Fans of Leeds United celebrated wildly to mark their team’s promotion to the Premier League. But the aftermath was far from pretty, as residents of the English city woke up to mountains of rubbish on Monday morning.
The streets of the Yorkshire town were littered with a truly extraordinary amount of trash, leaving council workers with a mammoth clean-up operation. Thousands of beer bottles and cans were strewn around Millennium Square in the city center along with heaps of food packaging and other waste.
state of millienium square in #leedspic.twitter.com/0ux5JgF7gm
It comes after the storied local football club secured its return to the top flight of English football after a 16-year spell in the lower leagues. The side also picked up its first trophy in 28 years when it collected the EFL Championship trophy, after defeating Derby County on Sunday in its penultimate game of the season.
#lufc ##promotion#cleanup#milleniumsquare#LeedsUnitedpic.twitter.com/9rIP68q3iO
Ecstatic fans partied hard throughout the weekend as Leeds basked in the success of Marcelo Bielsa’s side. But, as the bins quickly overflowed with rubbish, thousands of revellers seemingly started littering with abandon.
Steady sunday in leeds pic.twitter.com/BF59x7tXO0
The celebrations also spiralled into violence, with several police officers suffering injuries after being pelted with glass bottles. One officer was hospitalized due to the extent of her injuries and 15 members of the public were also injured.
The scenes echoed those seen in Liverpool after Jurgen Klopp’s team won the Premier League title last month.
A spokesperson for West Yorkshire Police said that the disturbances were caused by a “small minority” of fans and nine people had been arrested for public order offences.
“Almost 7,000 people gathered in Millennium Square in Leeds; whilst the vast majority of fans were enjoying themselves and celebrating, there were a small minority of people who began to throw bottles at police officers,” Assistant Chief Constable Oz Khan said.
Piles of garbage were also left outside Elland Road as fans congregated at Leeds United’s home ground, which is just south of the city center. However, some supporters returned to the stadium on Monday morning to help with the clean-up effort.
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