27 May 2025 09:27:05
Travelling back from Liverpool this morning, as it was almost impossible to leave yesterday evening by train.
I can’t believe how badly organised the travel in and out of the city was for supporters.
I was over in Paris for the final a few years back and following the horrific local planning in Paris and crowd control around the stadium, I thought it couldn’t get much worse and that it would be better this time.
They always say the same **** about “lessons will be learned” but they never are.
The lack of coordination between Liverpool council / football club and the local bodies was appalling.
People will point to the horrific incident with the driver but the truth is as horrific and deplorable as that was, there was already major safety issues before that and following it which were unrelated.
Tickets were sold for trains to supporters which could never be honoured due to the demand and travelling through stations like Crewe yesterday showed hundred of people stuck on a platform with no hope of getting into the city. This was the same across the country with trains too full to stop and complete disorganisation at the stations as to which trains were coming to which platforms.
Even worse was trying to get out of the city on the evening after the parade as there was then a single bottleneck at lime street - no signage for queues or where to go and thousands of people treated like cattle being force into tight spaces overcrowded for hours without facilities only to be told that there is no access to the station at that entrance when they reach the front.
With trains only running every hour and not enough carriages to transport people home, I and many others were scrambling to find last minute accommodation in the city close to midnight at extortionate prices.
Regrettably I, and many other fans I spoke to, will not be attending a parade for Liverpool next time in the city due to the repeated failings with these large scale fan events.
The bodies should be ashamed of themselves that they allowed this to happen.
{Ed025's Note - most cities would not be able to cope Navy, nearly a million people attending the city is impossible to cope with mate, the transport networks are not set up for anything like those sort of numbers and i doubt many others are either..
27 May 2025 09:45:59
I’m sorry Ed025, if that’s the answer then don’t sell the tickets and don’t invite people to come.
Not having a dig at you mate as I like you but I can tell from your response that you didn’t get trains out of lime street yesterday.
Kids being made to stand outside in the rain for hours in the cold crushed by crowds with no way to get home in what was supposed to be a celebratory day.
{Ed001's Note - mate trains have been like that for years, even when there are no events on. This is an issue with the UK's train set up being run as a business rather than a service. No investment in the infrastructure to increase profits leaves a crap set up. Nothing to do with the celebrations, that is just like a regular Friday evening trying to get home. I have had similar issues many times - once I ended up sleeping on a bench inside Swindon Station as the last train just went straight through as it was too full to stop and the staff all just f'd off home, even after I told them what has happened.}
27 May 2025 10:07:27
I traveled with my son for the weekend. I’d like to say a big thankyou to the people of Liverpool. It was magical. My condolences to the city and all those affected by what happened on Water Street.
27 May 2025 10:11:16
I have never seen anything like what I witnessed safe at home. The number of people there was immense.
It was good to see Everton fans out in full kit celebrating as a city.
As far as public transport goes they can only plan for so many people. We looked into traveling from Belfast but it was going to cost a fortune to travel. We would have to stay in Liverpool from Saturday until Tuesday as that was all they had available travel times.
I stayed dry and the coverage from LFCTV was great.
I just hope everyone who was affected by the car driver who lost his head are recovering well. Also there were people who put themselves in harms way to help others without a second thought, they were the real heros of Liverpool yesterday.
27 May 2025 10:13:48
I tend to agree with ed25 these type of things just too big too handle especially when u don't have a definite figure of the amount of people that will be at the event.
Rumoured figure of 1.2m yesterday at parade is a lot of people for a small city like Liverpool.
{Ed025's Note - the infrastructure is just not made to accommodate those sort of numbers Digger..
27 May 2025 10:43:50
Sorry but have to ahree with Naby (while also agreeing with what you said ed025).
Me and my boy are pretty large framed but waiting to het into central station in crowding, crampped, impossible to move conditions with no sinage, no announcements or any officials in sight I just had to think:
1. I shudder to think how someone with a young child or disabled or elderly xould manage
2. How can a club/ city that went through Hillsborough (important, I do not blame councilvor club for what happened. Don't know who was supposed to be incharge but clearly NOONE was. ) allow for this to happen. It is a moravke people were generally so well behaved and nothing happened
I will support the club till the day I day and will definitely be back at Anfield whenever the opportunity allows but that is it for me on parades.
Mine and my family safety are far more important.
27 May 2025 11:05:39
@ navy Keith: firstly may we offer our apologies I’m sorry you got trapped on the platform but some poor people got trapped under a car you absolute inconsiderate melt!
Secondly:Don’t know how the fuch you can moan over travel out of the city? Any city is stretched on normal match days even peak hour travel. We tried to get down water street as James street was closed off an we was marshalled right along the front as every street was closed for overcrowding safety. There was nothing wrong with crowd control it was well thought out. No crushing we was right by liver birds. I drove in and out no problems.
Thirdly : you wasn’t invited to watch the parade you was WELCOMED! The club or city didn’t charge you a penny! Take it up with British rail!
27 May 2025 11:06:31
Sorry for spelling mistakes all - typing on phone and clearly fat fingers.
27 May 2025 11:11:44
1. Public safety first
2. Do not sell train tickets in excess of numbers you can carry.
3. If there is no infrastructure, don’t host the event.
Once again, people’s lives have been unnecessarily put at risk. Once again, it is “someone/ something else’s fault”. This can never be allowed to happen again. Expecting 750,000 to turn up? Plan for double that. If public transport cannot cope, put on alternative travel arrangements.
It really is time to stop making excuses for political failings, be it Network Rail or local council.
27 May 2025 11:16:07
Navy Keith, sorry you had a rough time out there BUT you had to have known that something like this would happen esp. judging by how many people were being expected and it is safe to say that whatever amount of people were previewed to be there, it was a hell of a lot more than that.
This is where I agree with Ed25 here. Public/ local transportation in cities like Liverpool will always be tough BUT it simply cannot cope with the type of nos. of people that were there. It simply can't. It is what it is. Can we ask for the infrastructure to get better? Of course BUT that is a political issue and we know how that goes. Just my take.
27 May 2025 11:23:11
@scousejohn - not sure why you’re coming after me in your response. I did address it in my original message but I will say it again for absolute clarity, the actions of that driver were deplorable and beyond comprehension. Completely horrific and thoughts and prayers are with those injured in their families.
If we don’t call out these safety issues though, safety incidents will happen in the future. Like we saw in Paris. And people will get injured.
I’m not asking for sympathy from you or posters. I’m trying to have a discussion with fellow supporters on a a fan page about what was appalling travel conditions which were unsafe, hopefully to raise awareness for improvement in the future.
Clearly, you drove in based on your response so you won’t have witnessed first hand what other posters witnessed.
27 May 2025 11:29:45
I'm not an economic ideologue but it's become obvious in recent decades that many things in this country should have remained nationalised.
27 May 2025 11:35:15
I have to say that putting a million people in a reasonably confined area with one train station, the results - even if everything runs like clock work, shouldn’t be too hard to predict.
It’s a trade off between ‘I was there’ and ’I was there for an awful long time’.
As Ed01 says, the train service these days is run for profit and not as a public service and whilst that is probably the subject for a different conversation, the planning for the event sounds to me like it was a group of execs in a nice meeting room rubbing their hands at the thought of the money they’d be making.
Anyway, now’s not the time. First and foremost we focus on the welfare of anybody involved in the disgusting incident and to offer help, support and our love to all those impacted.
{Ed025's Note - there are 3 possibly 4 stations that can be used WDW..still not ideal though mate..
27 May 2025 12:22:25
How on earth can any blame be associated to the city over trains, traffic n the volume of people turning up. normal peak hours in Liverpool is hard enough . but 1m extra people in a city for one day is obviously an extra burden . it was going okish until that nutter with the car happened .
27 May 2025 12:26:20
I’m not sure this is the time or place for a whinge about the UKs public transport infrastructure. Unless you live under a rock we all know how bad it is and especially so with circa 1m people descending on a relatively small area. It was never going to be a nice quick in and out.
27 May 2025 13:12:23
Calm down all, bigger things than getting your point across on a forum today!
Chill ?.
27 May 2025 12:51:48
Fair point @25 mate, but even with 4 stations it’s a hell of a lot of humans to move.
{Ed025's Note - it is WDW but as i said earlier the city is not set up to accommodate that many people at one time,i dont think any inner city is to be honest, maybe Sefton park would have been better but of course there was a festival on at the same time mate..
27 May 2025 18:57:23
Get onto your MP and get them
To lobby for some actual investment on the train services in the north west. Look at the infrastructure london has, it’s light years ahead of the rest of the country and will remain so when they get £11bn to build a line from Canary Wharf to get all the boys home after a days trading. Anfield is stuck due to the lack on infrastructure, the only people to moan to are your elective representatives (not that they’ll do anything)
27 May 2025 23:22:38
@navy Kieth: soz for the name calling. no hard feelings mate, i was a bit agitated, being down there with the kids too close for comfort never got much sleep still felt surreal sorry for snapping.