We are likely to be hearing about the Champions League match between Lille and Manchester United in Lens for some time after the incidents on and off the pitch.
The most shocking part of the evening was the crush which took place at the Manchester United end of the Stade Felix Bollaert and it was a miracle that no-one was hospitalised. One English writer described the scenes as being very similar to the start of the Hillsborough Disaster in 1989 and that was one of the darkest days in English football history.
There were reports that some United fans were allowed into that end of the ground by stewards even though they had black market tickets for other sections of the stadium. The visiting fans appeared to be crammed into the left hand section of the stand and there were big empty spaces at the other end.
There were controversial moments on the pitch too but I will come to them later on. I must say I did not see the crowd pushing towards the security fence during the match. The local French director did not put up pictures of the crowd disturbance during the game but we did notice the police and the stewards getting involved with the United fans.
We thought that violence involving travelling English fans was back again but it now appears that we were very wrong. I have to say it was hard to commentate on the match and watch the events at that end of the stadium but we knew there had been an ‘incident’. The match did not stop but we could see frantic activity at that end involving police and club officials.
It has now become clear that as the crush began some of the United fans began to climb a 10ft security fence in an effort to get to safety. The Lille stewards tried to help them by opening a gate in the fencing but the local police thought the supporters were trying to get onto the pitch and penned them back in. They fired tear gas into the crowd and that cleared the ‘push’ but their actions were over the top.
The police presence grew as the match went on and they stayed in position right in front of the area where the crush had been and then escorted the fans out of the stadium after the home supporters had been allowed to leave.
It is a very strange feeling to hear about how close we came to a major disaster and to have been at the game and not fully realising just how serious the whole thing was. The fact that the match continued led us to believe that it was just a stand-off between the fans and the police but how wrong we were. UEFA have begun an investigation the crush and the security scare which over-shadowed Manchester United’s 1-0 victory on the night.
Lille’s home stadium is not up to UEFA standards so they had to use the ground of Lens for the match. Lens is 40-kilometres away from Lille and the stadium holds 41,000. It was a venue for the France 98 World Cup and will also be used for the Rugby World Cup later this year. The pitch is surrounded by a big metal fence; the sort which was banned in English grounds after Hillsborough. That fence is there to keep the fans in the stand but as the crush started, it could have led to some serious injuries or perhaps even worse. As I said earlier, it is a real miracle that no-one was seriously injured.
The match itself finished in controversial circumstances and Lille will have some questions to answer about the behaviour of their management, their players and some of their supporters.
You know at this stage that Ryan Giggs won the match for United with a cheeky free-kick on 83 minutes. Twenty minutes before that Lille had a goal ruled out by the referee. Replays clearly showed that striker Odemwingie had pushed and fouled Vidic just before he headed the ball into the net. That brought an angry reaction from the Lille players and supporters – but worse was to come.
Wayne Rooney and Ryan Giggs spotted that Lille keeper Sylva was not ready and some of their players were not in position for a free-kick which had been awarded right on the edge of the penalty area. The Dutch referee was happy to let them take it quickly but the Lille players were not ready. It was one of the those things you could see coming and the United players wheeled away celebrating while the Lille players surrounded the referee in disgust. They wanted to hear a whistle from the referee but it never came, nor does it have to, and the goal stood.
Right from the re-start, the Lille bench signalled to some of their players to come off the pitch in protest at the referee’s decision and the match descended into farce. I am not sure if it was Lille coach Claude Puel who gave the signal for his players to come off but afterwards he tried to defend their action by saying it was the ‘French way’ to protest in this fashion.
I really don’t buy that at all because other French teams have had poor decisions against them in UEFA club and international competitions and have not walked off the pitch! They did eventually come back to finish the match but some of the crowd threw plastic flag poles and other missiles onto the pitch. That could lead to punishment from UEFA when their investigations are concluded.
It all means that the second leg in Manchester on 7 March will be a very spicy affair. There was already some bad blood between the teams after their encounters in last season’s Champions League but there will be even more now. United have the lead and their away goal but the tie is far from over. It is a shame the whole occasion was over-shadowed by the events off the pitch but at least no-one was seriously hurt in Lens.
