Excellent piece... I’ve policed a lot of football. We must stop treating fans as the enemy Nick Glynn please log in to view this image https://www.theguardian.com/comment...y-manchester-city-bournemouth-police-stewards
Absolutely! And the points he makes about the laws brought in after the Hillsborough disaster and the lies told in the aftermath, are spot on. No other sporting fans are treated in this way and its a disgrace.
We need parliamentarians to take this issue up, it's a brilliantly succinct and accurate piece of writing. The final point is telling for me - are we to wait for a steward to kill someone with an over-aggressive retaining technique before something is done? That would be to repeat the mistakes that led to Hillsborough.
We as football fans have a responsibility too, just don't go on the pitch and there's no chance of you'll need to be restrained.
Yet it is not even an offence at other sports and doesn't result in even banning orders. Yes, anyone infringing on the field of play during the game deserves all they get but the reaction to football fans is markedly different from that of rugby fans, both codes, or cricket coming on the pitch after a game.
Great piece and it highlights for me the differences of 'stewarding' in this country as we travel watching City. I've seen the same sort of crap with no thought to age or even gender, But take the Doncaster game last week, 'simmering' might have been a word used to the tensions of our support, but did the Donny stewards backs go up, not a bit of it, dealt with calmly, efficiently, defusing a situation that could have occurred.
On the spot fine of £85. No court case. I think it is fair to say if that had been a City fan stickingbthe boot in there would have been a different handling of things. More amusing was the munter with a bandaged arm wielding a white stilletto shoe.
