Delije Journal 2007/2008

[Giska]

Delije in Thessaloniki

Almost 900 Delije headed toward Thessaloniki for the second largest away trip in last 10 years. Red Star was playing Aris. However the city's main mob comes from paok fans which we already "welcomed" last year in Belgrade while basketball game.
Delije mob was strong and prepared for anything (everything). The trip down to the northern border went with no problems.

As soon as Delije arrived in front of the border (6 in the morning) they were held there for more than 12 hours. Police wanted to keep Delije away from Thessaloniki and possible confrontations with paok and aris fans. While there, one of our boys was hit by a fyrom car and after 45min. of waiting sent to hospital. He is doing ok. Also, we started receiving news of stabbed few stabbed people (friends of our club) in Thessaloniki. Also, the shortage of tickets forced 50 of Delije to return to Serbia since nobody was allowed to enter the Greece without the stadium ticket?!? Police searched us several times, they even had drug dog sniffing around.

We arrive in front of the stadium 15min. after the match had started already. Police wanted us to form a line, and wait for security, which filled the glass over to the top and the first fight with police occurred. The only way they could keep their forces together was to through tear gases on us. In that time our brothers Gate 7 joined us and eventually in the half time we entered the stadium.

The support was as best as Delije could bring in that moment, having in mind all the waiting and problems on the border.. Delije and Gate 7 showed their flags which gave the sign for aris fans to start throwing lighters and coins on us, with childish threats. Few hand flares were also lit.

As soon as we start leaving the city, a small group of thugs threw few rocks on our last bus, managing to break a window, which immediately brought 850 Delije into the streets but nothing happened since attackers run.

The biggest fight with police occurred just before and on the border line between Greece and fyrom. Police began throwing tear gas bombs into our busses, so we decided to stop the inappropriate attitude of them and suddenly police realized they had to run. However, they pushed Delije back to fyrom borderline with more teargases but the fight didn't stop for about 45 minutes. If there had been some wind to move the cloud of teargas the fight would continue.