Articles with the Tag FC Groningen

In April of last year there was a fire at the FC Groningen stadion, after an ill advised p.r. stunt went out of hand. All sorts of safety measures turned out not to work, though fortunately nobody died. To prevent a similar incident, the club held a major exercise yesterday, together with fire services, police and several hundred fans playing the role of hooligans. The idea was to simulate a riot in which a fire broke out and then to evacuate the stadion. Several fans however went slightly too far in their role and started throwing rocks, rather than tennis balls, at the police…

Quick question: if you are a football club and one of your main rivals comes over for a game, not long after they bought three of your best players, would you think it was a good idea to hand out thousands of bogrolls? No, I don’t think so either, but FC Groningen thought this was a marvelous idea to allow it, as “a fun way to say goodbye to those players going to Ajax”. Even the fire brigade allegedly gave permission for this stunt. So of course the obvious happened. Some nutters thought it would enhance the party mood if they set fire to those bogrolls, more and more people started throwing lit rolls and before you know it, there was a fire and panic. Worse, the firehoses available in the stadium turned out not to have pressure on them, the fire retardant chairs didn’t turn out to be so fire retarding and finally some or all emergency exits were locked.

That winning combination of club incompetence and hooligan violence has led to incredible disasters in the past. Remember Heizel stadium? Fortunately here, despite the fire and the panic, the worst that happened was a complicated ankle fracture for one unlucky fan. No thanks to FC Groningen though. Stupidity all around.