aggressive PSV stewarding and arrogant and aggressive policeing. But the main cause I am sorry to say were the ticketless Liverpool fans.
During the day were at least 2,000 Liverpool fans without tickets, you couldn't walk 5 steps in the town centre without getting stopped and asked for a ticket. I left the city centre around 5:15 to head to the ground, it was getting fairly animated and packed then. But, and it's a big but, it was very enjoyable and in good spirits.
There were 16 Liverpool stewards at the ground, our job on European away trips is basically a travel steward who gets in the ground for nothing, but let me explain further. On official trips, you need football stewards otherwise there are no trips, firms will not fly or drive you to a game. The main crux of our job is to ensure that everyone knows what times the coaches are, where they are and count you off and on. When the turnstiles are open, we have no power at that ground, we get put were the home stewards don't want to be, we help as much as we can, but it's only as much as the home club let us, at PSV they didn't want us.
I wasn't there for the game in September, but 2 or 3 of the stewards were and they sensed that something bad was going to happen before the gates were even opened, but their concerns and fears fell on arrogant on deaf ears.
I was positioned inside the ground by the tea bar at the end of what I can only describe as a tube, the first time I felt a bad atmosphere was when more and more fans were calling me all kinds and pointing the finger at me and the other steward 'for not doing our f***ing job and coming a a f***ing freebie and for being a complete lazy t***'. Other fans were just concerned about the crushing outside and how we should sort it out.
It got worse when I saw women, kids and grown men crying through anger, fear and frustration of what was going on outside. At one time I had 6 or 7 fellas all pointing in my face, some were more drunk than others but their faces were so red with anger they spat in my face as they shouted, I just had to take it as any sign of aggressiveness from myself would have made it worse, but then I had to imagine what they had gone through to get into the stadium. I have never witnessed scenes like that before, and no RP it was not just another away trip.
Some fans did not get in till after 45 minutes, some fans with proper tickets did not get in at all. They pleaded with us to let them in, they pleaded with the PSV stewards, we pleaded with the PSV stewards, but they would not budge – what more could we do?
Just before the second half kicked off the last Liverpool supporter got in, we had 4 stewards but they were verbally abused for what had gone on outside – how could they be held responsible for something that they had no control over? One Liverpool supporter either fell over, or was attacked, either way he fell over and cracked open his head. 2 Liverpool stewards tried to clear a path for a stretcher to get to him, the stewards were once more abused and the fans refused their own supporter the space to get him out of the ground. After about 20 minutes he was finally taken to hospital in a bad way.
Anyway, normally when all the fans are inside the stewards take position inside the our end to watch the game, all of us refused the offer for the fear of our safety. So we went into a small room underneath the stadium and watched a bit of the second half on tv.
A couple of the stewards were visibly upset over the amount of threats and abuse they suffered from our own fans, I was in a daze myself which was when I called Ant, I seriously had to check my own emotions in check when I was describing what happened.
As I said above, it was a combination of things, but the major factor was ticketless Liverpool fans who were prepared to do anything to get into the ground, the majority of them were bladdered.
One thing though that I just cannot get my head around is the large number of scallies, who wear the boss gear etc etc, they have HJC stickers on their coats, shirts, jumpers or trackies, yet they (from my observation) were the ones who did not have tickets, they were the ones who were the most pissed and they were the ones who caused the mayhem outside the turnstile by trying to blag themselves in and were prepared to rush the gates trapping and crushing their own fans in the process. Yet they are the ones supposedly supporting the fight for justice – it just doesn’t register.
Unused tickets for Galatasaray away, tickets for the PSV game in September, forged tickets and photo-copied tickets were used to get in or tried to get in. In the mayhem outside, tickets were snatched out of the hands of supporters. There may well have been empty seats, but every single Liverpool fan had to walk passed me last night, and there were definately more than 2,000 - it might have been 2,002 only for the two fans who were that pissed they couldn't walk up the stairs so crashed out in the toilets.
At this moment in time and the way I feel I wont be doing another European, stand around doing nothing, jobsworth freebie trip. It’s just not worth it. As PSV was undoubtedly the worst experience I have ever had as a steward, and I just hope that those fans who were severely upset and affected by last night, got home safely and have calmed down a bit."
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