We must challenge outdated idea of fans

ALONG with many other ardent Newcastle supporters I recently made the trip to Lisbon to take in the pre-season match against Benfica for the Eusebio Cup.

The weather was great and Lisbon itself was as wonderful as I recollect from a visit I made some years ago.

On the matchday itself, the fans of both clubs mixed together freely in the city and also when travelling on the

Metro to the impressive Stadium of Light situated in the outskirts.

Numerous drinks and selfies were shared in the bars along the route to the stadium itself.

Sadly, however, I now come to the disappointing part that ruined the occasion for many of us. On arrival at the stadium we were greeted by stewards who insisted that we gather within a caged-off area, where we were kept confined for a lengthy period before being frogmarched into the ground under a police escort. We were kept confined to a small area with a circle of police constantly in attendance and forced to watch the game through a net placed across the front of our seating area.

At full-time the situation really deteriorated when we were faced by a line of riot police with shields and batons who prevented us from leaving the stadium.

Our supporters’ group

contained a number of young children and I would remind your readers that up to this point, both before and throughout the game, the Newcastle fans had caused no problems whatsoever.

As we were being given no information about how long we would be detained, after about half an hour some of the fans became understandably frustrated and words were exchanged. This resulted in a number of the police without warning launching themselves into our supporters waving their batons and at least one fan was knocked to the ground.

Children were visibly upset and a number of them began crying. After a further quite

extensive delay we were then escorted out of the stadium to be applauded by the Benfica fans with whom we again mixed freely on the Metro trains back into the city once we had freed ourselves of the overzealous police escort.

As a consequence, I propose to ask our club to write a formal letter of complaint to Benfica with regard to the policing, which was totally inappropriate and in itself provoked a violent confrontation that need never have happened.

The authorities in Lisbon had clearly formed an opinion similar to that of the Paris police and Liverpool fans that all followers of English teams are potential hooligans and need to be dealt with accordingly.

I hope therefore that by challenging these outdated misconceptions we can avoid other fans suffering our own distressing experience on future trips abroad.

COUN ROB HIGGINS, Benwell Scotswood, Newcastle City Council