I loved the game yesterday, it was a real privilege to watch a World cup final, but the congestion in and around Manchester was unbelievable last night.
Add together a record crowd of 74,468 to all the extra Christmas shoppers and you end up with bedlam.
I got to Manchester early yesterday and from the start I have never seen anywhere so crowded in my life, and that includes London.
You couldn't get into any pubs in the city centre because it was five deep along all the bars, every pub was the same, and it wasn't worth it, you would have to queue for hours just to get one pint.
The crowds around Old Trafford were even worse, with the police having to close off the roads so the crowds could walk down the middle of them, and there was hardly an empty seat inside once the match had started.
It was after the game had finished that the real problems started, 75,000 people all being released at once was pandemonium, the queues for a tram back to the city centre was unbelievable, literally thousands of people being herded into cattle pens ready for the slaughter, the guards would only open the gates to let so many people onto the platform at any one time, and in the meantime, thousands more were joining the back of the queue. Once aboard it was no better than Tokyo, with people packed in like sardines so you could hardly close the doors.
Relief to be back at the city centre was short lived, no chance of any refreshments, queues everywhere and the pubs just the same as they were in the morning, best to tie a knot in it as there were queues for every toilet too, so no food, no drink, no toilet breaks for most of the day, just crowds and queues everywhere, unbelievable bedlam.
Realising that there was no chance of a break, we went straight back to the railway station, only to find the worst problems of them all, there was literally three thousand people trying to get onto platform 14 (for Warrington, Chester and North Wales) and the police were not letting them go up the stairs, creating another massive crowd, we missed three trains waiting in that crowd and it was turning nasty at times with some people ready to fight the police for their perceived incompetence, we left that platform and tried to get to Chester another way, but once on board that train, we ended up in Stockport and the train was going the other way (Eastwards and then Southbound for Crewe), so we had to jump off at Stockport, couldn't find a pub anywhere in that godforsaken town for just half an hours rest so we decided to go back to Piccadilly and try platform 14 again.
Despite arriving back there over an hour later, the crowds were still being held back by the police, and still as big as before, but getting even angrier, not a nice atmosphere to be joining, they were only letting people up the stairs in dribs and drabs and according to whether their train had come in. When it was finally announced that passengers for Warrington could go up, it was bedlam fighting your way through the crowds, real hard work getting up the stairs and a real fear of a crush developing like at Hillsborough, the police were totally incompetent and didn't seem to know what they were doing regarding crowd control. Nevertheless, we made it up the stairs, having already missed about three previous trains and managed to jump on the train in the nick of time, just before the doors shut, we arrived home five hours after the match had finished, despite living only forty miles or so from Manchester, pure bedlam.
I had to wait until I got home before I could have that pint or that pish, and the whole thing just reminded me of a cattle market gone mad.
It was no better going by road either, one thing I did notice from the train windows was traffic jams on the motorways and several St Helens bound coaches caught up in them, some four hours after the match had finished.
I know this must sound like a massive rant, but there must have been several fans who probably didn't get home at all last night, such was the mither with the railways and the roads, some of them poor b@£$@*$ probably had to rough it in Manchester last night.
Probably the last final I ever go to, when you are packed onto trams and trains so full that they can hardly close the doors. you soon realise how much more comfortable it would be to watch it at home, with a fridge, a toilet and central heating all available, the match was good and probably worthwhile, but the travel problems and overcrowding were unbelievable.
