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Riot!!!
Essaouira, Morocco
May, 2006
Riot at Essaouira Soccer Stadium
Last Sunday I was riding my bike by the Municipal Soccer Stadium and from the activity I could tell there was going to be a game. The field is located just off rue Mohammed V between Cafe Mogador and the main auto route. I stopped at the entrance and asked a Police Officer standing out front what time the match started.
"14:30," he replied in French.
It was only 2:00PM, so I quickly rode my bike home to get my camera. I figured I might be able to get some good shots of the game for the blog.
I arrived back just before kickoff and the crowd was going crazy. They were so loud that on my way back I could hear them from the Sofitel.
As I approached the field, I saw that all of the spectators were on the north side of the field. I also noticed that there were a lot of Army and Police Officers present, about ten in total.
It was really windy so I decided to join the rest of the spectators on the other side of the field. As I walked my bike around towards the bleachers, I could see that the fans on the right side were rooting for the Black Team and the fans on the left were rooting for Orange. They were all waving flags, chanting and they all seemed very merry. I would estimate about 750 people were in the stadium.
The bleachers were full, so I decided to stand and watch the game on the left side with all the Black Team fans. There was a guy there with his ice cream cart, so I walked over and got myself a little one Dirham snack.
The game started and each side continued to wave their flags and chant, but it did calm down a little. The game was kind of boring, but at about minute 23, the Orange Team scored.
This must have been the city final. The entire Orange Team ran over and flopped on the guy who scored the goal while the referee was blowing his whistle break things up. The Orange fans were going crazy.
Then I'm not sure exactly what happened. It was chaos. I'm standing there and all of the Black fans started running straight at me. At the same time I looked up and big stones were starting to fly. I decided not to run so I could dodge the incoming projectiles. They were being thrown from pretty far away, so you had plenty of time to get out of the way.
Some of the rocks were really big, over 5 square centimeters and it was a bit scary. Then things get worse. All of the sudden I notice that the black fans have passed and the orange fans were approaching with rocks in their hands. There was just me, two older guys and the ice cream man.
I paused momentarily to access the situation. It was too late to run. Some rocks were still being thrown so I decided dive for cover behind ice cream cart. The ice cream man was also hiding and nodded to me when I joined him.
The Orange Hooligans went right past us and continued to throw stones at the retreating Blacks. Finally the Police Van speeded up and the Orange Hooligans made their retreat through the holes on the back fence. Where were the Police and Army the whole time?
That was pretty much the end. As I walked my bike towards the exit there was lots of commotion and I saw some bloody heads. I got away with a little shin bruise from a rock that skipped under the ice cream cart.
I hear that they actually resumed the game after the police sorted everything out. That was enough for me. I'm really only a one riot a day kind of guy.
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