Hamburg: A few thoughts...

[llamalew]

the rain was quite simply the worst rain i have ever seen and i live i south wales, organisation was terrible, everyone moans about the o2's location but there are ways out on the tube. this place was miles from anywhere, with a few poxy buses going to the station. I walked for 3 hours til i got a taxi, and we tried every trick in the book to get someone to take us, found a pizza shop and refused to move til he gave us a lift (didn't work) and actually considered nicking a car we was that desperate. lots of pissed up brits scrapping in a tunnel on our walk really topped the night off for me. organisation of the weigh in was also shit, who holds a weigh in for a massive fight in what was simply a small floor in the equivelent of a debinhams. plus i had my phone nicked by some prick in the reeperbahn on the friday, all in all a shit weekend.

[J]

I know we are sounding like real moaners here but you really did have to be there to appreciate how much of a fiasco it really was. Train stations shut, no buses that I could see and minimal taxis for thousands of people in driving rain who were left in the middle of nowhere.

The argument that you should have booked a taxi in advance is ok in hindsight but in reality you don't know when the fight will definitely finish and also I'd have said it would have been very difficult to have found your taxi given the numbers of people around.

As I said before, the fans were generally very patient in what was a horrible situation.

Sounds like outside the O2 Arena after the Haye vs Maccarinelli fight. That was chaos. 4am traffic meltdown, tube broke and had to walk back to the hotel through a car tunnel that they shut for cleaning the shit that drips down from the River Thames.

Yes, I was at that event also! Was freezing cold then but at least no rain!!

yup took me 4 hours to get home.

i walked.

[forcefraser]

the rain was quite simply the worst rain i have ever seen and i live i south wales, organisation was terrible, everyone moans about the o2's location but there are ways out on the tube. this place was miles from anywhere, with a few poxy buses going to the station. I walked for 3 hours til i got a taxi, and we tried every trick in the book to get someone to take us, found a pizza shop and refused to move til he gave us a lift (didn't work) and actually considered nicking a car we was that desperate. lots of pissed up brits scrapping in a tunnel on our walk really topped the night off for me. organisation of the weigh in was also shit, who holds a weigh in for a massive fight in what was simply a small floor in the equivelent of a debinhams. plus i had my phone nicked by some prick in the reeperbahn on the friday, all in all a shit weekend.

Try living in Bergen mate, That rain was nothing compared to an average day here.

As soon as the 12th bell rang we ran for the exit. No point waiting for a confirmation of what we knew was a Klitschko win. By the time the first bus came there were about 400 people at the bus stop. I managed to get into the middle doors, but it was so packed you could hardly breathe. I didn`t see any meathead behaviour from the British fans, apart from the booing of the anthem and Haye`s ring walk.

I think the flower power festival that was on meant there were less taxi`s than normal as well.

[mkirkhope]

the rain was quite simply the worst rain i have ever seen and i live i south wales, organisation was terrible, everyone moans about the o2's location but there are ways out on the tube. this place was miles from anywhere, with a few poxy buses going to the station. I walked for 3 hours til i got a taxi, and we tried every trick in the book to get someone to take us, found a pizza shop and refused to move til he gave us a lift (didn't work) and actually considered nicking a car we was that desperate. lots of pissed up brits scrapping in a tunnel on our walk really topped the night off for me. organisation of the weigh in was also shit, who holds a weigh in for a massive fight in what was simply a small floor in the equivelent of a debinhams. plus i had my phone nicked by some prick in the reeperbahn on the friday, all in all a shit weekend.

Doesn't sound like fun mate. Apparently the weigh-in was meant to be on the roof of that shopping centre but I reckon Wlad's team were always gonna hold it in the sports shop after seeing the crowds at the Hatton weigh-ins.

[mkirkhope]

I think the reason that it didn`t sell aswell in Germany as some of the other Klit fights was the ticket prices, which was allot more expensive then what they are used to,especialy for decent seats,us Brits are used to paying over the odds for big fights.I went to wlad - Chagaev fight in gelsenkishen and that was much more well run i thought.

I think that's correct. For the original fight between Haye and Wlad in 2009, the tickets were much cheaper. I think ringsides were 650 Euros whereas here they were 1500 and lower tier were only about 50 Euros compared with 200 here.

This combined with the fact that flights and hotel rooms were extremely expensive put a lot of people off. Knowing what I know now about the weather and the way the fight went, I wouldn't have bothered even though the weekend in general was fun as I reckon I spent about £1700 all in as I was paying for me and the mrs which doubled the cost.

Eddie Hearn has been saying he thinks the crowd was roughly 40k - so 15k less than could have been accomodated. Maybe some people who had bought tickets didn't turn up due to the weather also.

[Abbo]

the rain was quite simply the worst rain i have ever seen and i live i south wales, organisation was terrible, everyone moans about the o2's location but there are ways out on the tube. this place was miles from anywhere, with a few poxy buses going to the station. I walked for 3 hours til i got a taxi, and we tried every trick in the book to get someone to take us, found a pizza shop and refused to move til he gave us a lift (didn't work) and actually considered nicking a car we was that desperate. lots of pissed up brits scrapping in a tunnel on our walk really topped the night off for me. organisation of the weigh in was also shit, who holds a weigh in for a massive fight in what was simply a small floor in the equivelent of a debinhams. plus i had my phone nicked by some prick in the reeperbahn on the friday, all in all a shit weekend.

Did you make it to the races? I was there for 4/5 races until I ran out of euros, and was told that there are no means of getting cash at German racecourses.

[steve richards]

I have been to close on one hundred German shows and they have always been organised with clinical efficiency. It would appear on this occasion, though, they may have underestimated the retard element travelling amongst the Brits, the Germans are a superior class of people, by and large, you see.

Most are, except the hamburg hooligan element, who insisted on calling me out in a bar for an hour and head butting a wall to prove himself, twat!
The rest of the Germans were sound as always.

I found the show to be a effing shambles to be honest.

[llamalew]

the rain was quite simply the worst rain i have ever seen and i live i south wales, organisation was terrible, everyone moans about the o2's location but there are ways out on the tube. this place was miles from anywhere, with a few poxy buses going to the station. I walked for 3 hours til i got a taxi, and we tried every trick in the book to get someone to take us, found a pizza shop and refused to move til he gave us a lift (didn't work) and actually considered nicking a car we was that desperate. lots of pissed up brits scrapping in a tunnel on our walk really topped the night off for me. organisation of the weigh in was also shit, who holds a weigh in for a massive fight in what was simply a small floor in the equivelent of a debinhams. plus i had my phone nicked by some prick in the reeperbahn on the friday, all in all a shit weekend.

Did you make it to the races? I was there for 4/5 races until I ran out of euros, and was told that there are no means of getting cash at German racecourses.

we went on the saturday after, pissed down all day, just sat in the beer tent watching on the tele was ok actually