Policing at Football whitewash

[The Chief]

26 minutes ago, Swello said:

I've always seen it as a two-tier approach that is inherently unfair. The police (and even more so, Stewards) will stand and watch stuff when faced with a big OF support that would have them wading into smaller crowds in no time. Anyone that was at the Morton-'Well league cup tie at the end of Barraclough's time when there were riot vans and police horses due to a minor incident will attest to that. 

The standing back with their arms folded, hoping that they can lift people retrospectively is one of the things that gives OF supports a feeling of invincibility. They can act with impunity in the stadium with only a microscopic chance of getting charged at some point in the future...

The facts really don't support your conclusions. The two teams who had the highest number of fans facing charges under the OBFA were Sevco and Celtic. 

[Swello]

37 minutes ago, The Chief said:

The facts really don't support your conclusions. The two teams who had the highest number of fans facing charges under the OBFA were Sevco and Celtic. 

The two aren't even close to being mutually exclusive. For example, the arrests/cautions at 4 OF games would dwarf everything else and still allow plenty of blind-eyes being turned to behaviour that would see the rest of us lifted. If the police were consistent, the numbers of OF supporters charged would be significantly higher.

Edited March 6, 2019 by Swello

[jim999]

I wonder how many hours were billed against this report.

Since its inception, Police Scotland has successfully delivered policing at numerous high profile events including the Commonwealth Games 2014, the 2014 Ryder Cup, the European Athletics Championship 2018, the 2017 Scotland v. England football match and the visit of the President of the United States in 2018

Well done.



I was at the Ryder Cup. Could’ve policed it myself

[The_Kincardine]

5 hours ago, Flybhoy said:

An excellent piece on the subject by FAC, no doubt many on here will rubbish it because it's mainly Celtic fans behind it and won't see the bigger picture, oh and im in this as well giving my experience of the crush at Celtic Park last September, handsome devil that I am.

You spoke well, mate.  Not so sure about the peroxide and the split ends...

 

[Mr Waldo]

But what's the issue here Snafu?  'Caused a riot' because one cheek's stewards cannot hide their unbias against the other cheek?

Every one of  the few times I've attended recent Glasgow games, the stewards are blatently bigots with bibs on. But it's only newsworthy because.....

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

26 minutes ago, Snafu said:

Cops revealed the security officers’ blunder as part of a review into how footie matches are policed

By Rebecca Gray

I would note that Rebecca Gray was on the succulent lamb (pork?) brigade as part of the media panel that the police consulted with.

Remember the police invited journalists to be part of this review but not councils who are responsible for health and safety.

[The_Kincardine]

10 minutes ago, Mr Waldo said:

But what's the issue here Snafu?  'Caused a riot' because one cheek's stewards cannot hide their unbias against the other cheek?

Every one of  the few times I've attended recent Glasgow games, the stewards are blatently bigots with bibs on. But it's only newsworthy because.....

For me?  Well I seldom go to games these days but the amount of hysteria  on these threads is out of all proportion to the actuality.

Also, much as I hate to admit it, the FAC video posted has a certain semblance to the truth:  Policing at football games is overly heavy-handed and, undoubtedly, treats football fans differently to the general public going to well-attended, non-footballing events.

The tragedy of P&B is that, as usual, posters will do their brain-dead diddy thing of thinking that this is a 'Cheeks Problem'.

[tumbleweed]

The state of this thread is embarrassing: personal bias abounds and it seems that no matter what the police do  there are 100 barrack room lawyers - or a few tubes on P&B - saying they should do the exact opposite. As one who has never had to police or steward a game, I would hate to do so, given the level of bampottery evidenced at many games I've been to, for no other reason than those involved are at the football and its what they do, its their traditions, man. 

The police can clearly be better at their job on occasion, but they can't be incompetent both ways. Heavy handed but standing with their arms folded? Gees.

Treating fans differently to the normal man in the street? No way !! How many times are there 50, 000 people standing in the street with 3/4 of them shouting, threatening and goading the other 1/4 who are giving it large right back in the safe and certain knowledge that there is a line of stewards/police between them if there is any hint of actual bother? Never. It is a different event by its very nature so the fact that it is policed differently can't be much of a surprise. The comment one poster made about being able to police the Ryder Cup themselves sums up the situation perfectly, but not in the way it was intended. That crowd could have a drink, stand inches from players they like, and some they probably don't, but can anyone claim that how those people behave is in any way the same as a football crowd would, given their delight in giving opposition players absolute pelters? No doubt some of the people who go and watch the golf will also go to the football regularly, but they wouldn't dream of behaving like they do there for 90 minutes in a 'normal' crowd. Anyone who says otherwise is deluded.

If you think about why the police don't head straight into a crowd to pull out a couple of wallopers, it might be that there are situations which demand an immediate response and others which can be dealt with later. How many cops do you think are actually there? Do you think if they did wade in every time for every situation then those surrounding the perpetrator(s) would just stand to the side and say "bash in officer, the man's a rascal'? Or would it just turn into a complete clusterflick with more and more people needing to be dealt with, leading to more and more police needing to be there, leading to more and more conflict ad infinitum  The impact of plenty of blue lights might dissuade some from getting involved, while in other situations it could just be like lighting the blue touch paper. Obviously there are times when people aren't happy with how football is policed, it will never be to everyone's liking, but a lot of times groups seem to be treated according to the lowest common denominator and many football crowds are not akin to the audience on Mastermind. 

Like a lot of situations, if more people actually looked themselves in the mirror about how they act before, during and after games then the need for the police to be involved would decrease, but seeing as personal responsibility isn't something many football fans care to include when they walk out the door to a game, I assume things won't change and we will be in the circle jerk of 'police bad', 'fans bad' etc etc  for ever.  As football fans we should have a big part to play in making ourselves as easy to deal with as we can, but a lot of times that just isn't the case and for some its exactly the opposite. I am certain that if the police acted in the way some want them to, there would be an equal reaction from others demanding they do the opposite. 

As for such reports, what did you expect them to say - "we're sh!te and we know we are"? 

 

 

 

Incoming...………………………..

Edited March 7, 2019 by tumbleweed

[craigkillie]

Hi Les Gray.

[tumbleweed]

Emmm…..hello craig. I'm listening.

[Ira Gaines]

Kincy was always going to be on the side of scum. Guy who uses child abuse to point score? He'd love to more openly reel out the BJK stuff. But he can't. The sad thing is that when his generation die, it'll still be there. 

This is why football rivalries mean nothing to me. There's only two clubs worth hating in this country. Even if they f**k off, it'll be here. 

[The_Kincardine]

3 hours ago, The_Kincardine said:

The tragedy of P&B is that, as usual, posters will do their brain-dead diddy thing of thinking that this is a 'Cheeks Problem'.

This, for example.  Arseholery writ large:

4 minutes ago, Principal Flutie said:

Kincy was always going to be on the side of scum. Guy who uses child abuse to point score? He'd love to more openly reel out the BJK stuff. But he can't.

You're a fucking imbecile.

[GordonS]

1 hour ago, tumbleweed said:

The state of this thread is embarrassing...

As for such reports, what did you expect them to say - "we're sh!te and we know we are"? 

I wondered how long it would take to find a decent post on this thread. I finally reached one.

First of all, the review wasn't into the incident at Parkhead. It was into two things; the general safety of football grounds, and the fan experience of policing. 

Where I disagree with tumbleweed is that the report does say "we're shite"... or more specifically, "you're shite." I wonder how many people commenting here have even read the report. I've just finished it, and labelling it a "whitewash" is pure ignorance. It's extremely critical.

On safety at grounds it mentions safety certificates being sent with no visit, clubs not submitting any operational plan yet being certified and clubs being told their old certificate was just rolled forward. They gave examples of clubs selling more tickets than the stadium capacity, erecting "unsafe scaffolding terracing", old safety certificates being altered to increase capacity, certificates where the capacities of stands didn't add up to the total and tickets being sold for areas that didn;t exist or weren't accessible. 

The report says that all of this is so bad that the Football Safety Officers’ Association of Scotland (FSOAS) launched their own review before this one had even reported.

By the standards of this type of report, this is scorching; "It is assessed the safety of spectators has been placed at risk and without the intervention of committed professionals within the agencies’ safety regimes, there could have been a critical safety incident at any of the grounds cited in the examples heard by the review team."

Page 13 is severe and should be read, because it concludes there are safety-critical issues with the oversight of grounds.

 

On the line between stewarding and policing it says there is widespread misunderstanding among the media and fans, which the police should address. This thread would serve as evidence for that.

On operation issues it doesn't have much criticism for the protection of safety, but it does show wildly inconsistent approaches across the country. It shines a light on some pretty poor management. 

On stewarding... ouch.

"The questionable quality of some of the stewarding at matches observed will undoubtedly make it harder for Police Scotland to reduce its own resourcing on the footprint of stadiums. Poor examples of stewarding practice witnessed by the review team include stewards on a segregation line at a high-risk fixture celebrating a goal. This visibly aggravated away supporters and necessitated the intervention of officers to reposition stewards and prevent the situation deteriorating. At the same fixture, a police officer intervened on three occasions to inform a fan to moderate their behaviour. This marked a proactive intervention by the officer, however the fan in question was standing next to a security steward who had taken no action and was seen laughing with the errant supporter as the officer walked away. Until stewards are adequately trained, supervised, and capable of properly discharging their functions, there will continue to be an over- reliance on Police Scotland to use officers in stadia."

Name that ground.

There are pretty strong recommendations that the police should liaise much more closely with fan groups so that the policing is more "everyday". It says; 

"Police Scotland would benefit from a structured and strategic force level engagement and media strategy, rather than relying on formulaic ‘be good or else’ messages prior to high profile matches, or being reactive to issues or events."

There's a lot of analysis of training, and then the boot goes in, saying event commanders need more, and for it to be more strategic. Again, if you read between the lines, the criticism is stiff. It's in everyone's mind that an inexperienced match commander was a major factor at Hillsborough.

On page 38, it's disappointing that Fans Against Criminalisation refused to take part in the review. Nonetheless, the report directs the police to "listen to the concerns of hard-to-reach groups and address them." It defends the use of pre-emptive videoing of fans, but says the police must engage more to explain it and to use it appropriately. 

There's a lot of defence of the work of FoCUS, on which I'm in no position to comment. I'd like it if those who are critical of it could come up with other suggestions as to how to tackle actual violence around football games. Too many seem to be willing to accept a level of disorder that most fans wouldn't.

On fan engagement, suffice to say that the report says 'some good, some shite... mostly shite.' It talks about the 'silent majority' of fans who feel that policing is being done 'to them, not for them', and a lot of suggestions for improvement, especially using English examples.

Overall, it's a very critical report, with a lot more negatives than positives. Very few areas under consideration come out unscathed. If you've got an hour, it's worth the read.

 

[thisGRAEME]

7 hours ago, tumbleweed said:

The state of this thread is embarrassing: personal bias abounds and it seems that no matter what the police do  there are 100 barrack room lawyers - or a few tubes on P&B - saying they should do the exact opposite. As one who has never had to police or steward a game, I would hate to do so, given the level of bampottery evidenced at many games I've been to, for no other reason than those involved are at the football and its what they do, its their traditions, man. 

The police can clearly be better at their job on occasion, but they can't be incompetent both ways. Heavy handed but standing with their arms folded? Gees.

Treating fans differently to the normal man in the street? No way !! How many times are there 50, 000 people standing in the street with 3/4 of them shouting, threatening and goading the other 1/4 who are giving it large right back in the safe and certain knowledge that there is a line of stewards/police between them if there is any hint of actual bother? Never. It is a different event by its very nature so the fact that it is policed differently can't be much of a surprise. The comment one poster made about being able to police the Ryder Cup themselves sums up the situation perfectly, but not in the way it was intended. That crowd could have a drink, stand inches from players they like, and some they probably don't, but can anyone claim that how those people behave is in any way the same as a football crowd would, given their delight in giving opposition players absolute pelters? No doubt some of the people who go and watch the golf will also go to the football regularly, but they wouldn't dream of behaving like they do there for 90 minutes in a 'normal' crowd. Anyone who says otherwise is deluded.

If you think about why the police don't head straight into a crowd to pull out a couple of wallopers, it might be that there are situations which demand an immediate response and others which can be dealt with later. How many cops do you think are actually there? Do you think if they did wade in every time for every situation then those surrounding the perpetrator(s) would just stand to the side and say "bash in officer, the man's a rascal'? Or would it just turn into a complete clusterflick with more and more people needing to be dealt with, leading to more and more police needing to be there, leading to more and more conflict ad infinitum  The impact of plenty of blue lights might dissuade some from getting involved, while in other situations it could just be like lighting the blue touch paper. Obviously there are times when people aren't happy with how football is policed, it will never be to everyone's liking, but a lot of times groups seem to be treated according to the lowest common denominator and many football crowds are not akin to the audience on Mastermind. 

Like a lot of situations, if more people actually looked themselves in the mirror about how they act before, during and after games then the need for the police to be involved would decrease, but seeing as personal responsibility isn't something many football fans care to include when they walk out the door to a game, I assume things won't change and we will be in the circle jerk of 'police bad', 'fans bad' etc etc  for ever.  As football fans we should have a big part to play in making ourselves as easy to deal with as we can, but a lot of times that just isn't the case and for some its exactly the opposite. I am certain that if the police acted in the way some want them to, there would be an equal reaction from others demanding they do the opposite. 

As for such reports, what did you expect them to say - "we're sh!te and we know we are"? 

 

 

 

Incoming...………………………..

^^^

Cop.

[tumbleweed]

GordonS - that's far too sensible a post - imagine not having a knee jerk reaction, it'll never catch on.

thisGRAEME - dear oh dear.  You've made my point for me.  Thanks.

 

[DA Baracus]

Re policing at grounds; in my experience their attitude is that everyone is a massive criminal itching to cause trouble. In fact it seems like that’s their policy. Not all of them are bad of course, and you can have a laugh and sensible chat with some, but unfortunately the majority seem desperate for something to happen.

 

I get that it’s not an easy job and that there are definitely fannies who don’t help, but far too often they seem to inflame situations and also pick on easy targets. They seem to think that anyone who makes a bit of noise at the football is some sort of elite hooligan. Them filming fans just seems like they are trying to provoke them.

 

A big issue is that quite a few police seem to clearly be Sevco and Celtic fans and take a different approach to the supporters of those clubs.

 

 

Their ‘intelligence’ is also an absolute joke. It’s like they simply don’t understand football. On a few occasions they’ve ‘escorted’ a Pars supporters bus out of Brechin, i.e. pretty much banned them from the town after a game and forced them to go straight home. A couple of seasons ago we had a Challenge Cup game at Buckie Thistle. The year before we’d played them in the Scottish Cup and took a decent crowd. Aside from a single fanny with a flare, there were zero incidents and no trouble. In fact it was all pretty friendly with fans of both clubs mixing and chatting in the pub at the ground before, during and after the game. Me and @Stellaboz actually missed our third and fourth goals because we’d had a quick half time pint but were talking to a couple of Buckie fans in the pub and didn’t realise the second half had kicked off! For the Challenge Cup game, which of course had a significantly smaller crowd (less than half of what was at the previous game between the clubs) the police presence seemed to be larger. There were police vans patrolling the streets, frequent pub ‘inspections’ by the police, every single away fan was searched with a hand held metal detector (on the orders of the police apparently) and the bar at the ground was shut throughout the game (on the orders of the police). Anyone who knows football knows that Challenge Cup games always see a much smaller crowd, but not the police.

 

Seemingly the police up here warned their counterparts in Borehamwood about the Pars support as well for our game down there earlier in the season. Can you guess what happened? Do you think there were mass brawls and riots? Or do you think that there was no bother and after the game fans mixed well and were friendly?

 

Where do they get their laughable ‘intelligence’ from?

 

 

I understand that police can’t just steam in to large crowds of Celtic and Sevco fans and arrest folk for sectarian singing, but surely they can report what they see? They film loads of shit, so why not turn this in? Then they can actually use the existing laws and try and get stands shut down until it stops?

 

Anyway, the main thing for me is that they need to stop viewing each fan as some of idiot who is desperate to kick off.

Edited March 7, 2019 by DA Baracus

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

13 hours ago, GordonS said:

Overall, it's a very critical report, with a lot more negatives than positives. Very few areas under consideration come out unscathed. If you've got an hour, it's worth the read

This is where the police disagree and why the report amounts to nothing.

The outcome of this report is that the Police are Fit for Purpose when it is clear there are major failing in the way they handle football operations.

The fact that they spent time digging into safety issues that have been known about for years since the majority of these incidents about safety certificates, amending capacities and unsafe temporary stands are from when Rangers were in the seaside league. Has it taken the police this long to act? If it has how an they ever call themselves fit for purpose?

In the report they do not engage local councils as to why there have been lapses in inspections and safety issues. They didn't bother talking to them at all.

In the wake of this report we have already seen two reports uncritically reporting the police position. Those journalists happened to be part of the review. There doesn't seem to be any declaration of this fro either Chris McLaughlin or Rebecca Gray. Or indeed any reason given why journalists were spoken to at all.

I already noted where the police are quick to congratulate themselves but make no mention of their failings. Rangers Europa League fixtures being one part. Outright ignoring the incident at Celtic Park is another unmentioned failure. How can anyone have any faith in this report?

14 hours ago, tumbleweed said:

As for such reports, what did you expect them to say - "we're sh!te and we know we are"? 

I think people would expect any report into policing to be honest. The fact you admit the police will never admit their own failings only underlines the point of those who refused to take part. The police are not fit to assess themselves.

The fact is that journalists involved with the report are trying to pass it off as independent is unbelievable. Getting in an officer from another force is the absolute minimum the Police Scotland could do in terms of independence. It is still the police marking their own work.

 

[HibsFan]

5 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

Re policing at grounds; in my experience their attitude is that everyone is a massive criminal itching to cause trouble. In fact it seems like that’s their policy. Not all of them are bad of course, and you can have a laugh and sensible chat with some, but unfortunately the majority seem desperate for something to happen.

Anyway, the main thing for me is that they need to stop viewing each fan as some of idiot who is desperate to kick off.

This is the crux of it, and until they change their attitude they're not going to improve things.

[Busta Nut]

6 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

Them filming fans just seems like they are trying to provoke them.

 

I have never understood this. They can film me all they want. I will look like an idiot shouting at the ref but I have no major concerns with them filiming me.

[Guest]

From personal experience the Police aren't usually the problem but overzealous and generally cretinous stewards who seem to take great delight in annoying and wynding up the away fans.

Dens park in recent years has been bad and Cappielow is another that instantly springs to mind.

Don't get me wrong, there's always a few drunken / drugged up dafties that COULD do with a good telling off / lifted / refused admission, but unfortunately they seem to treat everyone with the same contempt which in reality terms only causes animosity and generally leads to trouble of some sort.

What really gets you though is the fact that you are the paying customer and in no other business would the customer be treated in this way for paying good money and generally well over the odds for the product on offer..............