And yet my attempts to offer an opinion of someone who'd been there and witnessed various scuffles, spoken to those who had witnessed much more and those who had a closer insight to the real goings on brought a certain level of criticism for even thinking that those fans in France might not be as guilty as some wanted them to be. Strangely enough though I was contacted by various individuals who did want to applaud me for having spoken out and tried to offer an alternative viewpoint. And to those I say thank you!
But Marseilles, apart from the obvious difficulties was an enjoyable city. Kick off was to be quite late that day, so armed with several spare hours we hopped onto what seemed like an empty tour bus and spread ourselves out so as to enjoy the ride. Little did we know that in the minutes prior to departure it would fill up and then some! But hey, we didn't object to sharing with French, Russians and others all doing the same. And what a revelation Marseilles was from being there the last time. It was clean, warm, smart and had hidden treasures around every corner. The centrepiece though was the port area and the little back streets and squares which offered respite from the heat and liquid refreshment to quench the travellers thirst. One pitched battle, started by the Russians, and finished by the English curtailed our time there and a short metro ride down to the fan park area to meet up with others seemed the right thing to do, and it was!
We've met some great people over the years which sometimes makes the effort and cost worthwhile, and this time was no exception. Several drinks with our old friends turned out to be exceptionally pleasant and the walk to the stadium, which was long and tiresome, all the more enjoyable. To be fair the organisation around these games was pretty awful, but I doubt if I've ever applauded this element at any tournament I've been to. For some reason access to stadiums during any tournament, be it UEFA or FIFA, is always incredibly complicated and this was no exception. The approach to the stadium was from one side but the England fans section was at the other with no seemingly easy route to get there. Once there the ticket check, bag check and pat down was a farce. Having to exchange our extremely small bags for a blue ticket at a portacabin before being allowed to progress further seemed completely unrealistic and troublesome. I struggle to understand the mentality of stewards who when faced with a English flag dedicated to some obscure northern town suddenly break out into a cold sweat and view these as the most dangerous item anyone could take into a football stadium. Those pesky flags eh, breaking ground regulation all on their own!
I liked the stadium though, very atmospheric, very spacious and I'm sure the seats would have been comfortable too had anybody bothered to sit in them. And yet again, not a single attempt to get anybody to sit down, yet again another ground regulation just ignored; why do we put up with this pantomime over and over?
Getting away from the stadium wasn't to be easy though. The queues to recover your bags from the portacabins was bad for us, but would have been much much worse had we been another 10-15 minutes later as the numbers just seemed to grow and grow. I heard later that some people abandoned their belongings because of the lengthy queues and missing transport connections. The dash to the metro appeared to be OK but the queue for the entrance was awful. I know we may have invented queueing but this was no time to be polite and a smart overtaking manouver around the outside appeared to be the way forward. Rude of us I know, but eminently sensible with a plane to catch!! All in all a good day was had, tiring, poorish result, but altogether just nice meeting with old friends. A definite plus.
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