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Your support makes all the difference.It was billed as a journey to "hell". But on the stands were 600 hardy Manchester United supporters at the Fenerbahce stadium last night, and a spell in purgatory was broken by two heaven-sent goals.
Screams of delight came from the visiting fans, while shouts of derision came from the Turks all around them. "This made it all worth it," said one 19-year-old United supporter.
But for an eight-man English security detail guarding the Manchester contingent, it was the worst-case scenario as the first projectiles started landing among their seats. "This is the worst possible place for us to have been put," said Russell Condon, head of the yellow-jacketed guards. "There's no separation between our boys and the crowds, nor any between our group and those who got here independently."
The independents were not hard to spot. Thick-set and clearly far the worse for drink, they alternated between exchanging taunts and packs of cigarettes with the excitable Turkish fans around them. By contrast, Condon said those on the official tour were carefully husbanded all day, with boat trips up the Bosphorus which had kept them commendably sober.
There was nothing anybody could do, however, about the exuberant style of support in the Fenerbahce stadium. "This is not football, it's like an ice hockey match," said Michael Scara, another 19-year-old Mancunian who had paid pounds 300 to come to Istanbul for the night.
As Fenerbahce's players approached the United goal, the Turkish club's management would flick the switch on banks of powerful speakers for commentators to scream encouragement and to pump out stirring music. "We will, we will, f*** you," the Turkish crowd sang along in lusty unison, pointing down to the somewhat scruffy group of Mancunians in their midst.
And when United approached the Fenerbahce goal, the Turkish fans needed no encouragement to let loose a deafening blast of whistles and drum beats. There was no question about their success in putting off the players in red.
"They'd never allow this in Britain," said Condon, a part-time fireman, as he liaised with a line of Turkish riot police protecting the English contingent. One Turkish fan who overstepped the mark was brutally removed from the scene by being thrown down a flight of stairs.
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