Galatasaray have moved since Man United’s 1993 ordeal and now there’s a posh hotel on the site, but their fans still bring the noise and fury… welcome to a new HELL

• Man United played in a very hostile atmosphere against Galatasaray in 1993
• They are now returning to a different ground, but the atmosphere will be similar 
• Gary Neville in a heated gilet at Goodison! He used to be a tough defender… what’s going on? Listen to It’s All Kicking Off

The doorman at the Fairmont Hotel in the Mecidiyekoy district of Istanbul smiled when I wandered into the lobby and asked him if he could give me directions to the site of the old Ali Sami Yen Stadium. 

He looked around theatrically, then pointed to the floor. ‘You are standing on it,’ he said.

Now, where there was once so much sound and fury, conference delegates mill around and nibble on biscuits and hotel guests come and go, unaware that this was once one of the great cathedrals of European football.

The last time I watched a Galatasaray home game on this spot in 1999, there was an armoured car parked on the forecourt of the famous old arena and soldiers thronging its perimeter for the visit of Gianluca Vialli’s Chelsea in a Champions League group stage game that was so fraught with tension it felt more like the prelude to a firefight than a football match.

The atmosphere before the match was as fevered as any game I’ve ever been to. The stadium shook with the choreographed exhortations of 22,000 fans, the majority of whom had been inside the ground for hours. It was not dissimilar to the ‘Welcome to Hell’ Manchester United had been given six years earlier.

Galatasaray’s old stadium had a capacity of 22,000 and hosted Man United back in 1993

Their new stadium (pictured) is more than double the size as it holds 52,280 supporters

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‘I’ve never experienced anything like Galatasaray,’ said Ryan Giggs, years after the tumultuous draw in Istanbul that ended in mayhem. ‘Two hours before kick-off, we went out to have a look at the pitch and the stadium was packed. The chanting was brilliant: one side starts, then the other, then quiet, then all of them chanting.’

Paolo Maldini, the AC Milan and Italy great, was similarly impressed by the noise inside the Ali Sami Yen. ‘Nobody can make me believe that there are only 22,000 people in this stadium,’ he said.

To experience it was to feel like it was the antidote to the corporate blandness that began to take over football towards the end of the century.

But it had a terrifyingly ugly, brutal side, too.

I used to think the supporters’ antics were harmless pantomime acts until two Leeds fans were murdered by Galatasaray supporters before a Uefa Cup semi-final first leg tie here in 2000. That removed any idea that English fans can ever be complacent about their safety on visits here.

Chelsea found the perfect antidote to the hostility when Tore Andre Flo scored after 32 minutes and suddenly the din turned to silence.

Chelsea won 5-0 in the end and a lot of the fans who had drawn their fingers across their throats in the traditional greeting to visiting football teams left before the end.

Thirty years ago, Man United played Galatasaray in Turkey and played in one of the most hostile atmospheres ever seen, with Eric Cantona being escorted off the pitch afterwards

Galatasaray have since moved to a new ground, but still create a furious atmosphere

There are no remnants of the old stadium there now when you go in search of Hell. The street outside is called Ali Sami Yen Alley but that is the only record it ever existed.

There is no plaque to commemorate the monument that once stood there.

It was demolished in 2011 and it was bade good riddance by its destroyers, who said that flaws in its construction meant it was a miracle that a stadium collapse had been averted.

‘We demolished the building in 15 days but had originally planned for it to take 75,’ a spokesman for the firm said. ‘This means we tore it down like we rip up paper.’ And so, if Hell did not freeze over, Hell was at least razed to the ground. Nothing remains.

A re-run of last weekend’s Premier League match between Sheffield United and Bournemouth was playing on the television screen in the Fairmont’s fancy coffee shop but that was the only nod to football there was.

The new Ali Sami Yen, where United will run the gauntlet tonight as they try to stave off elimination from the Champions League against a Galatasaray side who beat them at Old Trafford last month, is a 25-minute cab ride away, out of the city centre, in the Levent area of the sprawling metropolis.

A couple of years ago, it was called the Turk Telekom Arena. Then it became the Nef Stadium. Now it is called Rams Park.

Galatasaray fans still call it the Ali Sami Yen, though, and the atmosphere inside it when United walk out will be a test of nerve for Erik ten Hag’s team, just as it was for Sir Alex Ferguson’s side in 1993.

Erik ten Hag’s side can expect a similar atmosphere to the one United encountered in 1993

Sometimes, the atmosphere generated by a fanbase does not survive the move to a new stadium but there is no suggestion that that has been the case with Galatasaray, who moved to their new stadium in 2011.

The place will be a cauldron again, particularly as the home supporters know that victory will put them on the brink of qualification for the knockout stages of the competition.

I had been told that the concierge at my hotel was a fanatical Galatasaray supporter and he did not disappoint. Alper came out of his office with his orange and red club scarf raised above his head and showed me pictures of his son outside Rams Park with his face painted in red and orange.

He looked surprised when I asked whether the atmosphere was as good as it had been at the old Ali Sami Yen.

‘It is even better,’ he said. ‘There were only 22,000 fans at the old stadium. Now, there are 52,000. And the fans still get there hours early. It will be very noisy for Manchester United.’

Ten Hag needs his players to keep their heads as they aim to keep their qualification hopes alive

There were long queues of supporters outside the booths at the entrance to the metro next to Rams Park yesterday afternoon as fans snapped up the last tickets for the United game and in the club shop, they were doing a brisk trade in Mauro Icardi replica shirts, their best-seller.

The best way to experience the intensity and magic of a Galatasaray match day, apparently, is to join fans on the day of the game in Nevizade, a small enclave of alleys near Taksim Square that are packed with bars and restaurants and screens showing football around the clock.

It is not far from there where Galatasaray was founded in 1905 by Ali Sami Yen, who was a pupil at Galatasaray High School and who named the club after it. Amid the bustle and the blaring horns of the city, the school’s elegant main courtyard feels like a beacon of calmness, a calmness not replicated by the fans of the club to which it lent its name.

One Hell has gone but another has replaced it and if United are not to slide out of the Champions League this evening, they will have to steel themselves for the wall of sound and fury that will greet them at the new Ali Sami Yen.

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