I feel sorry for her, George says. [17], Throughout the day large numbers of fans, both English and Turkish, were seen throughout the city and at the airport. I knew the ramifications would be life-long.. Istanbul was like no other event he has dealt with. That decision drew much criticism, as well it might. They had been a couple since their teens. He was showered with stickers and sweets gifts from friends who lived locally and Ridsdale, who supported both families throughout, delivered Easter eggs to the house for him and Holly. Andy was jailed in 2013 for his part in a fight between Leeds and Tottenham Hotspur fans in which a Spurs supporter was knocked unconscious. [10][12] This led to the final being considered "high risk"; 2,000 members of the Danish police were assigned to the game, with assistance from members of British and Turkish police forces. This year is the 20th anniversary of the mens deaths in Istanbul and many of their relatives carry those events as if they happened yesterday. Give our social media channels a follow . Their policing of City Hall Square in the days running up to the final was described as "non-existent" by Dineen. How the violence started is unclear. It is his life and his career, much as the option of Galatasaray was incapable of arising without anyone passing comment. The events of the day started early in the morning when skirmishes broke out in a bar, which led to an Arsenal fan being stabbed. 12/02/2021 . On April 5 2000 two Leeds fans, Kevin Speight and Christopher Loftus, were stabbed to death before the 2000 Uefa Cup semi-final first leg against Galatasaray in Taksim Square, Istanbul. It is part of Leeds Uniteds fabric and it will never disappear: the night when football became murder and so many lives were changed. But it had to be done., In the circumstances, did it surprise Fallows that the game in Istanbul went ahead? [18] Arsenal fans congregated in nearby bars. Within minutes, a pitched battle erupted. Spencer interrupted dinner to advise Ridsdale that they should return to the hotel immediately. Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right. Fatih Terim, Galatasaray's coach, had whipped up his side's supporters. What they were seeing was pretty graphic so we said to them, Turn the tellies off, go to bed and wait for us to get some proper details. The footage was grainy and frightening, capturing a helpless Loftus with bloodstains on his shirt. Harry Kewell (born 22 September 1978) is an Australian association football coach, manager and former player. [40], The Danish police were also criticised for their handling of the riots. Speight arrived soon after and was seen chatting to midfielder Alan Smith as they walked through the breezy foyer at Ataturk Airport. There isnt much that unnerves me but that was quite a scary moment. Who really cares?. He previously worked for the Yorkshire Evening Post as its chief football writer. The stadium is stuck in a state of eerie silence but this Sunday it will do what it always does on April 5 by standing in salute to the two who were lost. The first time he went inside to be present, he sat with friends and cried. [4] Police arrested Ali Umit Demir and three other men for the stabbings. We tried to keep a lot of the information about what had happened [to Speight and Loftus] from them, rightly or wrongly. Asked shortly afterwards whether he thought the tie would still go ahead, Mr Ridsdale said: "It's too early to say. A week or so later, we lost 4-0 to Arsenal. He died in an operating theatre in the early hours of the morning, despite Leeds United paying for blood supplies to be rushed to him. Bowyer leads out the Leeds team as the first leg went ahead (Photo: Steve Mitchell/EMPICS via Getty Images), A minutes silence is observed before the return leg at Elland Road (Photo: Steve Mitchell/EMPICS via Getty Images). Acquittal plea in soccer death trial. The Loftuses had travelled to Turkey on the same flight as David OLearys players. It was our way of making sure the cameras and the world took notice of us.. There were a few Turkish fans outside the bars we started drinking in but we didnt think much of it. Then you get your head around whats actually happened. [2] The events happened at 22:00 in Istanbul's Taksim Square during a fight between Leeds fans and Galatasaray fans. The Turkish. Galatasaray away on April 6, 2000; a huge occasion for the club in a football sense, Ridsdale says. In Turkey, two supporters were murdered. When the press came round, me and my cousin would bounce on my bed to try and get in the photos and in the papers. That is true. From 5pm local time more than 100 Leeds fans had arrived shouting, singing and demanding beer, according to Batu Dedeler, the bar owner. [34] The Copenhagen riots followed a long line of similar events involving English football fans, and in June, UEFA's executive committee listed the Heysel Stadium disaster, disorders in Charleroi and Brussels, the killing of the two Leeds fans in Istanbul, and the Copenhagen riots and warned the British government that if there was any more rioting then England would be expelled from Euro 2000. The police told us themselves that the shoe-shine boys had been trailing us for a while, waiting to see when some of us had split away from the main group.. For me, it didnt feel real. Later in the day, Galatasaray fans occupied City Hall Square before heading towards Arsenal fans in bars nearby. I didnt want to be standing there telling them what to do and I understood that they didnt want to hear it. Ridsdale and Leedss operations director, David Spencer, were at a floating restaurant on the Bosphorus when they were phoned to tell them trouble in the centre of Istanbul had resulted in at least two fans being hospitalised. pleasant grove high school / staff directory; dr omar suleiman wife esraa; ontario road trip summer; song baseball apple; waltham athletic club tennis schedule; galatasaray leeds death. The road to justice for the Speight and Loftus families was long and demoralising. Absolutely amazed and totally stunned. At a local police station, at around 4am on April 6, Ridsdale was given a stark message by the UEFA representative who turned up there: play the game, or forfeit it and incur an automatic 3-0 defeat. Following the two tragic deaths, local police arrested and charged four Galatasaray supporters with murder. He just happened to run into some tossers with knives., George was so young that the aftermath almost strayed into boyhood adventure. She remarried and shes carried on with her life but its still there, every time you come up to my dads birthday or the anniversary. Those killed were "attackers", it said. Ali Sami Yen was in a league of its own in atmosphere terms, aggressive and ferocious for visiting sides. Last year, on the 20th anniversary of the killings in Istanbul, The Athletic spoke to some of the people closest to the tragedy and some of the people most affected by it. The only thing I could compare it to is the One Love concert in Manchester (held after the terrorist bombing at the Manchester Arena in 2017) and thats purely because of how difficult the logistics of One Love were, he says. Several fans offered to foot the bill. Riots and 2 English deaths around UEFA Cup matches Galatasaray from Turkey against English teams in 2000 The plaque on the wall by Elland Roads East Stand says Never Forgotten and Leeds United swore themselves to those words. They felt we were overreacting. In all the many layers of anger, that was one of them; the apparent inability to adopt some common decency. The death of the two Leeds fans in street fighting in central Istanbul on Wednesday turned Galatasaray's Ali Sami Yen Stadium into an armed camp, with 10,000 police patrolling in and around the . He rushed to Taksim hospital, near where the men were stabbed. Everything happened in a flash. Galatasaray wanted me from the start. I just said to them, Good luck., Galatasarays reputation went before them. I heard the rumours that some Leeds fan wiped his arse with a Turkey flag and things like that but people tell me none of its true. Twenty Leeds fans, witnesses to the fight, were interviewed. I didnt feel that their response was what our response would have been. [24] It was claimed that the police failed to control the riots,[43] and that they had been undermanned and outmaneuvered, to which Mogens Lauridsen, the police chief in Copenhagen admitted that the police had been "under-prepared". The setting was Turkeys biggest city, on the banks of the Bosphorus, and the game was the first leg of a UEFA Cup semi-final. [6] Demir was later found guilty of murder and was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment, but released in 2004. zhuri james net worth 2021 / low carb ground beef and spinach recipes / low carb ground beef and spinach recipes At the hotel, Phil went up to his room. "They were using very bad language," said Abdul Garlad, a manager. They ploughed on regardless, much like UEFA, and left Ridsdale thinking that their directors were more worried about distancing themselves from the stabbings than helping Leeds cope with them. Bouncers guarded the bars from any English fans. I was amazed, he says. I am not sure if the first few expected fighting but I saw one guy running to a telephone to call his friends after he saw the English. In the first leg it was difficult to say, Lets get out there do it for the two lads because we didnt have the full picture, Gray says. The Turkish police didnt give a shit about us. We had to say to them as clearly as we could, If you go into the streets, if you go out drinking, we cant tell you how dangerous itll be. Because I was so young and the memories arent clear, I get times when I ask myself if it really happened. Holly, as a two-year-old, was left with no memories at all. on the 20th anniversary of the killings in Istanbul. Nicolo Zaniolo signed on a permanent deal MORE. Some headed for the James Joyce pub 200 metres away and joined a sing-song against Galatasaray. Tributes began to cover the gates and the Billy Bremner Statue at Elland Road. [17] This came after Arsenal had warned the police before the final that there could be hooligans travelling to Copenhagen. They just looked at me like I was stupid.. Leeds Crown Court sentenced him to 12 months. ", "They came to kill; Turk fans arm for war", "Arsenal worried about hooligans at UEFA Cup", "First class thugs; Postmen are caught in Copenhagen football rampage", "Post Office refuses to reinstate worker", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2000_UEFA_Cup_Final_riots&oldid=1113653919, Pages containing links to subscription-only content, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 2 October 2022, at 15:57. The morning after Loftus and Speight were killed, Fallows and Stokoe were asked by Ridsdale to visit every hotel where the clubs supporters were staying. The design of the place meant the Leeds players had to take a long walk to the tunnel, flanked by armed police. By last night's kick-off, the pools of blood, shattered glass and debris had been cleared away. [30] A Danish police officer[22] and a Turkish cameraman were also injured in the riots. [30] In total, nineteen people were injured and sixty people were arrested,[27] with 15 of the arrested being subsequently banned from attending Euro 2000. It takes a certain amount of nerve to put a foot in both camps, which is doubtless why Harry Kewell was able to do so in 2008 when he left Liverpool for the Ali Sami Yen. It was completely against your idea of law and order. Gray, a Glaswegian, was in the Celtic end with his wife Linda on the day of the Ibrox disaster in 1971. I was so pleased to get on the plane out of Turkey but once I got back and thought about things, the reality of two lads dying out there got to me. [12] However, there were conflicting reports, with claims that some Galatasaray fans were instigating some of the violence. As a family, I dont know how you come to terms with that., Inside the Ali Sami Yen, hundreds of Leeds supporters attended the first leg as planned and were housed in a small section of yellow seats. At this juncture, it should be said that Kewell and Alioski were not identical. As chairman of Leeds, he told the UEFA official that it would make sense to postpone the first leg of the semi-final which Leeds and Galatasaray were about to play. It is 10 years since he last went to the grave. I know bits and bats but it doesnt help me to go over it, he says. The Turkish side are hated by those at Elland Road after two travelling fans were stabbed to death by Galatasaray supporters prior to the UEFA Cup semi-final in 2000. Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. When the hospital said they were short of blood supplies, Ridsdale sent his chauffeur off to get more. Obviously he liked his football too. As kick-off drew near, the drums and the noise from the stadium filtered down to the Ali Sami Yens subterranean dressing rooms. He previously worked for the Yorkshire Evening Post as its chief football writer. Loftus had been stabbed five times and Speight twice. You got paid each month and you did this, Andy says, gesturing as if to push a wad of banknotes into a drawer. The problem shouldn't have been Alioski or his next club, it's how Galatasaray dealt with that tragedy By Phil Hay Jul 24, 2021 In the early hours of the morning after the death of two Leeds. In the case of Loftus brother Andy, he prefers not to make a big deal of his surname for fear of the questions that might follow; the feeling of being always on show. I dont want to imply criticism of the hospital for that, Ridsdale says. Theyd been seeing each other for about six months.. Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. But from 10.30pm local time, any sense of complacency seemed tragically misplaced, as a brutal battle began between Leeds supporters and a group of Turks, with running fights in the streets. Andy has paid for the plaque to be cleaned a couple of times and it could do with another polish now. [48] In 2001, the tribunal ruled in their favour,[49] and ordered Royal Mail to reinstate them. He has never spoken about his memories of Turkey before but, like Andy Loftus, says he wants to reflect 20 years on. I dont know if the club encouraged them to do that but you were well aware of objects hitting the shields. They will never be forgotten.. Leeds have never forgiven Eric Cantona for . Leeds' bitter hatred towards the Turkish side is no secret after two of their supporters, Chris Loftus and Kevin Speight, were stabbed to death by Galatasaray fans prior to the UEFA Cup. Christopher's brother was there [at the time of the incident] and I think that the impact on those two families can never be underestimated.". For George, the clearest memories of his dad are few and slightly random. He must have been off his head., Ian Harte, the left-back, is more vivid in describing it. Andy Loftus had flown to watch the match with his brother. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. The routine for Andy and others who went abroad with Leeds was always the same: straight to the hotel, straight into town, straight on the beer. Both families come here each April 5, to lay flowers and let another year pass. My mum just felt she had to move on. [18] Later, large numbers of Galatasaray fans congregated in Copenhagen's City Hall Square, raising the Turkish flag in the square. This led to 19 injuries, including 4 stabbings, and 60 arrests with similar events occurring in England and Turkey in the aftermath of the riots. Wed heard that Istanbul could be a bit dangerous but we never thought anything of it, Andy says. Can Nigeria's election result be overturned?
What Is Jessica Boynton Doing Now, Is Dallas Roberts Related To John Ritter, Stephanie March Mn Family, Goodbye Letter To Kindergarten Students From Teacher, Motolease Going Out Of Business, Articles G