By Alan Duffy
At first glance, the footage of Man City fans clashing with Madrid police may look like a throwback to the bad old days of English football nastiness. However, it does seem as though it’s the police who are to blame for the trouble.
The camera phone video, which was shot ahead of City’s Champions League clash with Real last week and posted on Youtube by blogger David Dubas-Fisher – along with his graphic blog account of the nasty and largely unprovoked (beer was thrown) skirmish entitled ‘The Ghost of Franco Returns to Haunt Manchester City’ – shows the local riot police wading in to a crowd of City fans, hitting them with batons. One fan who was hit by the police ends up on the ground, injured.
By the way, there’s a liberal peppering of expletives in the video, so beware before you play it in your office, etc…