Just been reading an account of what happened from a poster on U75.
All I can say, he/she must have been in a different Manchester.
I got there a bit late, where around 20 anti fascists were stood next to the knobs of the SWP selling their paper. The idea was to proctect the SWP from the EDL.
To be honest there were that many police there, there was not a chance the SWP were going to get touched.

Number of EDL, from what I saw, and I saw a couple of different groups, was about 350, a lot more were in pubs. The police were very rough with them, and to be fair the police were okay with us.

Some of the anti fascists walked away from the SWP stall and the police, onto Whitworth street? I am not from Manchester.
There were then confronted by around 40 EDL, a lot of then in their 40's, with a good few in their 20's.
They seemed to be football lads from United and City, I guess.
The top and bottom of it was, the anti fascists were no match for these experience football thugs, and we were sent packing.

There is no shame in what happened, to have stayed would have meant a bad beating.
Giving false accounts of what happen,as the poster on U75 has, helps no one.
Saying as he/she did, that fascists were given a chance to take us on, but did not take that chance, is just stupid. If it was not for the police at the SWP stall, we would have been smashed, as simple as that.
And when the EDL did get their chance, they took it.

What needs to be looked at, is why the EDL can get working class men(and it is mainly men), plus a good few dozen kids of school age, onto the streets.
While at the the same time anti fascists struggle for numbers to physically confront the EDL, more importantly, the EDL just seemed more of a tougher bunch to me.

Learn lessons, or the same mistakes will be repeated.