Have to say what a credit they are to their club, friendly and welcoming beforehand, amazing support for their team throughout the game and quite a few even stayed behind for half an hour to applaud our travelling fans as we left the ground. It's a shame people will now associate the game and the club with the trouble afterwards which was entirely the fault of he police and 20 or so idiots.
Aye, 99.9% of the fans were great. Just outdated, poorly planned and heavy handed police work combined with known troublemakers to cause that. Could've been easily avoided by taking us down a side street rather than right past the pub where all the idiots were waiting (and already fired up by the police).
Absolutely agree. The atmosphere in the square before the game was amazing. Pretty much all the away fans were there, mixng with loads of home fans. I love the fact they put a huge party on just for us. I swapped my CTWD scarf for a Lokeren shirt with the barmaid.
Totally agree. The fans were a great example of how these things should be done and very much a credit to their town and club. The local Police were very friendly and approachable. The National Police were a fine example of how not to act at such events and an embarrassment to their Country and Policing.
nice to hear all this but then again Lokeren will have a 'bad reputation' for scum that have nothing to do with the club
It sounds to me this is all the fault of the Police, they should have know better to take the supporters passed this bar.
I think anyone who was there will put them right. It's a shame a small group of people can influence judgements so much, and so wrongly. My fear is our local Police will use it as an excuse to get heavy handed. Your fans deserve better than that after treating us so well. You can't be held to account for random idiots.
We didn't need kettling to the ground anyway, but it would have been fairly simple to shift the cowards away from the route, especially given the resources they had at hand. The Police had no skill in reading the mood and situation.
It's even more f*cked up, knowing that in normal League games, visiting fans can never come down Daknamstreet (main road at Daknam) and have to make a big detour, to leave the ground. Maybe the federal Police decided to let the City fans into town, to gain access to their cars/trains back home/hotel... but they should have 'cleaned' the street, not focusing on the City fans (99,99% friendly bunch) but on the 20-some sc*ms waiting ahead.
It was actually a bloke, I don't know how I ended up putting barmaid. I didn't realise it was two different sets of police, but the difference was massive.
I could be wrong, it was my impression at the time and seems to be the view of some of the Belgian posters. It's sad that their incompetence came after we'd all been saying how good it was and what a credit the Lokeren fans were.
I just hope that any 'thug element' at the KC next week understands that the Lokeren fans who come over, will be nothing to do with the scum who were bottle throwing last night.
It'll be a huge shame if given the bother that happened last night, and the seeming reasons for it (I wasn't there), that Lokeren fans are prevented from moving around Hull city centre at their will next week. I can see a police clamp down, with movement limited, which would be very disappointing.
It would be typical of Humberside Police and probably all the justification they need to turn out like the ****ing army herding people around like animals, as they like to do. However I am sure the people of Hull will be welcoming to our visitors as always.
