Manchester-bound Rangers fans will be held at Wigan

Published on Wednesday 1 September 2010 21:21

RANGERS fans are to be held at the DW Stadium in Wigan before the club's Champions League match away to Manchester United, in a measure designed to prevent any repeat of the trouble experienced when Rangers fans were last in the city for the 2008 Uefa Cup final.

Rangers have been allocated 4,700 tickets for the match on 14 September, and the club has said only travel club members can apply. They will have to travel on official coaches, which will only stop at Wigan Athletic's ground for "catering and rest facilities" on the journey to Manchester.

Tickets for the match will be allocated by Rangers officials during the coach transfer from Wigan, forcing those who wish to attend the game to co-operate with the herding plan. They will then be taken the 16 miles to Old Trafford in a convoy of buses with a police escort.

Rangers have been represented in the drawing up of these measures, following a series of meetings involving both clubs, Strathclyde police and supporters' group representatives. The Ibrox club has also strongly advised supporters who are not allocated a ticket not to travel. The plan is to ensure as few Rangers fans as possible visit Manchester city centre, where there was rioting two years ago when a large television screen failed and prevented many of the estimated 150,000 fans who descended on the city from seeing the match.

Police fear that there could be further trouble this month, with an element of the United support seeking revenge for the behaviour of those Rangers supporters who fought with police in 2008. It is expected that tight security measures will also be in place when United travel to Glasgow for the return fixture on 24 November.

A Rangers spokesman said: "Tickets will only be issued to the named recipient on the transfer from the DW Stadium to Old Trafford, and tickets will not be issued to anyone under the influence of alcohol."