BIG SCREENS ARE PULLED

Fans force London and Liverpool to not show games on those city centre screens. Manchester to announce today.

Guardian:

Plans to screen all of England's World Cup matches on big screens in London and Liverpool as part of a BBC-led initiative were abandoned yesterday in the wake of drunken violence during showings of the first game at the weekend.

Further screenings of England matches in the centre of Manchester may also be scrapped after an "unprecedented" number of people, as many as 12,000, packed into its city centre to watch the 1-0 win against Paraguay, many more than the authorities were expecting.

The move is a blow to the image of England fans, who ironically have been praised for behaving well in Germany, but also to the BBC, for whom the big screens initiative is a way of trying to reach out to the public.

Police in Liverpool were particularly scathing of the decision to show the Paraguay game in the city's Clayton Square. A spokeswoman said police had advised against the screen being set up there because it was hard to police and were taken aback when it went ahead regardless.

The violence broke out in Liverpool and London towards the end of England's opening match on Saturday as fans became frustrated at their side's performance.

In Liverpool the BBC had planned a "family-friendly, no-alcohol environment" with enough elbow room to be able to "do the Crouch" - the England striker's celebratory robotic dance.

In Manchester the biggest concern was the size of the crowd. Police and the city council had expected no more than 8,000 but as many as 12,000 showed up, prompting concerns that people could have been crushed.

Despite the problems, yesterday morning the BBC was upbeat about its big screens initiative, pledging to continue screening England's games. It said that more than 50,000 people watched the England v Paraguay matches on big screens and "all but a very tiny fraction of these had the most wonderful day and behaved impeccably".

redrus

And now Manchester:

* The big screen has been pulled in Exchange Square. The Guardian:

Manchester yesterday joined Liverpool and Canary Wharf in London in deciding not to allow England's second World Cup game to be shown on giant screens, following crowd trouble at the weekend.

Four people were arrested in Manchester but police were more concerned by the number of people who squeezed into Exchange Square for England's opening game on Saturday - 12,000, double the number expected.

After extensive meetings involving the city council, the BBC and the police, it was decided that the screen would be switched off at teatime, when England play Trinidad and Tobago.

redrus