we done our talking on the park as usual

I'm sure Ajax have anything against Man Utd as such, maybe as they've not played a big team for a long time, and I beleive they are not exactly lighting up the dutch league they feel as if they want to make an atmosphere...

I wouldn't take it personally, it's all to add to the atmosphere of a big game imo

I think the Dutch still have a small but hardcore minority of fans who haven't let go of the culture of hooliganism. They still have some pretty serious violence domestically.

I'd guess this neanderthal faction thought it would be an appropriate way to celebrate the historic meeting between the two clubs. They may even see it as a kind of tribute to a great club from the country seen as the father of hooliganism.

(When I was living in St Petersburg I met a hardcore Zenit fan at a party and he was going on about how much his fellow nutcases revered the English as the original hooligans. I don't think the message had got out that this subculture had dwindled and almost died out in England.)

Albert we played Ajax in 1976 at the old olympic stadium.I was at that one mate and we terrorized amsterdam.RedArmy days under the doc.Off licences trashed and robbed and yours truly walking around wearing a bowler hat.Ha ha ha.Glory days.

I think it might have more to do with our supporters being English more than being anything Manchester United related.

It's just a guess mind.

comment by The Singing Flame (U5603)

8 years before my time.... they have good memories the Dutch, surprisingly with the amount of green they smoke!

when i went to the scotland v holland game in amsterdam

the feyenoord n ajax fans had a dash in the town centre we actually sat with 4 or 5 Feyenoord fans n they told us what was happening

The Singing Flame

Any memories of the match itself, or was that of secondary importance?

when ajax play feyenoord, only home fans are allowed into games

likes of NAC Breda and Utrecht have a hooligan element

Googles great...

Alex Stepney
Jimmy Nicholl
Stewart Houston
Gerry Daly
Brian Greenhoff
Martin Buchan
Steve Coppell
Sammy McIlroy
Stuart Pearson
Lou Macari
Gordon Hill

We lost 1-0 (but won the return leg 2-0)

If an English club goes to a town with a hooligan element, there will always be a few that want to take us on. The English hooligan tag has gone nowhere.

as the singing flame says... we were no saints back in the 70s/80s.. so some club's fans will remember that.

That's why we get so much grief in Italy... English club fans would ramsack the place.... everyone would fly back in spanking new kappa trackies, starting a trend back home.

RedRussian.Ha ha.I remember we lost one nil to a ruud kroll goal although youd have needed binoculars to see it from where we were.Macari and Sammy Mac won it for us in the 2nd leg with a goal each.It was my first trip abroad ever and I was at school at the time (not borstal) so the whole trip was a bit of a United rite of passage for me.Btw long hair doesnt go with a bowler hat.

Albert

Here's a great website for United stats bud

www.stretfordend.co.uk/

Wow Singing Flame that does go a long way back. If I remember the Red Army there were lots of them and a lot of fairly young kids as well. In some ways I think that season under Tommy Docherty after relegation was United's best ever. But it seems like a thousand years ago now looking back.

I went to Ajax around that time to see a friendly against FC Cologne. Lots of Dutch skinheads and it wasn't at all friendly.

i was there for feyenoord in 97 and it went off big time. any idiot could have forecasted what happened last night. the dutch have some tidy firms, united took around 10,000 there, more than half of whom were ticketless. throw some passing anderlecht mentalists into the mix and it doesn't take a genuis to work out the result.

Uniteds Red Army were the most revered 'firm' in Europe. Along with other English clubs firms, the Dutch (and Italian, Turkish, Polish etc.) hoolies watched, learnt and copied the English during the 70s and 80s. Even today, where ever United and other English clubs with a reputation go in Europe, the local nut cases don't forget easily.

Comment deleted by Article Creator

redconn "at the end of the day everyone hates you"

One day you'll travel further than your mum can push your pram and you'll discover there's a whole world beyond your council estate

Actually in the bad old days Everton were one of United Red Army's most feared adversaries.

"at the end of the day everyone hates "

you're confusing us with yourselves. liverpool may be the media darlings over here, but the actions of your despicable support that night in 1985 has ensured that you will forever be treated with the contempt you deserve whenever you venture onto the continent.

Albert

Football hooliganism was as rife in Holland and Germany, at the same time it was bad in England, only we got the bad press for it.

We sorted our act out but the Dutch never really have. It seems UEFA have one rule for us and one for the rest of Europe.

Look at the trouble there is every time an English team visits Rome.

Albert, Macca

This is also a very good one.

http://www.aboutmanutd.com/

it's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy regarding the foreign police, especially in Italy.

They use 80s 'examples' to justify their presence and then show up looking for a fight. Then they say "look...there was trouble. We were right".

It seems UEFA have one rule for us and one for the rest of Europe.
**

This is without doubt the case.

They called hooliganism the 'English Disease' and they have never let it go. Seems English fans are considered as the blame and are therefore, to them, fair game.

apparently anderlecht fans went to amsterdam just looking to fight united fans, there was no other reason for them to be there at all .....should`ve taught them a lesson