Heartland

Istanbul?

Dodgy

Norman Hunter wrote:Istanbul?

Dodgy

Why ? This is a civilized city.

They played France, now they can play anywhere.

Badlander wrote:

Norman Hunter wrote:Istanbul?

Dodgy

Why ? This is a civilized city.

They played France, now they can play anywhere.

the place has bad memories for most leeds football fans. the "locals" have been known to be very unfriendly, to the point of actually stabbing & killing travelling leeds fans

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sport/football/719710.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_h ... ism#Turkey

Quiff Boy wrote: the place has bad memories for most leeds football fans. the "locals" have been known to be very unfriendly, to the point of actually stabbing & killing travelling leeds fans

Oh, didn't know that.
What I do know is that Turkish sport fans in general do have a tendency to get very much into it indeed. Sometimes much too much IMHO.

well, I remember fights after sports matches in cities all over the world, blaming Istanbul for this is far from reasonable. I'd say:

2006 Sep 03 Turkey Istanbul Rock'N Coke Festival

Isn't that wonderful? - well the coke and daylight apparently NOT, but so much for Ataturk. Cheers.

Quiff Boy wrote:the place has bad memories for most leeds football fans. the "locals" have been known to be very unfriendly, to the point of actually stabbing & killing travelling leeds fans

I know that provocation doesn't excuse violence, but I reckon I'd have been a bit p!ssed off with a load of people chanting "I'd rather be a Paki than a Turk".

But it's probably not a good idea to get into that on this thread.

Having said that, if anyone wants to talk about hooliganism, we can split it out

Edit: In fact...

dinky daisy wrote:well, I remember fights after sports matches in cities all over the world, blaming Istanbul for this is far from reasonable.

Blaming Istanbul is certainly unreasonable.

After all, it's not their fault that Galatasaray are located there

While I'd by no means suggest that the local population are in any way responsible (indeed, being a music festival, it'll probably go ignored by any football hooligan element), Galatasaray, rightly or wrongly, have a very strong reputation for violence and antagonism. IIRC, Chelsea fans were greeted off the plane with offensive banners and chants before they'd had any time whatsoever to incite it. (If anyone has a citation, I'd appreciate it, I'm recalling this from memory of a newspaper frontpage ).

Chelsea played there in October 99 prior to the Leeds incident.

Trawling the memory archives (as there's nowt on the web) it was the Chelsea players who were met at the airport and welcomed with such quaint Turkish hospitality. Obscene chanting and banners proclaiming "Welcome To Hell" and "Go Home Or You Will Die". The players were jostled trying to make their way through the airport to the coach and Wisey was spat on.

Which deeply affected our performance on the pitch the following night: Galatasaray 0-5 Chelsea.

And the majority of the crowd gave the Chelsea players a standing ovation at the end of the game ...not a lot else they could do, is there?

Again, trawling the memory banks, wasn't this just an escalation from previous 'incidents' between Galatasaray and English teams? I'm recalling when Man U went there (96? 97?) and Cantona was involved in some fisty-cuffs in the tunnel after the game? With Turkish policemen?

Sadly, for whatever reason, the antagonism just seemed to escalate over a period of time, culminating in the tragic deaths of the two Leeds fans.