A police force has paid more than £180,000 in compensation to a group of football fans who were prevented from attending a match at Manchester United's Old Trafford ground.

The Stoke City fans were escorted out of the city in November 2008 after Greater Manchester Police (GMP) received intelligence about planned violence between hooligan groups.

Police went to the Railway Inn in Irlam, Greater Manchester, and told the assembled Stoke fans they would not be allowed to go to the stadium.

The fans were issued with Section 27 orders - which allow police to move people on who pose a risk of alcohol-related disorder - and sent back to Staffordshire on two coaches.

Six of the fans received an apology two months later from GMP which conceded they were a "small proportion" of the supporters who were not intent on causing trouble. It offered to reimburse the cost of their match tickets.

However, GMP has now apologised and paid damages to each of the 80 fans after their claims for compensation were backed by the Football Supporters' Federation and civil rights campaigners Liberty.

The force admitted it acted "erroneously" in using the powers and has so fair paid £184,850 in damages - an average of more than £2,300 per fan.

The force's deputy director of legal services, Sian Williams, said: "We have paid damages to complainants after finding that we had erroneously used powers under Section 27 (of the) Violent Crime Reduction Act in November 2008.

"At the time the use of the powers was new and we have since taken steps to improve our understanding of the legislation to try to prevent this from happening again."

All fans who received compensation also received a personal letter of apology from Assistant Chief Constable Ian Hopkins.