Here is an account of a Millwall fan, on his blogging site:
I was at the stadium about 30 yards away from where this all happened so I'd appreciate if you took the time to read my account of what actually happened. First of all - I resent the comment 'Millwall are the scum of the earth'. That little girl you saw there is Millwall. My 5 year old nephew and my 60 year old dad who were with me at the game today are Millwall. We, along with 99% of the Millwall fans in that stadium are no different to any other fans in the world. The people you saw in that footage are the scum of the earth - there is no defending or denying that and you wont find a single Millwall fan who disagrees with you. We are a club who gets an average home attendance of 12,000 fans - there were 35,000 Millwall fans at Wembley today. Where have they come from? Your guess is as good as mine, but I can assure you thousands of them have no affiliation with the club whatsoever. What ACTUALLY caused the mass brawl? The brawl actually started about 10 minutes before the cameras seem to have picked up on it. First of all - everyone in that part of the ground was pretty much standing at the time, because we had a lot of possession at that end of the pitch and were having a decent spell. From what we could work out, there were 1 or 2 drunk guys who started pushing and shoving (we didnt see how it started). This simmered on for a while and they were stumbling across rows knocking in to others. The people they were knocking into were with their families and obviously reacted and told them where to go (like anyone would). The drunk guys then started on these people. Here is where it escalated. At this stage, at any ground in England, you'd normally expect stewards and/or police to step in and sort it out. I can tell you, and you will see yourself if you can find a wide enough angle, there must have been no fewer than 40 stewards standing at the front of that section of stand who were just watching the fighting and doing NOTHING. Not radioing for help, not going to get help, not even standing up - just watching. There were police in the corners of the ground also watching and doing nothing. There were, I'd estimate, no fewer than 100 Millwall fans trying to get the attention of the stewards and police to no avail whatsoever, while these idiots had been brawling and knocking into them and there families for the last 5-10 minutes while they were trying to watch the game. Then Wigan score - effectively ending the game for us. At this stage, the drunk dickheads from neighbouring stands had decided to come and see for themselves what was going on - I'd guess about 15 guys came over. This chaos went on for about 10-15 minutes before the police came wading in from the tunnel indiscriminately hitting people with truncheons including the people trying to defend their families. This caused people to turn their anger towards the police - and to be honest, while I don't condone their actions, having watched that chaos unfold for 10 minutes, I understood them. What you saw on TV was this last segment of events - not the build up. Now let me ask you - what can any club do if there are 2-3 people who turn up and just want to have a fight? What more could Millwall as a club have done? We don't control the police. We don't control the stewards. Please don't tar us all with the same brush.
Comments
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2308633/Millwall-shame-FA-Cup-fans-fight-EACH-OTHER-stands-Wembley.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
champs08 Posted 13/4/2013 21:40
#1280424 - in reply to #1280418
Subject: Re: Violence
Posts: 2670
Exactly. The FA should look hard at themselves. 5:15 kick off, fck all police and stewards- a joke.
Bulls**t !!! Anything to deflect the blame!! They really are just scum!!
Here is an account of a Millwall fan, on his blogging site:
I was at the stadium about 30 yards away from where this all happened so I'd appreciate if you took the time to read my account of what actually happened.
First of all - I resent the comment 'Millwall are the scum of the earth'. That little girl you saw there is Millwall. My 5 year old nephew and my 60 year old dad who were with me at the game today are Millwall. We, along with 99% of the Millwall fans in that stadium are no different to any other fans in the world.
The people you saw in that footage are the scum of the earth - there is no defending or denying that and you wont find a single Millwall fan who disagrees with you. We are a club who gets an average home attendance of 12,000 fans - there were 35,000 Millwall fans at Wembley today. Where have they come from? Your guess is as good as mine, but I can assure you thousands of them have no affiliation with the club whatsoever.
What ACTUALLY caused the mass brawl?
The brawl actually started about 10 minutes before the cameras seem to have picked up on it. First of all - everyone in that part of the ground was pretty much standing at the time, because we had a lot of possession at that end of the pitch and were having a decent spell. From what we could work out, there were 1 or 2 drunk guys who started pushing and shoving (we didnt see how it started). This simmered on for a while and they were stumbling across rows knocking in to others. The people they were knocking into were with their families and obviously reacted and told them where to go (like anyone would). The drunk guys then started on these people.
Here is where it escalated. At this stage, at any ground in England, you'd normally expect stewards and/or police to step in and sort it out. I can tell you, and you will see yourself if you can find a wide enough angle, there must have been no fewer than 40 stewards standing at the front of that section of stand who were just watching the fighting and doing NOTHING. Not radioing for help, not going to get help, not even standing up - just watching. There were police in the corners of the ground also watching and doing nothing. There were, I'd estimate, no fewer than 100 Millwall fans trying to get the attention of the stewards and police to no avail whatsoever, while these idiots had been brawling and knocking into them and there families for the last 5-10 minutes while they were trying to watch the game.
Then Wigan score - effectively ending the game for us.
At this stage, the drunk dickheads from neighbouring stands had decided to come and see for themselves what was going on - I'd guess about 15 guys came over. This chaos went on for about 10-15 minutes before the police came wading in from the tunnel indiscriminately hitting people with truncheons including the people trying to defend their families. This caused people to turn their anger towards the police - and to be honest, while I don't condone their actions, having watched that chaos unfold for 10 minutes, I understood them. What you saw on TV was this last segment of events - not the build up.
Now let me ask you - what can any club do if there are 2-3 people who turn up and just want to have a fight? What more could Millwall as a club have done? We don't control the police. We don't control the stewards. Please don't tar us all with the same brush.