Police

[Mr Farrell]

They also do Rotherhams matches.

 

Welshmen in New York.

[optimisticowl]

I didn't vote for Dr Alan Billings as Police Commissioner, if you put a red rosette on a donkey it would be elected with a huge majority in South Yorkshire, which holds the dubious honour of being the worst run police authority in the country.

[OwlLuke]

The PA system telling us not to go on the pitch at the end of the match four times just made me want to go on the pitch out of spite

[owltilidie]

Forget tactical/formation analysis of the opposition.  You should see the the rozzers put in on LL during match.  They'd had some r8 fun yesterday: parking their vans bumper to bumper near turnstiles; placing themselves in perfect rows; horses in twos, one facing up road, the other down; cars, vans + bikes parked symmetrically like a museum exhibit.    It's almost like they had too much time on their hands...

[darklord]

They were brought in to protect Fulham from our dirty horrible players. 

[torryowl]

cant imagine what the Fulham fans thought of it all .

[dumboldowl]

Tell your MP about it.

[Highbury Owl]

I don't know how it works down here but when I was the accountant at Hamilton Academical we had to pay for the police on a match by match basis depending on the number and rank of officers present on the day.

 

Maybe this is a new kind of protection racket?

[Owls_fan_since_1983]

To stop fans running on the pitch,    I think we are saving our pitch invasion for Wembley 

[Dutch McLovin]

Sack them off and get our own security 

[OwlofOliveGrove]

Problem is, if there was no trouble the Police will put it down to the fact they had about 2000 officers in the vicinity rather than the fact we were playing Fulham, who are less likely to cause trouble than a rogue crisp packet.

[dewsburyowl58]

1 hour ago, PolarNigel said:

 

To be fair to them, today went by like a breeze. Every little thing they did was magic. 

They may as well have been Walking on the moon really 

[Concrete Owl]

53 minutes ago, optimisticowl said:

I didn't vote for Dr Alan Billings as Police Commissioner, if you put a red rosette on a donkey it would be elected with a huge majority in South Yorkshire, which holds the dubious honour of being the worst run police authority in the country.

The Donkey would do a better job. 

[casbahowl]

Walked up leppings lane with the Fulham fans after the match , absolutely no sign of any trouble whatsoever when a robocop in a Heddlu helmet , clearly destined to be a detective , made a Fulham fan remove the flag draped around his shoulders so as not to inflame  the nasty northern rabble. 

He failed to notice the same fan and all his mates were wearing replica shirts.

[Ever the pessimist]

12 minutes ago, OwlofOliveGrove said:

Problem is, if there was no trouble the Police will put it down to the fact they had about 2000 officers in the vicinity rather than the fact we were playing Fulham, who are less likely to cause trouble than a rogue crisp packet.

 

 

[ANDY]

It's all a bit de do do do, de da da da to me. 

[Owlthekop]

Damned if they do. Damned if they don't. They are there to ensure the safety of everyone, including members of the public after the game. Hillsborough was the site of the worst sporting arena disaster in the history of British football, which still to this day has layout problems in terms of home and away fans coming together. The unfortunate thing is, a small minority of football fans still cause problems at football matches. At the Newcastle match, I witnessed a Wednesday fan in the west side of the north stand, run his finger  across his neck in the direction of the Newcastle fans with his 4/5 year old daughter sat on his shoulder. It's this kind of behaviour that requires police officers to be at football matches, when really there shouldn't have to be a need for them at all. Regardless of the reputation of some football teams, if you put two sets of fans together, a small minority will always cause problems. The reason for officers from other forces is that police officers spend a lot of time at work and away from their families. The last thing they want to do is go to work on their day off. Whether the number of officers appear to be overkill or not, the fact the match has gone without incident shows that it was the right thing to do.

[Bassetts Allsorts]

Walked out from the North on around 85 minutes to witness a bloke lining a load of stewards up like they were about to go into battle at the Alamo. Should the North stand’s finest have managed to overcome such a resilient line of the defence, then they would have had to overthrow a fierce unit of SYP officers fully equipped with a state-of-the-art video camera ready to point it in the face of any oncoming camera shy attacker.

 

Any unlikely conqueror vowing for Fulham blood and wishing to attack the enemy by walking in straight line would then have to deal with the major inconvenience of having to change direction all the way up Leppings Lane due to the dozen or so police officers strategically dotted around the street like bollards.

 

IF you overcome all of that you’d be met by the most gorgeous police woman you’d ever seen at the top of Leppings Lane whose smile instantly crushed any neanderthal urges for violence and replaced them with lust 

 

She was a beauty and instantly made me forget about the complete OTT police turnout and waste of tax payers’ money.

[Roscoe P. Coltrane]

1 hour ago, casbahowl said:

Walked up leppings lane with the Fulham fans after the match , absolutely no sign of any trouble whatsoever when a robocop in a Heddlu helmet , clearly destined to be a detective , made a Fulham fan remove the flag draped around his shoulders so as not to inflame  the nasty northern rabble. 

He failed to notice the same fan and all his mates were wearing replica shirts.

what a joke.

[Mr Farrell]

I don't think anybody is saying there shouldn't be a Police presence at our games.

 

I think what some people are implying is that the Police have had somebody's pants down significantly for this particular game in terms of costs, and policing levels versus the actual risk.

 

My guess is the original risk assessment was based on the match being  a much more important game, and wasn't revisited.

 

Just my opinion and in no way portrayed as fact.