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Brugge Police Commissioner writes a letter to Club
I thought I was going into a sheep dip the way they funnelled us into the ground.
A medieval City with a medieval police Chief.
Pity about the three mile hike we had to the ground. I think they chose the pretty route. Talking to the owner of a chippy on the way back and he said they wondered what was going on as they never took fans via that route. Also five buses to take possibly 1500 fans back to the city centre was a bit of an under- estimation. Whoever is in charge of publc transport in Bruges wants a kick up the backside, not least for losing them God knows how many euros in lost fares. Apart from that it was a great trip.
It seems the herding of fans to football stadiums en bloc can still be part and parcel of the away match experience. I suffered the same condescension back in 1986 at Southampton. A letter was similarly sent to the club by the Chief Constable of Hampshire praising the behaviour of the Wigan fans, which was nice!
be thankful you weren’t at the Euro’s over there in 2000 coz I heard from friends who went that the Belgian police were absolute @r$e$ to the English at that tournament.
A couple of stories that stick in my mind are forcing the returning England fans off the train in a suburb of Brussels rather than the city centre & telling them to find their own way back. The suburb happened to be where the large Turkish immigrant population of Brussels lives & the police then promptly disappeared whilst the Turks (who’d already kick off during that tournament) were given free reign to take pot shots at the English all the way back to the city centre.
When it did kick off before one of the games (Germany I think) & the police were attempting to round up those they’d ID’d as causing bother. When some fans ran into bars, the police would storm in, round up everybody & if you were English you were put in a holding cell before being deported (whether they could prove you’d done owt or not) & if you were any other nationality you were released
Made me glad that I’d had to flog my ticket for the England v germany game!!
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