M6 crash woe for Blues fans

Nov 1 2006

THOUSANDS of Blues fans missed the start of the crunch clash at Coventry City after a pile-up caused motorway chaos.

Last night's accident happened at 6.40pm close to junction 3 on the southbound M6 in Coventry.

Firefighters cut one man free from a wrecked car while paramedics also treated victims at the scene. He and "several" others were taken to hospital suffering from minor injuries and shock.

The accident happened as several thousand Blues fans were on their way to the Ricoh Arena, in north Coventry, for the derby encounter.

Two lanes were closed for an hour, causing three miles of tailbacks.

Many frustrated fans became stuck and were unable to move while emergency teams worked at the scene.

They hoped that match officials would delay the 7.45pm kick-off to allow them extra time to get to the stadium.

But there was no delay and the match kicked off with thousands of empty spaces at the Blues end of the stadium.

Some supporters were so late they even missed Nicklas Bendtner's 26th minute winner for Birmingham.

One angry fan, who asked not to be named, said: "I actually set off early to the match because I anticipated there would be a lot of traffic.

"We became stuck on the motorway and nothing was moving.

"There must have been half a dozen police cars which went past us, so we knew there had been a bad accident and it was obviously affecting loads of fans.

"We hoped they would perhaps put the game back for 15 minutes and were really disappointed it went ahead on time.

"Once again it seems they don't really care about the fans, who pay out big money for games like this," he added.

In a seperate incident a motorist was killed in a crash at 7.55pm on the southbound M6 at junction 4, near Coleshill.