=>"Away Days: Real Madrid"
Our away match correspondent Face In The Crowd was caught up in some chaotic scenes outside the Bernabeu Stadium on Tuesday...
In 90 minutes of exhilarating football, Real Madrid showed exactly why they are the best team on the planet and why even the most blinkered Reds were forced to admit it was a privilege to watch the nine-times European Champions.
Optimism had been high amongst United fans on the afternoon of the game, with the consumption of cerveza no doubt contributing to the belief that the team could come away with a respectable result from the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu. It wasn’t that unrealistic a thought with even the massively partisan Madrid press not taking a Real victory for granted, the sports tabloid ‘AS’ labelling the game, ‘El Derby de Europa’.
I’d arrived in Madrid shortly after midday on the day of the game. In the bars close to the hotel I was staying in, the Red Army were basking in the warm sunshine and enjoying cold beer and Sangria. The bulk of the 4-5,000 fans who’d made the trip to Spain were spending the day in the delightful squares of Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor and Santa Ana. The streets echoed with Take Me Home United Road and We Are The Pride Of All Europe. There really was a great pre-match atmosphere.
Sadly the high spirits amongst United fans evaporated at the stadium. In what can only be described as chaotic scenes, fans risked injury or worse in attempting to enter the away section of the ground. Since returning from Spain I have seen no coverage of what took place at Entrance D but don’t take that as an indication that the incidents were minor. Mostly they were but the fact that nobody was badly hurt was down to nothing more than good fortune.
I entered the ground an hour before kick-off and even that early I could foresee the potential problems that would follow. Joining a queue of fifty or so United fans, I was herded through a line of policemen who checked my ticket before manhandling me towards five turnstiles where stewards waited to scan the barcode on my ticket. Having negotiated these two hurdles I was then searched by police for weapons. The whole process had taken about five minutes but the heavy-handed nature of the police and memories of the chaos that preceded the game in the Bernabeu in 1999/2000 left me in no doubt as to the mayhem that was about to take place.
Climbing over a small metal barrier, I was able to stand on the staircase leading up to the top tier and watch the events unfolding below ( without being forcibly removed from the area by police, as many others were). Within ten minutes the trouble began. More and more Reds, the vast majority of the 4,100 allocation, arrived to enter the stadium. However, progress was slow and soon there was a large build-up of fans. There were now hundreds waiting to enter and a queue had become a mass of bodies, with no barriers to maintain a queuing system and seemingly little organisation in place.
Fans near the front of the queue were pushed forward by those behind them and through no fault of their own they were shoved into the line of police. The Madrid police panicked. Seemingly the only way they know how to treat supporters is to wield their batons. Many people were hit: men, women and children. And not just hit. Every time a fan received one baton blow, others soon followed. I saw one fan, who must have been no older than sixteen, hit three or four times over the head whilst trying to protect himself on the floor. He was almost trampled on by fleeing United fans.
After the first baton charge, the atmosphere changed. Gone was the jovial air there had been in the bars around the stadium, replaced by anger and anxiety. Then the police horses arrived. Taking their place in the cordon that had previously been controlled by baton-happy officers, they now pushed the fans backwards repeatedly.
My attentions were drawn to those fans making their way up the stairs behind me. Many remonstrated with the police on the inside of the ground and received hefty blows for airing their grievances. Many Reds passed me nursing lumps, cuts and bruises. I witnessed young children in floods of tears and one dazed looking pensioner holding his head. We’d been labelled ‘hooligans’ by the local papers but these were just supporters thrust into utter mayhem.
There’s no doubt that to a small degree Manchester United fans contributed to the chaos. Many were drunk and some were attempting to enter the ground with colour photocopies of authentic match tickets. But Real Madrid and the police had brought the problems on themselves. They’d clearly not learned from our visit three years ago and hitting fans with truncheons rather than giving instructions in English seems to be their only approach to crowd control.
Apart from fans being cracked across the head, the biggest threat of injury came from the fact that police horses would push fans back in one direction only for them to then be baton-charged in the opposite direction. Fans were pressed together and with fifteen minutes to go before kick-off I honestly feared that fans would be crushed, seriously injured or worse. I saw three or four fans fall under the feet of others in a charge by police horses. To my relief, I saw them helped to their feet a minute or so later. "Biggest club in the world?" I thought to myself. "They can’t even control four thousand away fans."
The whole incident left a bad taste in the mouth and by the time I got to my seat it was clear that many others felt the same. When Figo floated the ball into the top corner of Fabien´s net, the United section was still only three quarters full. Twenty minutes later fans were still coming into the end. Many looked shaken, quite a few were injured and the majority were angry. The 2-0 scoreline in favour of Real Madrid did little to lighten the mood.
Real were fantastic, there’s no denying that. They turned on the tricks and Zidane’s performance was simply sublime. United looked shell-shocked. One fan stood near me turned to those in our section and said, “We could end up losing by five here.” Nobody disagreed with him.
"All I want is a goal,” I said to a mate at half-time, “A bit of respectability.” Ruud obliged within ten minutes of the second half but only after the truly brilliant Raul had scored his second and Real’s third. Still, it was an away goal and it was celebrated feverishly by Reds. The team were settled by the goal and Real suddenly looked vulnerable. All we wanted now was a second goal and although chances were created, with Giggs and van Nistelrooy causing problems for the Madrid defence, it didn’t materialise. The final whistle blew and United had been beaten 3-1. We were down but not yet out.
After a 45-minute wait, the lights in the stadium being all but turned off on us, we were let out of the ground. The antipathy between fans and police, created by pre-match events, spilled over again. I saw one supporter remonstrate that his dad had been hit. The supporter was duly dealt blows by two different policemen.
Back in the bars after the game, Reds swopped tales of running the gauntlet into the ground. Some told how they’d waited for the crowds to subside before attempting to enter the stadium, only to be turned away despite having genuine tickets, being told “Ground full. Go.” Protesting was pointless.
The mood lightened as the night went on and the post-match gloom was replaced by optimism. Yes, Real Madrid are an unbelievable team but Ruud’s goal could be priceless and a 2-0 win will see us go through. “Yes, but can you see them not scoring?” I ventured. A bashing to match anything the Madrid police could dish out came my way. Fortunately it was only verbal.
The optimism increased as the night went on, and by the end of it, most Reds seemed to agree that “it’s not over yet." We’ll get behind the team at Old Trafford where the supporters will be able to enter the ground without being beaten, crushed or terrified. It should be a great night.
In conclusion, Real Madrid truly are the best team in world football. What a shame their impressive looking stadium and the people who police it don’t reach the same standards.
