Pre-match scenes, UEFA EURO 2008, Portugal-Turkey

[LaFoto]

When in Hamburg yesterday, we suddenly found our underground train "raided" by masses of Turkish football (soccer) fans who did nothing but storm in, make a huge racket, and get off again to continue celebrating (not knowing they'd lose the match ...) on the platform.

Heike and Andreas were quite frightened, as were the two boys on our car, and supposedly also some others, but all in all they were quite harmless, only were they making an awful lot of noise.

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Relief! It's over! Phew!

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Later we saw droves of fans emerging from the metro station at Landungsbrücken (those who were at the meet-up know that station, though we left from the underground station - which is the ELEVATED train in that stretch!!!), all walking the distance to Heiliggeistfeld, where there were several huge screens put up for fans to watch the match - well, those screens will stay until the end of the championship, of course.

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And just to complete the picture, a photo taken from the top of the tower of St. Michaelis Church over to Heiliggeistfeld, where the colour red shows you where the fans are gathered (this photo is larger and framed because I've shown it elsewhere before)

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[Battou]

Not being a European I know not the truth about the Soccer fanaticism, only what I have read and seen on the television. though I have heard of similar incidents over football (Amarican) and Hockey fans here state side.

It would seem the two boys there have never seen anything like that before

 

[LaFoto]

Ah. Thanks for coming to take a look and even write a bit of a comment, Battou. Much, much appreciated.

I thought these were of some interest, but maybe they only are to me who I was there. It was very LOUD, they had whistles and those cans with horns, you know? And they shouted and howled and all in all came off as frightening to most, but I decided I found it interesting and worth a series of photos, and they were very ok with it, as you can see. (I am sure my husband was shrinking into nothingness opposite me for fear my camera might make them extra angry - but they were not angry to begin with, so why fear?)

Speaking of being angry: I'm glad this was BEFORE the match, not AFTER.
They lost it...

 

[doenoe]

i know those scenes, pretty cool eh It can get pretty crazy sometimes........but crazy in a good way
Holland is very orange these days, especially with the win from yesterday.

 

[LaFoto]

Well, I think the amount of red in Hamburg was replaced by RED-GREEN soon (but there are a lot less Portuguese in Hamburg than there are Turks, of course). They must have been pretty disappointed - these fans here, I mean. I'm glad we met them before they knew the outcome! I would not have remained that calm had we met them afterwards (though nothing happened, else it'd have been on the news).