The most hilarious (unintentiona) comment was Duch ah1t a lot claiming that Fatekole was sufficient striking cover Was that before his performance on Saturday?
I have to agree with Bexleyboy. The rule could not be clearer, and neither could the safety reasoning behind it. If there was no rule against fans going onto the pitch to celebrate goals, supporters would be climbing over seats and cramming themselves down stairways to get out of the stands. How long would it be before somebody gets hurt, crushed or trampled. Children maybe. I'm sorry if some supporters go so berserk with sudden joy at a late goal that they abandon their self-control and run onto the pitch. They know this is not allowed, so they should be willing to accept the consequences. Pitch invasions in the past led to fighting between fans, which led to those horrific fences penning fans in like animals in cages, and we all know what that ultimately led to. Celebrating a goal with wild abandon is not worth putting somebody's life at risk. The Club has rightly taken action against these people, to deter others from believing it is OK to disregard rules that are there to keep people safe and alive.
Very strange comments Lardi. If you want an opera-like audience, you should go to Covent Garden. You do seem to have a preoccupation with safety & violence (real or imaginary) The Club - this vile, corpse of a club, has no right to do anything.
It's that ghastly law of joint enterprise. From where I was sitting the one who kicked Bielik didn't fall over, he tried to do a slide and messed up. Bielik got injured the rest are made to suffer.
It was a handful of people that were celebrating a goal. Yes technically they shouldn't be there but they weren't goading the Accrington fans who were 100 metres away, there was no violence or threat of it. The sensible solution would have been to give the encroachers a warning for their future behaviour. It is a real sledgehammer to crack a nut.
What makes me even more p1ssed off is that these guys really are stalwarts - thru thick and thin they are there, home and away, week after week ... Just the sort of fans a half decent club would value.
@lardiman Knowing you to be a fair minded bloke, have a look at theTwitter accounts of the fans who have been banned. Then ask yourself if you are on their side, or that of the moron that is Colin (Bexkey Boy) 92% of fans in my poll disagree with you and Colin.
Not that kind of perverse Elfs DickPlumb is talking about knowing your own mind and not jumping on knee-jerk bandwagons. That kind of perversity.
A genuine question to other members (not a source of perverse pleasure I assure you...) If you feel a ban is not appropriate for those fans who came onto the pitch, what (if any) alternative sanction do you think would be effective in discouraging other fans from coming onto the pitch during a game? Or are you of the opinion that fans should be allowed to come onto the pitch during matches, and face no punishment at all? In which case presumably you feel there is no safety issue involved. Rather than just expressing outrage at the way the regime has behaved, would anybody like to tell me what their alternative would be (to bans) if the decision was down to them?
A quiet word by way of a letter would have sufficed. This wasn’t Peter Sutcliffe running amok with a meat cleaver - it was 5 happy fans celebrating a goal.
Whilst going on the pitch was solely high exuberance with no intent of harm etc, it cannot be argued that you go on the pitch and the least that is going to happen is you get thrown out. However, such is the relationship between the fans and club it is not surprising that bans were slapped out. At the end of the day they should not have gone on the pitch.
We're the only club in the country that seems to do this. Burnley promoted at the valley - pitch invasion, no action. Bournemouth promoted at the valley - pitch invasion, no action. Charlton 2011/12 promotion - tannoy annoucing that invading the pitch is a criminal offence. Do the FA fine teams when there's an FA cup shock result and the fans take to the pitch?
Three good answers. A letter, maybe accompanied by a suspended ban, would have defused the situation quietly. Personally I don't think those measures would have had any deterrent effect on possible similar events in the future (probably involving different individuals). Also I wonder whether the EFL or the FA would have considered those measures adequate - although I confess I do not know how much influence the footballing authorities have over Clubs in matters of this nature. I can fully understand the view among many fans that these bans are spiteful and abusive towards supporters of many years' standing who did nothing more harmful than let their excitement run away with them after a very late goal was scored. The RD regime has made that rod for its own back, for sure. I guess the real question is - would a different regime (one that has a healthy relationship with fans based on mutual respect) have handled this situation differently? Quite possibly. Perhaps with a quiet word in their ears, those fans would have been willing to apologise for breaking the rule, then shook hands with the Club rep and put the whole business behind them. Perhaps I am changing my mind to some degree - persuaded by your replies and more thought about the circumstances. I still believe that every fan should be 100% clear that going onto the pitch is not allowed - especially during a game - and that there are good reasons for that. Also that to break that rule is a serious matter, not a trivial one. But I now agree that the matter could have been dealt with in a different way, by a Club which actually has a relationship with its fans rather than treating them like the enemy.
The circumstances were exceptional. We'd just got the winner against a dirty team in stoppage time after minutes of gamesmanship from the Stanley. It was a real moment of joy, which Grant ran straight over to the fans to share. I'll make a wild guess that Arsenal pressure had something to do with the ban. No evidence at all, just a feeling.
