MANCHESTER MYTH

THERE was nothing more certain, than when Rangers were paired with Manchester United in the Champions League, it would spark of a feeding frenzy in the press.

When the draw was made I predicted, in a telehphone conversation with a friend, that Rangers supporters had better get ready for the badly reported events in Manchester in May 2008 to be repeated....

Over and over, and over, again and again

What even I could not predict though was that one newspaper - the Daily Mail since you ask - would go as far as to report  Greater Manchester Police could tell UEFA the match must only take place behind closed doors.

That was just about as irresponsible piece of journalism as I've seen for many a long day.

For instance,did the the Daily Mail suggest that this summer's T in the Park should take place behind closed doors? No! Yet there has been murder, mayhem and rape at this event. And less than half the people at it than there were Rangers supporters in Manchester for the UEFA Cup Final.

T in the Park went on again this year and there was more violence and drug peddling, just as there will be next summer. Maybe the Daily Mail will find there were a few Rangers supporters at the music festival and blame them for all the trouble.

Some of the coverage of the events in that city just over two years ago made me ponder - and wonder at decisions taken by desk-bound newspaper executives, despite input from journalists who were eye witnesses to many of the things which happened.

One paper which was willing to print eye witness accounts  by reporters and photographers on the ground, of the way some police officers behaved, was the Daily Record.

I had one experience myself of the attitude of Greater Manchester Police as I made my way back to my hotel, just after midnight. As I passed along Piccadilly my way was barred by the fierce sight of a line of police, fully kitted out in riot gear, and brandishing the sort of deadly looking batons Dixon of Dock Green never carried

This line of steel stretched across the street, preventing me getting to my hotel, and, not being too sure of any other route, I approached one of these scary looking riot police.

Now, as anyone who knows me would tell you, as opposed to some of my colleagues who go their work dressed as though ready for a shift  on a building site, it is my habit to look respectable.

So there I was, a suited and booted middle aged man, wearing a shirt and tie, approaching a policeman to ask how best to reach my hotel.

My reasonable request was met by a snarl, followed by the brandish towards me of a riot stick, which would have looked more at home on the streets of Paris in 1968, and topped off by his bark of, ''f**k off.''

Fortunately - and unusually for me - my UEFA press pass - a large and impressive document - was still hanging from my neck, just out of sight under my buttoned jacket which, stepping back, I undid.

When I motioned this pass to a prominent position ,and then said :''Excuse me officer, I am officially UEFA accredited,'' there was a quick double take and he  then told me of an alternative way to my hotel.

Now, needless to say, there are those of you who are wondering why this information did not appear in my column in the Sunday newspaper I worked for then.

Only now can I tell you that it was written in a column, which also deplored the action of the minority who caused the trouble, and the few who took advantage of it to loot a few shops.

I also wrote than I took the view that only when the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth  - and that included the actions and attitude of the police - was uncovered, could a final verdict be delivered.

Within an hour the sports editor was on the phone saying that no, he could not accept what I was saying.
Despite reading the accounts in that day's Record to him, and asking him to read them for himself, he laid down the law, and the column had to be rewritten.

To this day I am certain  only my UEFA accreditation saved me from a whack on the head from that angry  and aggressive riot cop, plus probably arrest when I came out of a coma.

How many other innocents, who didn't have my credentials, were battered by a police force which, in my view, gave every impression of being out of control?

Remember too Greater Manchester Police was leaderless, and in  state of shock after its chief constable had climbed to the top of a hill, swallowed a bottle of vodka, and committed suicide.

It is also worth nothing that by seven  on the Friday morning a senior policewoman was put in front of the nation's television cameras to show a soft side. It was classic spin. And it worked.

Now, nobody should mistake any of this as an apology for the morons who threw bottles at the televsion screens when they failed right at the start of the UEFA Cup Final. How did they think that was going to help the screens? As I said, morons.

Nor should it be seen as a defence for anyone who joined in with the senseless attack on the defenceless policeman, the pictures of which were shocking and sickening.

I hope the forces of law and order hunt down the last culrpit, and that they face the full Majesty of the law, and feel its full weight.

But, and this was the view of the leader of the local council in Manchester, only just over 1000 at the very most were involved. That is a little more than 1000 from 2000,000. Or, to put it another way, just one HALF of one per cent

Which is a lot less than the percentage of murderers, rapists and drug dealers who have been at the last two T in the Park events.

I am however, still wondering what was the motivation of my sports editor in denying me the right and journalistic freedom to write about what had happened to me.

It is something I would have liked to have discussed with him. Unfortunately, shortly after, he was sacked and the police called in to investigate his involvement in a £300,000 fraud.

There may be some who believe much of the reporting at the time of what did and did not happen in Manchester, which is now being repeated by people who were not there, is a bit of a fraud too.