I’ve heard about it before, before these pictures are pretty incredible. Makes Reading '05 look tame in comparison.
What’s the closest to Lord of the Flies style anarchy you’ve come? I was at the Italian World Cup celebrations in Rome in 2006 and genuinely thought I was going to get trampled by a mob waving flares and singing Seven Nation Army, but somehow made it out.
AC Milan v Perugia at the San Siro in 2002. I was the only woman, genuinely terrifying and had to leave 5 minutes before the end because I was certain I’d be trampled to death otherwise. Complete lawlessness on the terraces and a world away from British football.
Soon afterwards, though, things descend into chaos. Excitement and lack of sleep appear to have got to some of the shoppers as they sprint towards the bargains at the back of the showroom. A man flies through a pile of chairs, sending them crashing into a wall. “Just calm down, please!” bellows a shop assistant, in hope rather than expectation. I bump into one of the UK’s leading young architects, who waves a fistful of white slips at me. “My friends were at the front and they just grabbed every label they could see,” he cackles. “So I’ve got a selection of Eameses. It’s absolutely hilarious!”
At the cash desk I meet Arnaud Payet, a translator, who shows me his purchase and then lifts his trouser leg to reveal his red badge of courage: a rather nasty two-inch gash he received in the process. “We were just two people fighting for the same chair. He was behind me and pushed me. I tripped over and there you go,” he says as blood trickles down his leg.
those 90’s Woodstocks were just generally a bad idea, in retrospect!
A year or two after this, they fires after 6pm on the sunday became a banned act. I remember having to stand guard on the tent while my now wife had a nap… we were camped right near a tap, so i joined in the fire hydration process, getting pretty damn adult with some of the little blighters. I guess that’s what seeing Radiohead makes the kids to these days.
It was about three hours. My girlfriend woke up early anyway and went for a run, going past the shop at about 6am, I think, and joined the back of the queue, gave me a ring, and I did the same.
The chairs were about £180 each, iirc. They were the DAR chairs: