Following last Saturday’s match v Middlesbrough, the reaction against the Stewards and the Police from Palace supporters has gone through the roof, following the ejection of seven fans in “Block B of the Holmesdale which was described as “brutal” by one fan who witnessed the event. In addition, the recent comments from Simon Jordan stating that “stay away fans are hurting Palace’s chances” for success, make the debate far more prevalent. Can he really justify the behaviour of the Police that day, when he himself has often called for more vocal support, something that the Holmesdale Fanatics are doing there best to implement at Selhurst?
So what are the problems – surely stewarding is a good thing, which protects fans from potential violence. Despite Steve Gibson trying to make Middlesbrough into more of a family club, it’s clear that they have a violent element at home, and it’s well known that Palace fans have suffered at the Riverside before. Maybe the Police got a tip off that a few Palace fans were out for revenge? This however meets objections - firstly the Fanatics actively say they’re against violence, and secondly there were absolutely no problems with the Boro fans throughout the day. The police presence both at the station and at the ground was very high with neither teams support having the notoriety like that of say Millwall or Cardiff where you would understand a large Police presence. Added to the fact that in general football violence has decreased over the last ten years, and you struggle to find a proper reason for the huge police presence at Selhurst on Saturday.
This isn’t the first time Palace fans have had problems with stewards either. Against Charlton last year, reportedly 48 fans were ejected from the stadium, and in general the behaviour towards the Palace fans was viewed as a “disgrace”. Furthermore, reports that a man suffering from Cerebral Palsy was refused entry to the ground once more shows the disappointing approach that the Police and Stewards tend to take when it comes to football fans in general. Only a couple of weeks ago I went to watch Palace at Preston, where at least 2 fans were ejected, with no real reason, and in general we were treated like a bunch of criminals rather than the non-threatening, non-violent, football fans that we were.
Obviously having the Police and Stewards at grounds does have a purpose – and it’s clear the violence has gone down. But is that really down to the Police, or is it just changing attitudes? Take something like racism – 35 years ago, there had never been a black football player representing England, now it’s just a non-issue, and racist chanting is thankfully relatively rare. Therefore, would violence have gone down anyway from the 70’s and 80’s regardless of the Police? It’s certainly an interesting argument. Of course, when there is genuine violence then the authorities are needed, but when in a half empty ground, a child is threatened with ejection for “sitting in the wrong seat”, it’s gone too far .
More concerning however, is the huge growth of football banning orders given between October 2004 and October 2008. Whilst there were only 2596 banning orders in 2004, this rose to 3172 by 2008. Surely this indicates that the Police/Stewards are now using this as a first option rather than a last resort, and that their lack of judgement whilst dealing with fans is causing problems.
The other argument against the Police is who does it actually protect? Obviously if fans were planning violent attacks on opposition fans then they would be needed, but this simply wasn’t the case on Saturday. Reportedly several fans were threatened by eviction due to “swearing”. The modern day rules dictate that swearing is technically banned at football, but the fact that Block B is a known “loud” area – hence there aren’t many children there – and the fact that most of the chants contain swearing, mean that the Police need to use common sense when dealing with this rule. The rule itself is a stupid one but that is almost irrelevant – if people were told politely that there were kids and the Police took the time to explain the problems then people would probably stop using bad language, but as it is the cops seem to have just one tactic – brute force – hence the negative reaction towards them.
Petitions have been branded about calling for the return of season tickets for the fans that were ejected against Boro, with a march also imminent – but will this actually help anything? Don’t get me wrong, I respect the Fanatics for what they have done in terms of helping the atmosphere at Selhurst Park, but I’m not sure that this immature approach is the way to go. Surely it would just increase the animosity felt towards the fans from the Stewards and the Police and thus make them even more likely to act in a violent manner, ejecting fans at every opportunity. Furthermore, if only 200 fans turn up to the march it really will look pathetic, so perhaps organising a meeting with Jordan and the head steward at Palace would be a better option – although how easy that would be is questionable.
We don’t want to go back to the days where you were genuinely scared to go to grounds like the Den, but at the same time, you can keep fans safe without being over zealous and authoritarian which is something that Stewards and the Police struggle to understand. There needs to be a balance between maintaining supporters safety and allowing fans to support their team, and if Simon Jordan refuses to do anything about this, he will lose a lot of supporters, including me.
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