The rangers v zenit game this week had a huge impact on the city. We were literally taken over by Glasweigan’s and it was good fun for the most part.
But when I went into work on wednesday it did seem to only be heading one way. By 1000 am most people seemed pretty much on their way to being drunk and another 10 hours in the sun wasn’t going to help.
I know the vast majority of people were well behaved, but most people are generally. I head the ambulances had more call outs than on New Year’s Eve, how does that work?
And people are saying ‘the screen shouldn’t have failed’ and I agree it shouldn’t, but when the technicians were there desperately trying to fix it, did the crowd help? no, they threw their empty bottles and cans at them – and I think the technicians were completely justified at that point in downing tools and leaving.
And all this was before they lost. Proceeding to set on police until late in the night, the next day the council gets blamed for everything.
I don’t think it was anybody’s fault, you can’t blame the screen for failing, you can’t blame the council for not being prepared because they put on lots of things, they’d got tankers of carlsberg in, closed off our town square AND city centre space – picadilly gardens. They even managed to have another screen ready at the Velodrome.
Yesterday, 2 days on, they were still picking up rubbish.
My question is why didn’t they just put it on at an out of town venue in the first place, Heaton Park or even Old Trafford?
And the result?
At the moment the council are refusing to put anything on for Manchester United’s Champions League final (there is the argument that Mancs aren’t United fans, but we’ll not go into that now).
