Rangers lost the match 2-0 to Russians Zenit St Petersburg and the occasion was marred after television footage showed supporters involved in violent clashes with police.

Life-long Blue, Richie Porter, organised the trip for a Portadown party of 14, all bar one of whom had match tickets.

He followed the 'Gers home and away during their 2007/08 Champions League and UEFA Cup runs, ahead of last week's trip to the City of Manchester Stadium.

Estimates of the number of Rangers fans who invaded Manchester vary from 75,000 to 200,000, but whatever the correct number, Richie claims police weren't fully prepared.

"I've been all over Europe with Rangers and there has been no trouble," he said. "In my opinion the police just couldn't cope with the numbers last Wednesday night. I think they got it badly wrong.

"Whatever the exact figure, the bottom line is that there were far more there than the police had been expecting. We made our way to Eastlands - a superb stadium, incidentally - early on, so we saw nothing of what happened later in the city centre. But from what I've since seen and heard, the police got it wrong."

Richie also said that the fan zones provided for the travelling legions had been "totally inadequate".

"There were three of them and at best they could only have catered for 50,000-60,000 supporters," he said. "There were at least twice - possibly three times - that number.

"I'm also convinced that rather than there having been a technical problem with the giant screen, a decision was taken to pull the plug 15 minutes before kick-off. And that's what sparked the trouble.

panicked

"I think the police panicked when they saw how many were there. I reckon they were scared people might be crushed if Rangers scored or conceded a goal, so they 'killed' the picture in the hope of thinning out the crowd.

"For my money they didn't have a Plan 'B'. I'm not saying the police were totally to blame, but I think they could have handled things a lot better.

"The truth will come out in due course. There are a lot of questions to be answered and with there being a recently-formed Rangers Supporters' Club in the House of Commons there were a few MPs in Manchester on the night. They're not going to be fobbed off.

"Fans had congregated from early morning and they had been drinking, that's true. Drinking is a fact of life with football supporters, particularly the Scots. In some cases let's say some of them were more than merry. They had no tickets and no chance of getting one so they went to the fan zones to be part of the atmosphere. And from what I'm told, up until that screen went off there had been no sign of any trouble."

The party of locals he led included Portadown taxi-driver Ivan Webb whose wheelchair-bound son, Timothy, is 18.

atmosphere

Ivan confirmed, "The atmosphere at the stadium itself was fine, before, during and after the game.