We'll take the train next time...

CanÂ’t agree with you about McGeadyÂ’s performance. At best a 4.

I don’t think you could help yourself though as your observations on a regular basis have a theme of "look/listen/read me I am much cleverer than you". You found a funky bar, you got served when the ordinary travelling fans didn’t – well good for you!!!

Do some research, read and watch what many who were at those events have had to say. I have and I was also belted with a riot shield as I left the main square. The provocation you refer to was from the police – not our fans. I know what I witnessed with my own eyes and ears and it does not tally with your account. I have facts – you have opinion.

And finally, how can anyone trust your eyesight as a reliable witness anyway .... FFS – you gave McGeady a 7!!!!!
I rest my case MÂ’lud.

I worked for years with them and it really grated on me when they called a decent night out Â’AwesomeÂ’ and asked me if Wales was in Ireland.

The game was forgettable too and I just hope we raise the tempo in the return match at Goodison.

Dont bother going to Wolfsburg if your gonna come out with comments like that!

Plenty, Paul... they are called cowards in my book.

Footage clearly showing undercover police wearing scarves over their faces and clearly wearing pistols on their hips, black leather gloves and wielding snap batons hitting anyone in range, if they were there to police the crowd then why not in uniform like their other colleagues? Why would a police officer choose to dress and appear like a rival fan if not to cause provocation and response?

I have heard Lille have already sent some tickets back for the return leg. IÂ’m partially disgusted at that because the majority of our home fans would not use the same shithouse tactics as payback because they go to watch a match of football.

I am taking my niece to Wolfsburg for her first European away game in November, I am personally satisfied having worked and travelled in Germany before of their civilised behaviour and look forward to enjoying the experience with her and meeting up with fellow travelling blues for what I hope is a great game and visit.

Steven #5 and Paul #6 thanks for informing of the incident in the square. I just canÂ’t get my head round any of it... it all sounds terrifying. I canÂ’t for the life of me understand why they would just storm in like that.

As I said in the report, my comments were entirely speculative. Paulm IÂ’m gutted IÂ’ve come across as pretentious... thatÂ’s really not how I want to come across. Oh and McGeady... yeah OK... got that one well wrong to be fair!

We got an escort from the airport to the city centre and the escort to and from the ground. The police took our coach right through all the traffic which meant we got to the ground quickly. I have to praise them for that at least.

Not all the police officers were bad; yes, there were far too many security checks – I was searched twice going in – but you get searched at most away grounds nowadays in Britain.

The majority of our fans behaved impeccably in Lille; however, I do think some fans a small minority went too far. It didnÂ’t justify the use of tear gas but the police in Lille werenÂ’t as bad as the police in places like Athens and Rome.

I normally would disagree with PaulÂ’s marking of players, but to jump down his throat for some supposition doesnÂ’t make him a Daily Mail reader! By the way, thereÂ’s a thread on GOT about how some Blues openly scammed a bunch of fans by selling e-tickets that had been printed multiple times at 㿙 a pop, and had the audacity to spend the day drinking with their victims (safe in the knowledge they outnumbered them 4-1).

Cue the usual reposte of "Are you sure they were Blues?", the incredulity that a fellow Blue may be a bit of a shitbag? Well theyÂ’d travelled on coaches with them, and were going the game themselves, so if they werenÂ’t Blues they went above and beyond for the ٤-700 they ripped off fans.

And Kunal #8, thereÂ’s another thread about a wheelchair user who missed the first 30 minutes of the game, if youÂ’d care to post there, or where you still in full on "Mail" mode and forgot which site you were on?

"No such word"?!? You probably donÂ’t play Scrabble, then. And you may not want to read this explanation.

Fair play to you MK for that... but Trevor and Me ( or is that I?) and others of a certain vintage, whilst knowing that English is the worlds biggest thieving, ever mutating, mongrel of a language. Whatever our Gallic Cousins say to the different it IS by default, the World Language... We just donÂ’t like the Â’ideaÂ’ of Americanisms, be they true or as you point out, technically false.

So IÂ’ll see your gotten and raise you Aluminum, which was changed by the Brits to fit in with the notion that ALL elements on the periodic table should end in Â’IUMÂ’ hence Aluminium ... mind you when watching Cricket I have to mentally translate Ceylon and Rhodesia into Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe...old fart-itis.

Steve, donÂ’t change, keep giving us the view from the Spellow

I was asked if England has big cities, how did I feel about working in a Communist country and was Wales a part of Ireland. Most Americans and Canadians do not have passports.

If I had used the word Â’gottenÂ’ during my school days in an English class I would have been chastised. Not everything changes for the best IMO and I deplore some changes. But then I am a senior citizen, so please forgive me!!

The biggest problem the Americans have is that they only play silly games (netball and rounders) or a softy version of rugby.

On topic, the French CRS are a notorious bunch of semi literate thugs who in a civilised society would be behind bars. If we had been talking about German, Polish or even Italian or Spanish police (even the proper French Â’flicsÂ’), I might have been willing to believe that the Everton supporters might have started something. However, using sound Bayesian principles, the probability the Blue lots started it is virtually zero.

I arrived too late to see any of the trouble, as we went straight to the ground. What I did see was a ludicrous amount of French policeman in riot gear and shields all around the ground. Totally over the top and probably for any fan who was younger than 35 quite bewildering. It was as if they were policing a Millwall v West Ham game in 1983.

Not a patch on Nuremberg as an experience. Although their ground was crap too.

With that in mind, what type of ground would you be looking at the Blues getting?

I, along with all the Blues I spoke to over there thought the ground was a good one. The view of the pitch was exceptional from all sides as far as I could tell. Viewed from outside all lit up the ground looked very impressive.

Still, I think weÂ’ll have to agree to differ on this one.

I was at both the last two games and I beg to differ. We were the better side by some distance in both games. We scored SIX the opposition scored ONE.

Could we be better, yes we could. But is that not usually the case. By the way we achieved the same result exactly as Chelsea.

My view is we have momentum and by Christmas we will be top 4 and in the final 32 of the Europa league. Have some faith the School of Science is back.

I was in the square at the time of the incident on Thursday afternoon. The atmosphere was relaxed, funny, and full of expectation. The normal police were positioned in most of the surrounding streets and seemed to be fairly unconcerned with situation generally.

However, when the plain-clothed police started charging through the square, allegedly chasing a "known English hooligan", who has subsequently been turned out to be a local drug dealer, people, including women and children, were being skittled over causing understandable panic and confusion. This was when the Robocops were called in with the tear gas and rubber bullets which were discharged randomly among a crowd trying to get away.

Everton fans did admittedly start throwing bottles and cans to try to keep their attackers away which in hindsight might have been questionable, but probably understandable.

Lille is a venue for Euro 2016 and in my opinion this is a scenario highly likely to be repeated if the teams with the largest following are drawn here. The local fans, bar staff, shopkeepers, and hotel staff that we met were very friendly, helpful, and aware of the fact that their police were known for over reaction.

On a separate issue I thought that the stadium was superb. I sat in the home end and was able to watch the game in comfort with a great view, got in and out without a problem even though we identified ourselves as Evertonians, and even drank a beer from my seat.

Finally I thought McGeady and Pienaar were both worth at best a 3 out of 10 on the night.

We were also there the night before the game as it was more or less opposite our Hotel. As we approached the bar on the Wednesday we noticed there where 30 or 40 people standing outside so we assumed these would be fellow blues but as we got close to the door we noticed these were all locals all dressed in black and none of them were drinking but we walked past them and in to the bar, it was not a good atmosphere in there.

We decided to stay and figured if we were going to get a pasting we may as well have a few beers fist. A copuple of the gentlemen came in and circled the bar a number of times and maybe they decided to leave us blokes in our late forties/early fifties alone. They all disappered about 10 and we figure these were the guys who later turned up at the Aussie bar and caused the trouble there. Obviously I have no proof of this but it looks like tis may have been their meeting place?

Apart from this everything else was fine we found the other locals helpful. I did not see any other Everton fans misbehaving, we were in a bar just off the square when the tear gas went off and calm was restored very quickly. Thought stadium was great but would have preferred to be closer to pitch.

The author of the piece made a mistake commenting on the incident in the square, for which he has apologised for. I was there, the unmarked police brushed past me. Nothing and I mean, nothing had happened to provoke this action. If they were after a specific target, surely this was not the way to apprehend him. Approach him in a more isolated and less populated area.

The stadium – I thought it was awful. Cages upon cages. I posted a picture on twitter and someone commented that it looked like a military facility.

The French Police – my plans to go to Euro 16 are now binned – enough said.

Worst comment of all: McGeady – 7 – that must have been good beer you drank in the afternoon. 3/10 at best.

You also always seem to take grief for your player scores which is nonsense as everyone has a different perception of how they rate a match. It seems for the effort you put in you donÂ’t get an awful lot back where as Â’the othersÂ’ who more often or not just document exactly what we saw on the Saturday afternoon or whenever are taken as gospel.

So the French bacon got a bit fruity with the travelling support... big deal – it’s not like that has ever happened before. It makes me laugh there are grown men on here crying about it. Maybe the supporters were the innocent victims this time but I’ve travelled with Everton plenty before to know that our supporters have the capacity to behave like proper cunts when they want to. Even inside Goodison Park... Still, I digress.

Paul – keep posting your matchday reports because I love the sense of occasion you provide instead of the usual humdrum. And don’t feel like you have to apologise cause some twat has accused you of being pretentious – you were simply explaining about a good bar you had found. You and your mates are the type of supporter this club can be proud of instead of the clowns who started throwing bottles at the gendarmes ’cause they started it, sir’.

I am the "some twat" you have referred to.

I have found Paul Traill's reports pretentious previously and I felt this was the case for Lille. My opinion was reasonably stated and was supported by the facts – Paul was not there and got called out for being "a self righteous soapbox merchant" to use your term.

I happen to agree about those who threw bottles (some reports say there were three) - there were a couple of thousand in that square.

Was I surprised at the trouble? No, I was not, and nor were the police either – they got what they wanted.

I would like to believe I am also the type of fan Everton would be proud of, just like Paul Traill – not "some twat" that you refer to.
Perhaps Paul apologised because he knew he had gone too far.

A completely idiotic comment that.

Paul got it wrong. He rightly said he couldn't really comment as he did not witness any of the incidents but then went on to give his speculative version of events regardless. He held his hands up afterwards and apologised for any offence. End of story.

Why you feel the need to weigh in, labelling supporters "self-righteous", "cunts" and "twats", I don't know. If you wanted to stand up for Paul by saying he had a right to comment on events he did not actually see, then fair enough. Do that. Why then try and make out that the French authorities belting travelling fans with batons simply for being amongst a large group is no "big deal", and then go on to belittle those affected as nothing more than "grown men crying" over nothing? You'd be laughing it off and chalking it up to experience if you or a member of your family got fucking lamped, would you?