mike_smith

Absolutely gutted for you. Luckily my memory of that shower lifting the cup is patchy at best due to the gallons of beer consumed last night! Unlucky anyway, you deserved it more than them IMO.

Just want to wish you good luck for tomorrow. Still gutted we're not there but I think Chelsea have played the best football in Europe this season and deserve to win. Anyway, enjoy yourselves and stay safe in Moscow.

Been in Manchester this past week and a lot of the Rangers fans behaved like animals. I used to like Rangers and their fans but my estimation of them has plummeted. The town centre is disgusting now. Loz, I dont think the Liverpool fans ever rioted in Athens. It was mainly petty crime and a few fights, but I agree that the club should have condemned the individuals for their behaviour.

Lol, never heard that! I was fairly near the back though.

Sorry for the delay in reply, been a bit busy recently! Every game this season has sold out, its as simple as that. I'm not trying to make excuses and im just guessing thats where the other seats go to. But to include the away fans in the percentage is a little odd. I'm sure there are away fans alocations in all grounds that fail to sell out (eg. fulham/middlesbrough on a wednesday night). The capacity of Anfield quoted there is an old figure. It has decreased since then for some reason.

There was a rumer that went round the away end at WHL that Emile Heskey scored for Wigan. The whole of our end celebrated for a good minute until we realised

The reason the stats are like that for LFC is that they dont sell around 2000 seats in the stadium due to logistics reasons. The first few rows of some stands doesn't go on sale frequently. Some seats are reserved for stewards and the press. The stats also include away fans who dont always sell out. I think around 300-400 seats are taken up by the home/away divide in the anfield road end. Every league game this season has sold out. They should base the stats on the amount of seats available rather than the overall stadium capacity. Man U sell their spare tickets to schools and student unions at greatly reduced prices.

Oh my god you're right, I cant think of a thing that we could make banners to celebrate Sorry i dont understand Merseyside gibberish. good luck with the banner mate

Oh my god you're right, I cant think of a thing that we could make banners to celebrate

Fair enough, just thought you might want the view of someone thats made many different types of banners in the past as its obvious you've never done one before. While we're at it, you might want to think about removing Roman from the banner as it could be construed as being a political banner which UEFA strictly oppose. Considering many russians dont like him you may have it taken off you by the police or entering the country.

Personally dont like forum banners, they're a bit sad! Banner looks a bit busy, think of how its gonna look from a distance. They're always smaller than you imagine. I'd take out the union jack, the russian flag and roman. Just leave the chelsea badge and "the shed end" if you feel you really need to! In fact, why not make it yourself? Always look better imo. Stick your history we have a future CFC/the shed end ^^would work well enough. Everyone reading would know what you mean without having to include the pics.

Lol, take a look in the congratulations thread! Well played tonight, I hope you win it now. Good luck in the final.

Congratulations Chelsea. You probably deserved it over the two legs. It was a good game tonight and a classy performance from both sides. Good luck in the final.

Some good points raised here, and i cant begin to answer them all! I think the main reason Liverpool fans are attracted to the Chelsea forums is that when looking for a rivals take on football based issues Chelsea seems to be the best choice out of the three. United fans would just type abuse and Arsenal fans just dont seem as passionate on the same subject matters as us. I'm aware that the vast majority of scousers that sign up here do so out of spite. These people IMO are not real football fans as they're driven by hatred rather than support for their team. I'm aware of some of the events that happened in the city centre of Athens and these disgust me. I think rather than deflecting the blame, many liverpool fans would rather think that these aren't real liverpool fans. Dont forget that our fanbase is made up of many different groups of people, the same as any other club, but i do see your points as valid that some blame needs to be acknowledged. I'm not too sure about events that unfolded outside the stadium in Athens that night. When you're in the middle of a large, unorganised crowd, it becomes difficult to see what's going on around you. Most of the facts only made sense after my dad phoned me to tell me what was going on. What I saw was a steady build up of pressure in a pen (which i thought was illegal in UEFA 5 star stadiums) and different people reacted differently. As an away regular i'd seen this kind of thing before but never on such a scale in person. However, I didnt see any mass charging of gates (largely due to the lack of gates in the complex!). Me and around four others were told that the stadium was full around 30 mins before kickoff, a lad near me decided to act and opened the gate in front of me and us four then walked into the stadium and to our (empty) seats. Maybe this was what UEFA were talking about? or maybe it happened in a different part of the stadium. Many other fans simply walked to different gates which were open. If the stadium was full then why was this the only gate locked? I did actually see a lot of touts selling fake tickets openly. Some of our fans do bunk into games. Im not sure how much it happens with other clubs but i think it happens too much with ours. Some disagree with it, some turn a blind eye. Out of interest, how would you view the policing and stewarding at Anfield? In a normal league game do you find Anfield any more/less intimidating than other grounds? I went to Birmingham the other day and found that fairly intimidating. Only actually been to the Bridge once for the League cup game this year and quite enjoyed it despite the result.

Thanks for the reply Loz. I was too young to remember Heysel and I find that as a Liverpool fan I am fed different information from different sources. On the one hand we're told that the Liverpool fans charged the Juve fans, which is obviously a terrible thing to do. On the other hand, the club and some fans tell us that the stadium was inadequate, there shouldnt have been a neutral zone, and Juve fans had been "taunting us". Most Liverpool fans dont talk about Heysel and I do believe this is partly through shame. I went out to Athens with some mates. We had 3 genuine tickets bought through the club and got into the stadium. I did meet many people selling and buying fake tickets, although uefa were supposed to be stopping these fans with fakes using UV scanners. I got into the stadium without having my ticket checked once. Someone near me used a flier that looked like a ticket to gain entry. The main problem in my opinion was the travel to the stadium. Our fans were supposed to use the bus network to get to the stadium, but coupled with the fact that the drivers didnt know where they were going was the infrequent service. Therefore most fans (including me) got the train/metro to the stadium stop where we were promptly put into a crowded closed pen. There must have been 5,000 fans in this small area and they were only letting around 5 at a time through (without even checking tickets!!). There were then 3 more checks, but none of them were actually checking tickets. There were no actual barriers after the first pen, just rows of riot police and police busses. Anyway, UEFA have since admitted that the trouble around the stadium was caused by it being an athletics complex and not having turnstyles. Obviously the issues in and around the town centre were ones you'd get at any major event. Getting back on topic, I'm surprised that Chelsea fans seem to take this matter to heart more than most others. We may take the piss over United fans in Roma etc but we all know deep down that it could happen to anyone and the British media will blame others.

Rule 1. Don't ask silly questions OK, I realise that in recent years we've been massive rivals (in some competitions) and there's the obvious north/south rival. I've never been on a Chelsea forum before and was just surprised at the amount of hatred towards our fans.

lol. Serious question: how come some of you hate scousers so much? I dont really see any reason considering historically speaking, we're not massive rivals.

Congratulations for today! I'd much rather Chelsea win the title than United. Good luck for the next few games.

Simple really....... Show tickets at main gates, anyone without tickets doesn't get anywhere near the turnstiles. But aren't they specialiced in forging tickets? And I've heard they can get extra tickets by complaining that they haven't received their ticket in the post and then give the extra ticket to their mate(genuine tickets, but two tickets for the same seat). Yeah, this does happen in the kop. Probably not as much as is reported though. You can get duplicate tickets at nearly every premiership grounds, its unavoidable. I've had duplicate away tickets at a few grounds and home tickets (both for valid reasons). I think the overcrowding was largely due to fans having tickets for other parts of the kop but not wanting to stand there. People just go and stand with their mates on European nights. On the Hillsborough comment: If you read the reports made after the dissaster you'll see that it had nothing to do with rushed turnstyles or faked tickets. Its your choice what you want to believe though so wont say anything else about it.