Stewards - ruining football?

Following my visit to Deepdale on Saturday, the ever increasing anger towards stewards I seem to have gathered has increased greatly. Why do we need about 50 stewards for an away following of 500 odd? We’re not exactly a violent bunch are we? As usual, they were jobsworth morons that really didn’t have a clue about how football worked thus several Palace fans were evicted very unfairly, and even the Preston fans themselves felt the wrath of the men in orange as they tried to drum up support for their team (literally).
Of course, this isn’t a new problem at the Palace. Earlier this season, the Fanatics were banned from bringing in a banner commemorating a recently deceased fan. Health and safety were the apparent reasons, but the now famous “I couldn’t give a fuck if he’s dead” quote from one of them shows how sympathetic they really were.
Virtually every match we see the stewards getting involved with the Fanatics and in other parts of the ground – why? Ok, if there’s a real threat of violence then they should intervene, but at the moment, they are getting involved when the threat is minimal thus dissuading people from actually “supporting” the club.
Then there was the time at Charlton when a man was refused entry as he was unable to lift his arms up to be searched. He had Cerebral Palsy, but according to the stewards, he was “extremely drunk”. Rumour has it that the stewarding in general was terrible that day with several fans being thrown out the ground for very petty things. It may be a “Derby match” of sorts, but have you ever heard of fighting in a match between Charlton and Palace. Lets face it neither of us are violent clubs, so I just don’t see why such harsh action needed to be taken.
We all know that safety is of paramount importance at football, and of course we don’t want to go back to the real hooligan days of the 70’s and 80’s. However, a balance has to be met. The stewards are there for a reason, but the vast majority of them don’t use their power suitably – they look for trouble and act at the slightest sight of danger. Stewards getting involved should be a last resort, not a first option.
Harry Roberts is our friend? Quite possibly.