sendin letters and match reports


Rosie McGee's - The place to be ! Re. Copenhagen lads Thu May 18 15:12:52 2000

Football riot thugs go free

by John Sturgis, in Copenhagen Football thugs involved in violence which shamed the nation and put England's 2006 World Cup bid in jeopardy, will get off scot free. The Danish authorities today dismayed British police by announcing that they would allow trouble makers arrested during the full-scale riots involving Arsenal and Galatasaray fans to leave Copenhagen without being prosecuted.

Unless thugs are convicted of their crimes in the country in which they are committed it is impossible, under British law, for them to be banned from travelling to future international matches. The result is that the Arsenal hooligans behind yesterday's violent rampages will all be free to travel to next month's Euro 2000 tournament in Holland and Belgium where it is feared there will be renewed hostilities with Turkish supporters. Some Arsenal supporters, returning to Luton after their team's defeat, predicted there would be violence between Turkish and English hooligans in June.

Tony Gillespie, 27, a plumber from Finchley, said: "I think there will be organised violence." The two teams have not been drawn to play each other - England's most security sensitive fixture is their first game, against Germany - but they will be playing one group game just 25 miles apart in the Netherlands and rival fans are almost certain to encounter each other as a result. Superintendent Flemming Munch of the Danish police said the total number of arrests yesterday and early today was 52, with 15 Britons, 15 Turks, 15 Danes of Turkish origin and seven assorted Scandinavians taken into custody. Police were this morning reviewing evidence against them but none will be prosecuted. "We don't want to keep them in Denmark any longer than we have to," said Spt Munch. "They will be taken by police escort to the airport and put aboard whatever planes we can find."

It is thought that a number of neo-nazi Scandinavians infiltrated the Arsenal crowds and joined in the attacks on Turks. But Mark Steels, a spokesman for the National Criminal Intelligence Service which is responsible for identifying British hooligans abroad, flatly rejected reports that fans of other English clubs, including Leeds, had been involved in the trouble or had travelled to Copenhagen at all. "There were sightings of people in Leeds United shirts but we know for a fact those were bought by Arsenal fans at Stansted Airport and we're convinced that what happened did not involve fans of other English clubs." The FA this morning supported an announcement by Arsenal that it would impose life bans on any fans identified as being involved in the trouble.

The FA condemned the "mindless violence" and apologised to the people of Copenhagen but said it could still press ahead with England's World Cup bid without fear of instant dismissal. Face of hate: mobs taunt each other across police lines Executive director David Davies speaking in Lancaster Gate hours after returning from Denmark said that "although the fighting between English and Turkish fans was not helpful it does not mean the end of our bid". He added that the people of Copenhagen "deserve the apologies of ourselves and of the Turks. There are no excuses." Meanwhile Danish police, who have admitted that they were taken by surprise by the extent and ferocity of the violence, said they would be conducting an inquiry into what went wrong. Spt Munch said: "We'll be reviewing what happened. We are aware of the criticism and we will try to learn lessons for the future."

Thanks

I would just like to express my thanks for all the support and messages posted on here about the shocking events in turkey.

I would especially like to thank the man united fans for both their messages on here and the tributes they have left at Elland Road. God knows they have plenty of reasons not to show us respect but they have risen above this and I can tell you this will never be forgotten on my part.

You have all read the reports and comments on what happened and we all went over them time and time again. At the end of the day people will make their own minds up.

I will just add this our group of 30 who were present in the aspen restaurant went out of our way not to cause offence in fact (and the staff there have backed this up) we were having a great time.

You all know some leeds lads are regular posters on here and you all know we share a common interest but let me tell you this, what happened that night was nothing to do with that.

Finally I would like to thank Mark (if you are the one who walked to the ground from the police station) and some of the other lads there for keeping their heads in a very strained situation and ensuring that those 2 lads died as football fans and family men and not as the hooligans the turks would like everyone to believe.

Lastly as I know the british police monitor these sites I would just like to say FUCK YOU, YOU BASTARDS you have disrespected our dead and if you think those two men deserved that, then I hope you are thoroughly ashamed of yourself.

T - Leeds

Fenerbahce

DEAR FRIENDS,

WE, FENERBAHCE FANS ARE VERY SORRY REGARDING THE UNWANTED THINGS HAPPENED LAST NIGHT. WE WOULD LIKE TO INFORM YOU THAT THIS IS NOT A SITUATION FORMED BY CHANCE. THESE GALA HOLLIGANS ARE PAID BY THE COACH FATIH TERIM AND GIVEN FREE TICKETS TO COME TO THEIR MATCHES AND ATTACK TO EVERYONE ELSE AGAINST THEIR INTERSTS. THIS FIGHT HAS BEEN PALNNED FOR A WEEK AGO BY THIS GROUP. AFTER THE LEEDS FANS ARRIVED TO ISTANBUL ALL THESE GALA WILD GROUP TELEPHONED TO EACH OTHER AND PROMISED TO MEET AFTER IT GETS DARK AT THE PLACE CALLED TAKSIM WHERE ALL THE LEEDS FANS WERE STAYING. AFTER THEY HAD MEET THEY STARTED TO LOOK FOR SOME PEOPLE FROM LEEDS TO FIGHT. THE FOUD THAT SMALL BAR AT TAKSIM WHERE FULL OF LEEDS SUPPORTERS HAVING FUN AND THEN THEY ATTACTED HIM. THIS IS NOT A SUPRICE FOR US. THIS YEAR IN THE DERBY MATCH BETWEEN FENERBAHCE AND GALA GALA FANS ATTACKED TO THREE CHILDREN AT AGE 15 BECAUSE THEY WERE THE SUPPORTERS OF FENERBAHCE. THESE GALA FUNS ARE PROTECTED BY A FORMER TURKISH POLICE CHIEF WHO IS A GALA FUN MEHMET AGAR. WE ALL WISH GOOD LUCK TO LEEDS THE TEAM WHICH HAS THE SAME COLORS WITH FENERBAHCE AND HOPE YOU WILL WIN AGAINST THESE WILD ANIMALS OF FATIH TERIM.
BEST REGARDS KILL FOR YOU 3:1
P.S. K.F.Y. IS THE NAME OF FENERBAHCE SUPPORTERS GROUP AGAINST GALA, Passer By

THE TRUTH ?!

They came to watch a football match and they died in agony, stabbed in a foreign city. You can still see the blood of Christopher Loftus and Kevin Speight on the pavement. But why were they killed? Steve Wilkinson was with Mr Loftus when he died. Now he is sitting in a hotel lobby, his left leg full of stitches from a machete wound, his right hand in bandages from fending off the second blow of the knife - a blow that could have killed him. "It was an ambush," he said. "They were waiting for us outside the bar,about 100 of them, all tooled up with knives and bits of broken furniture. This wasn't about football - it was Turkey making a statement against the British." Lee Dawson, another Leeds fan, said he was threatened hours before the two men were killed. "I was in the bazaar," he said. "This guy said to me, 'Tomorrow I'm going to kill you, I'm going to stab you'." From the street where Mr Loftus and Mr Speight died come other voices. "It was your lot who started it: the English," said Habip Kaya, who sells bus tickets on the streets from a flimsy wooden box. "I used to have a glass box," he said, "but the English fans took it last night and smashed it over a Turk's head. I'm not a Turkish nationalist, I'm Kurdish, but it was your lot who started it." But his friend, Nurettin Demir, a shoe-shiner, disagrees. "It was the Turks who started it," he said. "I saw it with my own eyes. The English were swearing at them, but it was the Turks who threw the first punch." Another voice, from Turkey's Human Rights Association, which has spent years accusing the state of attacking the rights of Kurds, said: "Visiting English supporters were beaten and mercilessly killed in Istanbul's most crowded and'safest' centres, while police watched. We condemn this crime, which results from racism and barbarity." But what really happened on that windy night in Istanbul, when the myth of "Welcome to Hell" became reality? All along Cumhuriyet Street, where the two Leeds fans were murdered, a code of silence reigns. "I didn't see anything," said the waiter at the Han restaurant, where some of the English fans, including Mr Speight, were drinking. "It happened somewhere else." But Mr Loftus died a few metres from the restaurant door, soaked in his own blood.It was shown on Turkish television. The reaction on the streets is cool. People say it's terrible that the two men were killed, but there is no weeping or wringing of hands. The answer is the same everywhere: "I saw nothing." Even at the Aspen bar, where Mr Loftus and Mr Wilkinson were drinking, a waiter, nervous under the watchful eyes of a police officer, gives the same reply. But one man saw everything, and told it. He was too frightened to give his name - people often are in Turkey. He is a young Kurd, wearing a Galatasaray scarf - the colours of the fans who murdered Mr Loftus and Mr Speight -and, like Mr Demir, making money polishing shoes. As people went about their business - catching buses, buying snacks - on the spot where Mr Loftus died only hours before, he told their story. "I brought them to this bar," he said. "I thought I was getting them away from the trouble." In his wallet is the Yorkshire address of one of the Leeds fans - a friend made before the night ended in tragedy. "There was trouble in Taksim Square." The central Istanbul square is a few hundred metres away. "There were a lot of Galatasaray hooligans, and they were having a slanging match with some Leeds fans - not the ones who died but some others. I saw the guy who died and his friends coming" - according to Mr Wilkinson, they had just left the James Joyce, a local Irish bar - "and I told them to come here, to Aspen. I thought it would be safe." In the Aspen bar, Necattin Cak at first denied that Mr Loftus and his friends were ever there. But, pressed, he admits they were. "But they were good people. As they left I told them, 'The English and the Turks are brothers'." But Mr Cak still claims he saw nothing, "As soon as the fighting started I shut the shutters." But the Kurdish shoe-shiner saw. "The police moved the Galatasaray hooligans on from Taksim to here. They were looking for trouble, and they threw the first punch. But it was the other Leeds fans, the ones in Han restaurant,who started it. They dropped their trousers and said things like 'That's Galatasaray,' or 'That's your mother'." Muslum Sundar, a waiter,confirms this. "They were throwing money around and swearing. One of them urinated on the street." Rowdy, certainly, but not unheard of behaviour for drunken football fans in England. But in Turkey, swearing alone is much more offensive than in Britain. Just being drunk is frowned upon. The behaviour Mr Sundar describes is unthinkable - unless you are a foreigner who simply does not understand the country at all. As Mike Gawthorpe, a fan who managed to avoid the trouble, said, "It's normal for the Leeds lads to have a bit of a fight at the end of the evening." English fighting: fists and broken noses. But it is not normal in Turkey, where people have easy access to knives and guns and male honour is still paramount. Most Turks will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid a fight, because they know that when you fight in this country, people often get killed. But there are more sinister accusations wound up in the whole tragic tale of the murdered Leeds fans. "The police did nothing to stop the Turkish fans," said Mr Wilkinson. "In fact, they helped them. They were there from the start. When Darren Loftus was on his knees trying to resuscitate his brother Christopher, a policeman hit him in the head with his truncheon. Half my leg was hanging out but they took me to a police station before they took me to the hospital." No local would corroborate Mr Wilkinson's accusations. But if it was the police who moved the Galatasaray fans into Cumhuriyet Street, how did they allow the violence to get so out of hand that Mr Loftus was killed on the street, and Mr Speight died of his wounds in hospital a few hours later? Mr Wilkinson and his friends say they identified Mr Loftus's killer at a police identity parade. "If he isn't charged we'll know there's no justice in Turkey," said Mr Wilkinson.

FROM A "PROPER ENGLISH MESSAGE BOARD". THE BLOKE WRITING THE FIRST BIT IS WEST HAM AND A MATE OF GJ, WELL KNOW LEEDS. GJ'S BIT IS UNDERNEATH

. Gjs just called me - Obviously very upset - I'm not going to go into too much apart from this which everyone needs to know He and Mark were in the group on Wednesday night - he said there was no atmosphere , not even any singing and chanting , everyone was well behaved and just having a good drink - As time got on they decided to go to another bar to see if they could view the Chelsea game - some decided to go and watch it in the hotel . Everyone was scattered about outside as they leaving and suddenly they were ambushed from all angles.. Now the Turks weren't just tooled up , they were carrying machetes , 4 foot poles - meat cleavers etc.... Gjs saw with his own eyes as did Mark, people being slashed - cut at the throat - The big lad we saw on TV with blood pouring out of his mouth had been attacked with a metal chain........ He saw everyone come back to the bar and then the wounded on the floor being attended to - given the kiss of life etc..... The police finally arrived yet started lashing out at the English lads trying to attend to their mates Mark was slashed but fortunately was wearing thick clothing and is ok One of the main things is though and something you may have gathered yourself - DID YOU WONDER WHY THERE WAS SUCH GOOD FOOTAGE ON TV ETC . It was a SET UP. The camera 's were obviously with this mob of Turks and following them around - no OB were present , everything was captured on camera GJS - sorry I've not worded this too well as you have just explained to me.... Everyone on this board feels for you and Mark , I hope that when you are feeling better and had a good sleep you can come and type in your own words,, All our thoughts are with you two and your fellow mates The two killed were NOT so called 'Hooligan blacklisted' No ONE was looking for trouble , yes there were some lads there but they were all keeping their heads down and , as I said earlier , there was no atmosphere at all. This was just nothing but murder and the sooner the media realise this the better - they wont though will they ? ALl we hear is English this/ that riots... Thats bollocks , nothing of the sort happened

AND THIS IS NOW THE GUYS GENUINE MESSAGE

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My nightmare in Turkey Friday, 07-Apr-2000 11:34:53

Message:

I am totally devasted with the outcome of Wednesday night. I cannot really or simply don't know where to begin. As i begin to type tears are running down my face onto my keyboard. Seeing a grown man cry is awful and there are plenty of them at Leeds Utd. The utter shock and bewilderment of this can and will not ever sink in. I was present that evening and as we left a bar i never could imagine the tidal wave that was about to hit us. You will have read papers and watched news reports and formulated your own opinions but now you will hear the truth and perhaps understand the fear that everyone of us there felt. We left a bar just off Taksim square as we were told the Chelsea game was on somewhere else. There was no more than 25 of us. We were not chanting, nor provoking anybody as we began to walk up the road. GJS was still finishing is drink, thankfully. The street was packed with locals eating in restaurants and generally socialising and then it all erupted. From nowhere a swarm of turks popped up tooled up to the eyeballs. Meatcleavers, little swords, knives, bars both metal and wooden and chairs all came showering are way. You could not see the wood for the trees. Within moments i had been slashed across the back of the shoulder and arm, but thankfully scrambled to my feet. At first i did not know this because my adrenalin was kicking in...and fast. We were getting fucked and there were lads on the pavement bleeding and shouting. We had been forced back some thirty yards, but there were still lads furthur up the road getting hammered. So a few of us started to scream encouragement at each other as we knew we had to retaliate and fast. We lost the plot and began to charge the turks back up the road with poles and chairs that they had used on us, to get to our stranded. But this made it worse and the turk OB came in this time allowing them a free run with the rein. We were getting paggered but refused to run. One turk was stabbing one of the deceased in the arse as he layed there fighting for his life. One of our lot tried to give mouth to mouth on the road, and what did the OB do...whacked him...fuckin cowards..real fuckin cowards. Eventually it calmed down as there was a huge media presence, but it was all too late..there had been murder. People with horrific injuries were being nicked and manhandled to the OB station before going to hospital, none of them (Turks) gave a fuck. A numbness came over me and it's still not disappeared, we new Chris was dead and others critical for us the world had ended. I will stress to you lads who read this and all OB, there was never any provocation from ourselves, we were savagely attacked by these people. There is one point to consider...Why were the media there within seconds of this with the turk OB. We think this was premeditated, a pure setup, just to get a fuckin story. Well the horrible bastards have one...at our expense. This will never be forgotten we are all scarred in our minds for life. They were'nt hard just cowards who needed weapons. I feel sick emotionally and even begun to cry again, i'm sorry but i will leave it at that.
Regards to you all as always lufc Mark

"A nice day Haarlem"

Haarlem - Den Haag 11-04-1999

Because before the match it wasn't a state of emergency (SOF)it was our intention to go to the match Haarlem-Den Haag on own transportation. We would go with the car and an other group would go by train. Our meeting point was Central Station and they left by train and we by car. On the way to Haarlem it didn't seem like a SOF or no police was seen on the highway. When we arrived in Haarlem there still wasn't any police or signs of a SOF. At our arrival at the station in Haarlem we got a phone call that the group by train was ordered to go back. Because that's not allowed and it's a free country we went to our friends. When we walked on the tracks of the station we saw our friends sitting in the train that went back to Den Haag. We stould there and asked a cop: what's going on and why are they sent back. After the police saw us they told us and forced us with violence to go in the train. Because we were with the car that wasn't possible and told them we were with the car. We were separated from the other group and a cop told us the next thing .We were maid a choice a: back to the cars with the cops beside us or b: got arrested and got banned from all stadiums in Holland for 2 years. We made the choice a. We walked back to the cars and we didn't do anything that could upset the cops then an other cop came and said that we were under arrest. We didn't understand it and asked for an explanation but after a few beatings and a lot of intimidation we didn't asked what was wrong anymore. We were transported to the police station and the cops that transported us couldn't believe what was happened either. They found it weird what the other cop did and told us that they didn't know what was going on. At the police station we were threaten like animals and no one made a rapport of what happened but a cop came in with a little note and you were forced to give your name and you must sign the note. After we said what happened we staid for 5 hours in a cell. We didn't even got booked nothing. The 2 years banning were changed in 6 months because that's the maximum banning of such an incident. Now 4 months later we got banned from the stadium for 6 months and we got that just when the competition started 4 months after the incident .It never takes 4 months that you got the banning in the mail it always takes less then a month. That's the bad taste of being a The Hague Hoolie.

See you
TOBI