My sentiment 100% Im am not excusing his behaviour for one minute, but... local derby bad blood 5000 travelling fans (known in advance)
EG Your posts strike me as a little extreme & immature sometimes. Please tell me you agree that the lad was a fool who has done wrong.
I've already said I think he's been stupid and deserves punishment, more than once. I'm just not joining the ever-growing Leeds United hating lynch mob which appears to be a problem from both outside and within. The whole thing stinks of us being made an example of, to try suppress the passion of the ordinary man's sport even more. We should be sticking together on this stuff. Let Cawley serve his time, but **** the other fans as well, who want to see our club crippled with FA fines, bans and interventions. Jealous of our world-class support. I grin like a bastard when I hear them singing of their hatred for Leeds, Leeds United and Leeds fans. We're not famous any more.
As I posted elsewhere... There is absolutely no excuse for that behaviour, I don't care who was singing what. As others have already stated, the perp should get the maximum sentences and fines for assault, causing a public disturbance, incitement, trespassing and anything else that will stick! Having said that, whenever there is an incident/failure like this, there are two parts to it. The first part is we had a low-life in the stands. How was he able to get in? If a first time offender, not much could have been done. If, as rumoured he was already banned from grounds, he must have had another member's ticket. That member should lose that privilege, but how was the perp able to get in with someone else's ticket? Home team has to be held to account for that. On tv, I noticed that the yellow peeps (stewards and/or police officers) at the front of the stands were clustered in groups of 10-20. Why were they not spread accross? Why were there so few in front of our fans? Poor training? Poor supervision? In summary, my opinion is that Leeds did what it could and fulfilled its obligation in terms of selling tix to members. The home team allowed someone in that should not have been and did not control the crowd adequately. Sad that crowds need any control but that is the reality.
In the old days when the membership scheme started, we had LUFC stewards at every ground checking memberships which had photos on them. We moved away from that some time back. The membership scheme is a voluntary (and money making) project by LUFC as far as I know. Most clubs do it, but I don't think it is mandatory. In our scheme, I htink it is up to LUFC to police it from start to finish. I don't think there is any obligation on any other club to check that the right fans have the right tickets and the right credentials to get in. That adds to their costs. I could be wrong though. As for once the fans are in the ground, it is up to the local police and the club to agree the best way of dealing with the crowd. Clealry a mistake was made, but was it made with the best of intentions in that we have all benefited greatly from a less than in-your-face police presence at football. Looking back, it was bloody horrid in the 80s, I tell you, but I did so enjoy it. My view is I think we have the system about right in general. There will always be the occasional lapse either by daft fans or by control, but we then have the justice system (and twitter and tv) to make sure that things get sorted pretty quick, as in this case. Just my view.
If sensibly done, stewards would only have to check a fraction of the members. Need to check young men - say 16 - 30, especially those in a group or "gang." No need to check women, older gentlemen, fans with kids. Would be interesting to hear from anyone who was at Hillsborough what proportion of Leeds fans wuld have needed checking under those parameters.
unfortunately leeds will have to pay the penalty because they are responsible for crowd control and one of leeds fans let his club down by doing what he did and on top of that he was not suppose to be there in the first place. I think leeds will get a heavy fine and i hope this idiot gets a jail sentence as he has had many warnings that he has failed to heed.....
I don't think we will be punished for anything in the process as we probably have done everything. But we will be punished for the act, just not clear how much: v Carlisle, our players were attacked by fans at the end of the match v Millwall, our goalkeeper was attacked by some fans There was hardly a punishment, and they were the home teams' fans attacking the away team, so if we are punished by much, it will show a level of bias that is unprecdented. But the guy who did it, his mates who shielded him, and the people who got him his ticket and membership card, should all have the book thrown at them
Last season when Suarez scored a hattrick against us a Liverpool fan came onto the pitch and while only 6ft from the touchline was allowed to hug suarez then effectively put on a show for the home crowd. The police and stewards just watched. They are ****ing useless. But while were on the subject of Liverpool you don't want posts like this. Before you know it you'll have victim mentality like they do and you'll be a laughing stock. A leeds fan ran onto the pitch and assaulted an opposition goalkeeper. Thats the fact in this, he's been arrested and there will be punishments doled out. It's very simple. Leeds are a good club with a passionate core but they do have an outer shell that still believe it's the 80's and you can do this stuff. It's holding you back and it will continue to hold you back.
People like this are genuinely condoning rape, and no-one bats an eyelid because it's 'law and order, tough on crime'. People make a clearly joking reference to rape, and they are evil bastards who are undermining the bedrock of our nation.
From the tv coverage i saw of the Carlisle 'attack' a few players were taunted and jostled at the end of the game from over enthusiastic fans. As for the Millwall 'attack' some fans encrouched onto the pitch to celebrate Millwall taking the lead, Ankergren reacted to a couple of fans and one of them flicked his cigarette at him missing him by a couple of foot.No harm done although the *** flicker got a season ban from the Den for breaking the No Smoking Policy.
As a 'Wall fan I just cannot imagine what is must be like to be tarred with the 'bunch of thugs ' tag.... but i can safely predict you'll never get the lower tier at the Den after what this prick did !!! 16 week sentence, he'll be out just after Xmas, bit of a wasted effort really your honour....
The most worrying part about this is that they all wear the same design adidas trainers in varying colours. Plus the rest of the "uniform". A mate of mine knows a kid who unfortunately runs a set of hoolies, we bumped into them at Barnsley last season and literally every single one of about 50 of them were wearing the same adidas trainers. When we were in the Metrodome, the police had absolutely no trouble identifying who the trouble causers were. I could walk in and out of that place all day long without even a flinch from the coppers. Every time one of them tried to leave the area we were in, they got stopped. Quick check for banning orders on 50-100 easily identifiable trouble causers can't be that difficult.
So you're advocating on-the-spot checks on football casuals, a form of discrimination in much the same way ethnic minorities are stopped and harrassed by coppers in London? Except the coppers are in an even more hostile mood, and the fans will have had a few drinks beforehand. Can't really see that preventing violence at all. I get the impression that 'known faces' drink out of town before games anyway because they know WYP travelling spotters will be about. Hence why Thirsk was full of Leeds before Boro last season, and somewhere similar will be this season. Everyone knows that the best avoidance tactic is to blend into the crowd, and there's no better way of that than getting into the ground at the last minute in the busiest part of the queue when members cards are only fleetingly checked even at the most high-profile of games. This is how Cawley and others will have got in on Friday night. Police already do all this stuff anyway - when I've been drinking with lads dressing as you describe, the orange-jacketed 'Police camera team' paparazzi/stalkers are all over you. There's also an inevitable police presence in known away pubs, and there were plenty in Sheffield. Dave Jones got one thing right, it's only fans who can police fans.
