A Brief History
On May 14, 2008, one more sports related riot took place in Manchester, England, when fans of the Zenit Football Club of St. Petersburg, Russia, went hand and foot with fans of the Rangers Football Club of Glasgow, Scotland.
Digging Deeper
During the 2008 UEFA Cup final held near Piccadilly Gardens of Manchester, a failure of a big screen TV that had been set up to allow football fans not in the stadium to watch the match triggered the riot. A crowd of 200,000 Rangers fans had made the trip to Manchester to watch their beloved team, but without tickets had to watch on the big screen instead.
A fight broke out in a local pub, and the dispute spread as unruly, often drunk, “football hooligans” urinated in public, and damaged property. Before Manchester police ended the riot, 39 police officers and a police dog had been injured and 39 rioters were arrested.
Note: For some bizarre, unknown reason, the world outside of the USA refers to the sport of soccer as “football.”
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Blance, Andy. Hibs Boy The Life and Violent Times of Scotland’s Most Notorious Football Hooligan. Fort Publishing, 2012.
Cawthorne, Nigel. Football Hooligans. Robinson, 2012.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Me677 of police lined up in riot gear in Piccadilly Gardens, has been released into the public domain worldwide by the copyright holder of this work.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
