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I believe there's a pretty major error in this article

"It should be remembered that Rangers have some of the world's most passionate supporters – and that it was a majority that caused such damage to the city of Manchester little over two years ago."

Might want to change that to minority

Poor effort of an article imo.

Thousands of Rangers fans ?

An estimated 150 thousand.

Majority of fans who caused trouble ?

An estimated 0.021% of fans were involved in incidents with the GMP.

Like most Rangers fans, I was disturbed to see what happened unfold that night, but to try and tarnish every Rangers fan as a thug is equally disturbing. The local council and GMP were not prepared for the vast amounts of fans that descended on Manchester that day.

i just think United has got many chances of winning ore especially in the chamions league

Firstly, it wasnt a "majority" as you so proudly state. If the "majority" of fans were rioting then you would need the army to take over Manchester and restore order given the sheer numbers.

We arrived in Manchester in 2008 with the biggest travelling support football has ever seen, eclipsing the numbers of Celtic fans who travelled to Seville.

It was estimated that 4-5% of the population of Scotland arrived that day to play a part in the atmosphere. There was always going to be trouble at some point, you dont have enough fans to fill COMS and Old Trafford twice over and not expect something to happen.

While I make no effort to defend the idiots who caused trouble there, i do wish to point out that the fault was not with Rangers fans. In fact the rioting could have been avoided if:

1. Stewards did not abandon their posts leaving the fan zones a free-for-all, resulting in security fears and the following point.
2. Manchester Council should not have demanded the screens be switched off. Which DID happen, use google and find that out. But if the area was stewarded properly they would never have had to.
3. Riot police should not have gone into the fan zone surrounding tens of thousands of spectators using violence to pen them in like animals. Riot police shouldn't have been anywhere near it.
4. Manchester council SHOULD have had ALL their possible areas for fans across the city available for use.
5. Opening Old Trafford and using large screens there would have taken up to 1/4 of fans off the streets also. A no-brainer in my opinion.
6. Ordering taxi companies not to pick up Scots and removing all buses and trains left the city packed with people with nowhere to go. It took me 6 hours to get a taxi to Oldham, after the @#$%& driver only agreed a 400% fare hike.

Put simply, Manchester Council and the police should have prepared better for the event and it would have gone far better. Telling fans not to travel when it was obvious half of Glasgow was heading south then hastily setting up fan zones with not enough stewards, no stewards controlling fan zone attendance (which led to the screens being shut off and people being battered by police, sparking the riot), proving toilets, litter bins (sorry but the bog-standard bins aint going to cut it) and places to go and things to do, things may have turned out differently.

Instead there was close to 200-250,000 people with nowhere to go, no way of going anywhere and stuck in a city with violent rioters and police - its the worst event ive ever attended.

Pre-match the atmosphere was amazing, there is no doubt about it.

But before you start writing amateur articles blaming "the majority" of Rangers fans for rioting, have a look closer to home for the reason things were allowed to get so out of hand.

Last time Man Utd came to Glasgow the city was completely covered by the police, hooligan elements were snuffed out right away and few suffered trouble.

Our police can easily handle an Old Firm derby 4 times a year, yet Manchester can't handle a European final?

A few hundred caused trouble, not 100,000+. Please learn to investigate articles before you write them.

I look forward to the match, we will probably get humped but i hope the people of Manchester remember that it was the majority of people who behaved and had an excellent day and we thank the people of Manchester for their hospitality that day and for getting behind us.

Just dont blame us for the riots, you seem to know @#$%& all about them besides what you want to read.

WATP Rule Britannia

Queen's XI, thanks for your post - but quite clearly that was a typo as the context of the sentence suggested. It has now been edited to the minority. The sentence itself even says at the beginning "it should be remembered that Rangers have some of the world's most passionate supporters".

I know that the vast majority of Rangers fans travelled to Manchester to enjoy the occasion - and that the atmosphere in some quarters was excellent. Sadly, a minority caused problems that, as the article states, the media continue to drag back up all the time.

The article highlights that the media is to blame for blowing up the issue and praises many Rangers fans. Sadly, a minority tainted the occasion for all which had unfortunate consequences for United supporters in the weeks that followed. That is sure to give this year's game an extra edge - though hopefully that'll all be kept on the pitch and an electric atmosphere will be on show from 76,000 well behaved supporters.

Fair points?

Poor ol Rangers fans seem very touchy and defensive over their disgraceful behaviour on their little holiday to civilization.

Cmon down again and get a proper a$$ whooping on the field, just try not to take it out on the city eh?

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minority, majority they r rangers fans none the less. And these people are thugs imo

mark mooney
I was in Manchester with my fiancee kelly that day. we had a fantastic day. 200,000 gers fans enjoying the city and a wee dram or two. lets get this trouble into perspective, there was no trouble until certain failings by manchester city council. That all told does not excuse any violence and my condolescence goes out to any party that was injured that day. lets get behind our great team and hopefully we can qualify from this tough group.