Madrid mob turn on ITV's 'Wolfgang Stark lookalike' Andy Townsend after Real defeat

Double: Andy Townsend (left) was mistaken for German official Wolfgang Stark

Andy Townsend has told how he was threatened in a Madrid restaurant after irate Real fans mistook him for Champions League referee Wolfgang Stark.

The Sportsmail columnist said he feared an attack from fans ‘baying for blood’ while enjoying a post-match meal in the city with Adrian Chiles and ITV bosses.

The ex-Chelsea and Aston Villa player put the blame for such behaviour firmly at the feet of Jose Mourinho, who he says had whipped the Real fans into a frenzy with his vitriolic press conference after the game.

Townsend said: ‘I went into a restaurant and was eating when I noticed people looking at me. Some of them started taking pictures and then someone came and gave me a pot plant, saying, “This is for you” with a funny look on his face.

‘There were 10 of us around the table thinking, ‘‘What is going on here?’’ When I stood up I got booed and when I went to the loo I got followed there and back. A waiter escorted me to my seat... I didn’t know why!

No comparison: Stark was persona non grata in Madrid on Wednesday night - and our man Townsend bore the brunt of some ill-feeling

‘Then people came up to me, talking aggressively in Spanish and there was a man shouting at me from the other side of the restaurant. It was all getting out of control.

‘Then it dawned on me. Because I still had my UEFA accreditation around my neck they thought I was the referee. To them I was Wolfgang Stark! So I had to turn around and tell them I was from English television.’

The incident brought laughter from ITV anchor Chiles but for Townsend there is a serious lesson.

‘Adrian’s started calling me Wolfie,’ he said. ‘But actually there’s a sinister edge to it. The crowd were baying for the referee’s blood.

Frenzied atmosphere: Jose Mourinho (centre) has been blamed for his approach to the game

‘They totally saw the referee as the villain of the piece. That’s how Mourinho whips up a frenzy. As ITV were going off air there was actually a fight going on in front of me in the stadium — two men were exchanging blows. And these were the decent seats.

‘I witnessed first-hand the effect Mourinho has on fans. I wouldn’t want to see him back in England.’

zocoss

30 Apr 11, 11:59

Jose Mourinho has a point, Barcelona DO get away with it

Respect? Barcelona and Real Madrid served up a quite unwatchable affair in the Champions League

Much as everybody hated to admit it, for once Jose Mourinho had a point. Naturally, it was buried under the obligatory narcissism and masked by the stench of countless red herrings, but it was still in there somewhere.

He said: ‘I don’t know if it is the publicity they give UNICEF, I don’t know if it’s their friends at UEFA, but Barca have managed to get all this power - and no-one else has a chance.’

Seriously, how do Barcelona get away with quite so much? Is everybody browbeaten into a polite acquiescence to their antics because they have a children’s charity on their shirts? Surely if it were that easy, the Catalans would stick a dog collar on their new kit and have done with it.

But there is no escaping the fact Barcelona have a ‘holier than thou’ attitude that conveys to the rest of football it really should genuflect when in their presence. Oddly, UEFA seem happy to oblige.

Anything that drops from the lips of Mourinho must automatically be treated with a degree of suspicion, since he has cast too many stones at too many people on too many occasions for his views to be accepted at face value.

But he was trying, in his own scattergun fashion, to point out how the game appears to have bought into Barca’s own boast that they are ‘more than a football club’ - and that the authorities seem loath to tackle their excesses because of this.

Few would argue with the assertion that Barca are the most talented team in the world, but dare to point out they also rank among the game’s most accomplished cheats and that is endorsed with considerably less enthusiasm.

After the midweek Champions League debacle, Mourinho neatly slotted into his customary role of pouting pantomime villain bearing the brunt of worldwide criticism as his counterpart, Pep Guardiola, polished his halo nearby.

But Barcelona are not some angelic collection of pure football aesthetes innocently tiptoeing their way around the ‘enemy of football’.

They dive and feign injury more than most, not just in overheated handbag-waving battles against their Madrid rivals either, but in any game where their rhythm is upset and their supremacy challenged.

At the Bernabeu, Pedro fell over more often than a drunk stepping off a spinning merry-go-round with an inner ear infection. Dani Alves spent so long rolling on the turf he became the first player to be stretchered away with third-degree grass burns.

Yes, the Madrid histrionics were bad, but Barcelona’s were worse. I have never seen a team pressure a referee as they do, not even Manchester United in their confrontation with Andy D’Urso.

Barca attack the official mob-handed, waving imaginary cards in his face and surrounding him in an obvious attempt to intimidate again and again. Skipper Carles Puyol is the arch proponent of this repulsive tactic, leading his team-mates in a strategy that is as co-ordinated and rehearsed as any set-piece.

Madrid soon had Pepe sent off, a decision that tipped the balance of the game. Barcelona’s substitute goalkeeper was also shown a red card for his part in a mob brawl at half-time, yet that was lost in the pre-ordained narrative for this encounter that had cast Barcelona as angels and Madrid as evil trolls.

Or is it just that the wondrous skill of Lionel Messi is supposed to excuse everything else they do? It seems to be enough for most people, but it shouldn’t be.

Career threatening....! The Catalan club have a habit of feigning injury and doing all they can to get opposition sent off

The ex-England striker Michael Owen, a former Madrid player himself, said on Twitter during the game: ‘You are watching modern-day football here. Two teams so closely matched. Huge advantage to get an opponent sent off. Pure gamesmanship.’

That’s how many regard it, they say it is ‘gamesmanship’. Players such as Owen add the top flight is about ‘pushing boundaries’. But the rest of us ignore the euphemisms and call it what it really is — cheating.

Football is nothing if it continues down this road. It will be reduced to the level of pretend pillow fights. Contests have as little credibility as those bogus American wrestling competitions where steroid-fed lumps of mahogany pretend to grapple with one another.

Emergency: Dani Alves left the field on a stretcher but returned at full pace within seconds

The prevailing cynicism right now is actually quite abhorrent. I expect it from Mourinho, but when the best collection of players on the planet routinely fake, deceive and think nothing of the embarrassing spectacle they are making of themselves and the sport, that ‘modern-day football’ Owen refers to has a serious problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNgNy5IbwOc&feature=player_embedded

The other week, an Under 20 Chilean footballer called Bryan Carrasco actually grabbed the arm of an Ecuador opponent, punched himself in the face with the other player’s hand and won a free-kick.