You see French police but where are the guns?
Would the majority of mindless morons attack each other if a gendarmerie was standing there armed with machine pistols?
I might sound extreme but a deterrent is better than what we are seeing now.
'The English disease' is flourishing!
Plenty of guns where we were - Lyon. We didn't see any trouble at all, not even drunken pushing and shoving. Certainly less than at a Premiership match in England. There was a party atmosphere and all fans got on well together, whether their teams were winning or losing. Good natured fun for the 6 days we were there. The atmosphere before the Belgium v Italy match was fantastic, although the Belgians were a lot quieter on the way back to the City Centre lol. I was thoroughly impressed with how Italy played them, I had expected a Belgian win, but the Italians played much better as a team.
As the NI fans piled into the City the excitement grew. Hundreds of them playing footie on the grass outside the bars. A real carnival atmosphere. The minute's clapping during the game for the 24 year old who fell to his death earlier in the week was well received. We were behind the goal next to the Ukrainians, but there were plenty of English and NI fans around us. Thankfully we were in row 33 for the first match and row 34 for the 2nd so were weren't affected by the heavy rain and hailstones. So amazing when NI scored...the first...and then the 2nd...wow! Lots of Ukraine fans shook hands with the NI fans and wished them well for the rest of the tournament.
The transport was well organised. Sensibly they let fans through onto the trains and trams without checking tickets after the game. This really speeds things up and is normally what happens in London. However when we went to Barcelona in March, the barriers weren't open and consequently there was a crush and a barrier got broken. Everyone would have had a ticket anyway, as they had to have one to get there there, so it was good to see the fans in Lyon being ushered away from the stadium as quickly and easily as possible in Lyon. The fan park was well orgnaised too and even though very many fans had been drinking heavily throughout the day, there was still no trouble during the 3rd game of each day. My sons who between them have been to 3 World Cups and 2 Euros supporting England have never seen any violence at all, it really is a minority who cause the trouble, though the threat from the Russians is a very real one as their violence is pre-meditaited and planned, not the drunken mishaps we usually see.
There was one incident where a bag had been left outside the fan park in Lyon but this was dealt with efficiently and with a minimum of fuss. We were told 4 times in slow spoken French and English so that anyone who wasn't native to those languages could still understand the message that there was going to be an explosion , but we were safe in the fan park and all was under control.
Thoroughly enjoyed my first ever tournament though I am very tired and glad to be home now.
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