"I was just about to thank the policeman when he punched Eric. Eric stumbled down a couple of steps, so I turned to throw a punch at the copper."
Bryan Robson's words are the most apt summary of Manchester United's hellish trip to Istanbul in 1993. While Galatasaray had dealt the knockout blow by eliminating Alex Ferguson's team from the Champions League, the real pummeling had been brutally meted out by the Turkish fans and authorities before and after the match.
While the game itself was a drab 0-0 affair, a result which saw United suffer an early exit from the tournament on away goals, the atmosphere inside the Turkish champions' Ali Sami Yen stadium was akin to a bloodthirsty rave in the Coliseum, only even the gladiatorial personalities of Keane, Robson, Cantona, Ince and Schmeichel were no match for a tidal wave of missiles from above and a wall of riot shields on the ground.
Entering Hell (Image Credit: PA)
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Twenty four hours earlier, United's party had been greeted in Turkey with an appetiser of what was to be served to them a day later. Banners with 'RIP Manchester' and the now customary 'Welcome To Hell' scrawled across them were held aloft by a ferocious crowd of Galatasaray fans who had turned out in their thousands to greet the English champions with a welcome party described by Steve Curry of The Express as "the crazed delirium usually witnessed on news bulletins from Islamic rallies in Iraq". And worse was yet to come.
Here they are, the lads (Image credit: PA)
Ferguson may have joked with journalists that "You've obviously never seen a Glasgow wedding" when questioned about the riot at the airport, but even the poker face of United's fearless leader wasn't enough to disguise the fact that the visitors were rattled. Gary Neville was 18 at the time, Ryan Giggs 19, both of them would later admit that the night of 3rd November, 1993 would remain emblazoned onto their memories forever, "There were so many flares and so much smoke, it seemed the entire stadium was on fire," Neville recalled.
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Even the more experienced members of Ferguson's squad were intimidated, one fan telling right-back Paul Parker bluntly "You will die" while a bellboy at the team's hotel made a throat slitting gesture to Gary Pallister, who's only crime was smiling politely at the hotel employee.
Come the night of the game and United, failing to turn over Gala's away goals lead from their shock 3-3 draw at Old Trafford a fortnight earlier, struggled against an atmosphere that "made Anfield look like a tea party" according to Pallister. Peter Schmeichel had to be at his cat like best to deny Hakan Şüküron a couple of occasions while United toiled against the Turkish champions' man marking and the hatred boiling over from the terraces. But the fiercest battle would come at the final whistle, with Eric Cantona receiving a red card for his colourful remonstrations to Swiss referee Kurt Röthlisberger. Cantona's explosion had been coming since the 77th minute, when he elbowed reserve 'keeper Nezih Ali Bologlu to the floor after kicking the ball from his hands.
At least Eric took his treatment from the Turkish Police with a level head (Image credit: PA)
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'King Eric's' actions were the excuse the police deployed around the Ali Sami Yen pitch needed to engage the hostilities they had previously only reserved for United's travelling fans, 164 of who were imprisoned in Bayrampasa jail, beaten and separated from their possessions before being deported, some not until a month later with the whole, sickeningly corrupt affair covered up by the Turkish authorities.
As Cantona raged at the referee's performance, who he would later claim had been 'bought' (no bribery relating to this game has ever been proved, although Röthlisberger would be banned from officiating in 1997 after being found guilty of bribery), one police officer took aim at the Frenchman, knocking him down two steps. Robson intervened, aiming a swing of his own towards the officer, but was left needing six stitches after a riot shield gashed his elbow.
Roy Keane described Cantona's rage further, writing in his autobiography, "While the rest of us just wanted to get out of there, he was determined to go back outside to sort out the rogue cop who'd been wielding his truncheon. Eric was a big, strong lad. He was serious. He insisted he was going to kill 'that fucker'. It took the combined efforts of the [assistant] manager, Brian Kidd, and a few of the players to restrain him. Normally I wouldn't have backed off a fight, but even I wasn't up for this one. There were a lot of Turks out there!"
"Ere, those yellow kits are well shit" (Image credit: PA)
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As United escaped onto their team coach, they discovered even their transportation wasn't necessarily suitable refuge, as a brick smashed the window next to Steve Bruce, "If it had smashed through I'd have been dead," the centre half would explain in the aftermath.
A year later United would return to a slightly more lukewarm Hell, in the group stages of the 1994/95 tournament, with the Bosphorus crowd dampened slightly by the threat of expulsion following disturbances during Galatasaray's qualifier in Luxembourg months earlier. Another 0-0 draw was played out, only with United gaining a measure of revenge for the previous year's hostilities by cruising to a 4-0 victory at Old Trafford in the return game.
Twenty three years to the day later and United find themselves back in the Turkish capital under very different circumstances, with Fenerbahce now the opposition and Istanbul a destination successfully navigated several times by English clubs over the past two decades. Nonetheless, Jose Mourinho will be keen to avoid the same 'terrible performance' that dismayed Sir Alex Ferguson so much in 1993.
(H/T The Guardian, The Independent)
Topics: Football, Manchester United, Galatasaray, Champions League