A series of events led to a small minority of so called Hammers fans throwing objects which broke the blackout covering in front of windows on the Manchester United team coach.
There can be no excuse for the small minority of Hammers fans that threw the bottles and cans at the bus at the corner of Barking Road and Green Street but questions also need to be asked of the role of the Metropolitan police and Manchester United too.
When I arrived on Green street at 5.30pm it was already completely packed with over two hours before the scheduled kick-off and quickly became grid-locked with traffic. This became much worst when police vans and people carriers parked in the middle of Green Street which caused dangerous crowd crushing as fans were funnelled around cars and parked police vans. Some fans were scared and thought they could be injured.
The area around the Bobby Moore champions statue became a major crowd pinch point mainly due to the overspill of the Boleyn Pub who couldn’t handle the amount of fans wanting to drink in there one last time.
There were also many fans, certainly hundreds, possibly as many as a few thousand without tickets for the game. These fans were in Green street, drinking in the local pubs to soak up the last night’s atmosphere which was hyped in the media all week.
The narrow streets and the entrance to the Boleyn ground players car park isn’t the easiest of places to get to at the best of times and questions have to be asked why Manchester United were late yet again after being fined £5,000 for their late arrival at White Hart Lane just last month.
You would think their transport organiser and the coach operator would have learnt their lesson and set out much earlier. They should have arrived around 4pm considering the plans for the night. It is claimed the team stayed just three miles away in a hotel in nearby Docklands but the coach hit traffic around East Ham just before 6pm and couldn’t move.
West Ham fans close to the statue were certainly in high spirits after many hours of drinking but were also frustrated at being forced back by police to allow the late Manchester United team coach through the packed East London streets.
In his post-match interview, LVG partially blamed yesterday’s loss on the coach incident and paper headlines suggested players were frightened and cowering but a player video from Jesse Lingard inside the coach showed many of them thought it was amusing and were joking around during the incident. It didn’t seem to bother them earlier in the match when they took the 2-1 lead, only later when they lost 3-2!
Disappointing headlines this morning of ‘West Ham hooligans ambushed the Manchester United team bus’ and ‘West Ham’s Upton Park farewell turns into anarchy as mindless thugs go on the rampage’ will feed the media frenzy today that this was some kind of mass riot when video footage below shows the full extent of the short-lived incident.
The papers won’t mention the majority of the 35,000 crowd were well behaved and there was no other trouble or feared pitch invasion. It’s a real shame that most non-West Ham fans will remember this event and not the last historic win over the Red Devils at the Boleyn Ground. I am sure we have not heard the last of this sorry episode and we will be in for some more West Ham fan bashing in the media over the coming weeks as the FA, club and Met Police all investigate.
What the minority of fans did to the coach was wrong but let’s not over react and pander to the media’s agenda.
Nah. easier just to blame mindless West Ham thugs.Sells papers, gives so called journalists the opportunity to do a bit of Hammer bashing and make excuses for their darlings:- Man U. No one mentions that it happens at Old Trafford also.
Sadly this incident has over shadowed what was a brilliant night last night, proper made me proud to be a west ham fan watching on sky last night, well gutted I never had a ticket, but so chuffed we beat the mancs and chuffed for those that was there, they will no doubt remember that night forever.
As for the disorder, it was something I feared could happen, I was tempted to go last night and have a beer around the ground to say goodbye and soak up the atmosphere one final time, but had a feeling something bad was gonna happen.
There was bound to be loads of fans, without tickets going to Upton Park for one last time and having a good drink up all afternoon, and that sadly was the result.
There is no excuse for chucking stuff at the manc coach, but looking at their own video from inside the coach they was laughing and joking.
Rooney looked a bit angry when he arrived, maybe his syrup got disturbed.
The final home game should have been organised for the final day of the season(just like it was for Arsenal and Man city) and this wouldn’t have happened, so I think the TV companies who obviously dictate these things should shoulder some of the blame
The whole of the media including cretins like Mr E Homes are making a right royal mounting out of a very tiny molehill.
Which of course is very typical of our pathetic media.
Lovely how they do not mention facts like No one was arrested, the Man United team turning up several hours late (again) despite clear warnings from our owners, or how poorly the police handled things from start to finish, or the fact that inside the ground 99% of fans were very well behaved.
Completely agree Sean, although unsightly and poor on behalf of the minority of bottle throwers, Utd should accept their portion of the blame, their players if anything seemed to enjoy it based on Lingaards video and others of them taking pictures from their phones!!! It is more distressing that innocent bystanders and fans were caught up in it and were affected as well as the negative media it draws to what was an unbelievable send off to our magnificent old ground