With the ‘eyes of the world’ on the city for yesterday’s derby clash Greater Manchester Police have praised the behaviour of fans after the arrest of just 16 people.
The highly anticipated fixture took place at City’s Etihad stadium and saw the Blues storm to a 4-1 victory over their rivals.
Despite the fierce competition between the two clubs the majority of the offences were for minor crimes.
Match Commander Chief Superintendent Stuart Ellison said: “The eyes of the world were on Manchester today and I am glad to say that the supporters of both clubs did us proud.
“On the whole the fans behaved impeccably and I am pleased to say there were only 16 arrests.
“It was a great success, given that there were over 47,000 fans in attendance, and is testament to the behaviour of genuine fans in attendance.”
Offences included possession of a flare, drunk and disorderly, assault, breach of peace, and criminal damage.
While GMP praised fans for their behaviour the number of arrests in Sunday’s derby is three higher than were made at last year’s Old Trafford derby.
MM revealed last week that the Manchester derby brought twice as many arrests than any other ‘big game’ and that figure has now risen to three times as many.
However, while Chief Superintendent Ellison admitted that the four o’clock kick off posed some problems for police he praised the overall atmosphere of the derby.
“The derby match always attracts tens of thousands of fans and the later kick off time did present some challenges for the policing operation,” he said.
“However, there was a great atmosphere both in the city centre in the build up to the game and at the stadium.”
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