Why has the violence suddenly increased with the move? Surely the move to a sanitised stadium in the middle of a gentrified development would provide less opportunity for trouble than the old terraced streets around Upton Park?
More problems because it's a shambles. At Boleyn Park, WHU were responsible for the policing. At Olympic Road, the stadium owners are. The stewards are not WHU affiliated, so you get the type of 'couldn't give a ****' incompetents we see at City. There is no police radio facility inside the new place- so they have declined to police it inside, and the owners are not keen to fork out any money for police outside.
They're trying to get away with using many of the stewards that did the Olympics, most have no experience of working a football match and are overwhelmed.
It is a shambles, ours was and still is **** after 14 years, but theirs seems to be far worse at the moment, and they had 'planned migrations' , 'block by block' etc and it's still standers v sitters, swearers v families, tourists v regulars, despite months and months of planning. Lots of empty seats as all season tickets were snapped by the usual wide boy suspects and not bona fide fans (just as I predicted).
Its the second story on the homepage of their website and its calling for life bans for all involved. What more do you want?
Came out with the classic, "there's a bloke on the pitch with no top on, from Salford, taking on all comers..." So how he knew he was from Salford must come down to his amazing detective abilities .. had me laughing..
At Upton Park the fans were well segregated. To get to the away end you had to go down that road near to the bus station, which must have been easy to block off for the Old Bill. Therefore little trouble. Not at the new stadium which appears to be too open, therefore fans will clash. Just you wait for the bigger clubs to get there. Unless they do something to keep the fans apart there'll be real trouble.
It would have been quite clear to anyone there which part of the ground the fans came from and where they went afterwards, it doesn't take a genius to figure it out.
Could have bern a City fan with no shirt on. Salford fans were celebrating a win by going on the pitch. Some Rovers fans went on, as they did when FC fans were celebrsting a win there, and trouble broke out. Who do you think was more like to initiate a bout of fisticuffs? Fans who were happy at their win or ones who wete pissed off st their defeat and who couldn't take it?
Take a look on YouTube fella and try to figure out who was who....The comment I refer to was made during the height of the rumpus, so how he knew who was who required a degree of guess work. He may have got it right. If he did top marks...The whole thing was a comedy. With a rotund chap in a light brown suit trying to grab someone then falling over someone who had fell. It was like the keystone cops.. Very funny, but also very sad.
Not as good as the one where he kept on wittering about the tannoy not working at Rovers game away St Catalan Dragons, apologising for the lack of information on the team, saying be would get back when it was working... Then there was a big cheer. It turned out that they had been having a silence for a club official who had died that week.
Normally I'd agree but we are talking about the same Salford fans that got into a fight with their own players a few months ago!
