The Irish fans have a reputation for bringing a fantastic atmosphere to whatever city they arrive in to support the boys in green, and even received World-wide exposure for the fantastic craic that was had in Poland during Euro 2012, but some worrying stories have emerged as Irish fans arrived in the Algarve to watch Ireland take on Gibraltar on Friday night.
Irish supporters took to twitter to complain about unprovoked attacks at the hands of police in Albufeira, a town where the majority of Ireland's near 3,000 strong contingent of travelling fans are staying, and they ranged from pushing people around to clubbing young women in the face.
@YouBoysInGreen Just seen Irish attacked by police for no reason in Albufeira waitin for a taxi, absolute disgrace! #NewLow
— Ross Campbell (@thedhal) September 3, 2015
@IndoSport I was part of this, bit of banter singing then the police went all out. They brought a guy into the van and hit him repeatedly
— Cathal Bourke (@cathal_bourke) September 3, 2015
One Irish fan gave a detailed account of his experience to Independent.ie, and it sounds absolutely terrifying.
The police came up to move fans. They were grabbing women and throwing them, they started pushing everyone. I saw one lad who was pushed and he fell and he just missed a pole. Then all went quiet for about 10 minutes.
Something must have happened up the road because the police just charged at everyone. We put our hands up to say we didn’t want any trouble. I got a baton into the leg, another friend was hit in the waist and another in the arm. I fell and got hit on the back. I ran and a cop chased me down the road and cracked me on the back of the legs again. I went down with my hands on my head and an Irish guy came and dragged me away.
We were literally just standing there talking. We didn’t even have our voices left to sing before the police attacked. It was extremely heavy handed stuff.
It sounds like an absolute nightmare.
What should have been a fantastic trip to watch Ireland play a Euro qualifier in the beautiful location like the Algarve appears to have been tarnished for a number of Irish fans.
It will be interesting to see if there is anything said about this in the Portuguese media in the coming days, and hopefully nobody was seriously injured.
via Independent.ie
