Ah, Sports!

Or, as they say in England:  Sport.

The bar where the attack happened.

This happened Wednesday evening in Lille, France.  According to all the UK sources I have read, Evertonians (Everton Football Club supporters are called Evertonians) were attacked by a group of hooded Lille OSC supporters.  The UK press, and the eyewitnesses in the video embedded in the link above, all maintain the attack was unprovoked.  The confrontation got so bad that the police had to teargas everyone involved to end the melee.

I would seriously encourage you to watch the video at the link.  The newspaper's eyewitnesses are two nine stone weight, probably teenage, Liverpudlian brothers.  My favorite parts of the video are their accents (of course!), and the time where the older brother explains that although he really does not smoke, actually (Really hoping his Mum doesn't see this!), he was, just this one time, smoking outside the pub when the Lille hooligans struck.  I also like how the older brother, who does most of the talking, says that the little brother was knocked out cold early in the fray, and missed some of his slightly heroic attempts at protecting the Evertonian bairns in the bar.

I was talking to Nick C, though, and I was wondering what the Lille press reaction would be.  I would like to think that they would report that it was an unruly drunk mob of Evertonians that attacked a group of Lille Grammar School children that were on a school evening field trip, attending a Debussy concert in the park.

Sports!

PS:  The game went off without a hitch today, a nil-nil draw.  Lille travels to Liverpool in two weeks!

















--Ardent