After much media attention, Saturday’s league two football fixture between Gillingham FC and Swindon Town went ahead as planned. As a season ticket holder I attended the much awaited game, this following previous frustrations with reported rumours of the possibility of supporters being barred from the game. As has always been the case the event was well organised from this home supporters prospective and despite Priestfield accommodating probably the highest away attendance we have seen this season, it in my view went without incident. I did read a media article the following day about some stand-off at Gillingham railway station but this was in turn commented by some fans as lazy journalism and the incident was no more than banter. I was not there so I do not know but let us remember that banter is common place at all football matches throughout the world and certainly in the UK it is not a criminal offence. So now I want to return to matters before the game and ask a few questions after purchasing and reading the Official Matchday Magazine. Despite our club refraining from getting involved in media comments while trying to resolve any issues, who did inform the media? Was it Medway Council? If Medway Council’s media department were responsible, is it right that they take such actions in a position of authority? Surely who ever informed the media, they must have realised that the club would be trying to resolve issues and by bringing the prohibition notice into the public domain, this can only hinder such discussions through the inevitable supporter concerns. The club I believe, like all football clubs have the right to challenge the attempt to implement the terms of the ACPO policy, which in turn sees an alleged substantial increase on costs. Just pay up some supporters will say and at the time because we want to see the game go ahead it is easy to put pressure on the Chairman and the club accordingly, so in a sense to me it felt as though the media attention had created the feeling of a big brother scenario in attempting to force the clubs arm. This is not right, discussions on such matters should be attempted to be resolved in the first instance with ALL parties and officials involved effectively communicating with each another. This prohibition notice felt like nothing more than someone waving a big stick at my club to create attention.
I don't know what all the fuss was about - only 6390 attended ( apparently ) and there were 5192 empty seats ( apparently ). Off topic ( I think ) - when did the official attendance for the Stoke game get changed from 9872 to 10360 ?
It is weird you brought that up as I thought it may have been more at the game, but we will leave that to Scally, he must have his reason for the mistake, lets just leave it at that.
Is this the same Medway Council who knocked down that fab old building opposite Rochester Castle and left a bloody big unsightly car park in its place? Yes, is the answer. W4nkers!
Lets look at this logically. Firstly Medway Council are responsible for health and safety for any major commercial event happening in their borough, along with the club. In order for any event to go ahead the council need to issue a certificate, which will include several safety policies and before issuing the certificate the council will no doubt have discussions with various parties, including the police. Now if the police raise genuine concerns over safety issues then the council will have to take these claims very seriously and take them back to the club. Now if the club has issues with the new demands then the parties would need to enter into discussion and until the issues are sorted out the game can't go ahead due to the certificate not being issued. Now nothing there is wrong, it is a process that should pretty straightforward to everyone. But the problem arose when the press got involved, now how or why the story was leaked I won't begin to speculate *cough* slow news day *cough*, but I don't think there is anything sinister by the police or Medway Council
What instances of genuine concern were witnessed in regards to health & safety? I saw none. In fact the CLUB were very well organised in how they situated the Swindon fans on the top section of the BMS. Hence I also assume to prevent any celebratory pitch invasion. I saw no incidents in or outside the ground, albeit I accept I did not venture on the railway station side of the stadium. What difference in security regarding so called health and safety did anyone see in comparison to any other game. All I saw was a couple of extra bouncers at the Cricketers (no police) and I assume paid for by the Cricketers. Yes there was some police in side the ground and I noticed a COUPLE of extra policeman outside the ground but they did not look as though they had anything to do standing there across the road to the turnstiles talking between themselves. All this for anything up to an extra 54% in costs and all because an official in Medway Council can wave a piece of paper. So do we all just accept what Government and local authorities tell us to do all the time or do we challenge them. Did the official that issued the prohibition notice enter in to any discussions with the clubs involved before doing so or was it just the police. How long before we see an end to AWAY supporters because the lower league clubs can not afford the growing costs. Laugh you may but the day will come along with all the other rules that have been forcibly implemented on our game. ps. I would be interested to know the cost of policing incurred by football clubs in the late 70's to early 80's in relation to the costs now?
Well now we are getting into the realms of speculation... brb you saw no incidents, now firstly that is good. You can look at this one of two ways a) there was no trouble because of the increased police presence or b) there wasn't ever going to be any trouble. Neither of us can say either way which one of those statements are true. If you believe what you read in the press the police had "intelligence" suggesting there may be trouble at the game, and they had to act on it, not doing so would have been akin to negligence (sp?). The same is true of Medway Council, if they let the game go ahead, under-policed, and something did happen I think they would be in some deep brown stuff if this information came out, I am no lawyer but I think that would be criminally negligent in that scenario. Yes it is goading that in these sitaution the council has the club over a barrel, pay up or there is no game, but that is just unfortunate in these situations, the safety of fans must be paramount. As I said before I doubt this is some vendetta against the club by the police or council, I may be being naive but I believe the police and council acted in the interest of safety and do not need to apologise for that. Whether or not this is the thin edge of the wedge as you suggest that I simply don't know. These discussion could happen every week behind closed doors for all we know but as far as I can remember I haven't heard of anything like this in my previous 20 years supporting the Gills. If over the years this happens again and again, increasing in frequency then you may have a point but I don't think we can judge based on two isolated events.
dont think anyone has a problem with the extra policing etc, whether required or not, given the "intellegence" recieved however holding the club to ransom over this so called intellegence is where the problem lies. they effectively said to scally pay up extra money or dont make any. i think this is unfair and would like to know if it would be done to other maybe more high profile less frequent events in the county
This might well be a bigger issue and one that goes beyond football. Without looking into more detail on the ACPO guideline policy, it appears on the face of it to be more changes in the way policing is funded (could be wrong). We have had two highlighted instances this season. I believe it could increase in frequency unless people are prepared to make a stand against changes in policy. This goes deeper than football and is more to do with the politics of this country in doing everything on the cheap and making the tax payer contribute more and more for what we are already paying towards. We seem to accept far to often in this country the policy making decisions, until we are at a stage where we are tied up in the bureaucracy that now governs our lives. Just looking at all the changes in football in my life time and I will accept some are for the good, however, as I have previously stated, what next banning fans from away matches, banning banter, in fact banning anyone that makes over a certain decibel of noise. There are changes in football you would not have dreamed of many decades ago. A lot of things you accept as normal now will be eroded until someone tells these jobs worth's where to shove their piece of paper and stop holding our clubs to ransom.
Jokey - for the Council it is an impossible situation, unless the ground is (adequately) policed it is deemed to be "unsafe" and therefore can't legally go ahead. I would imagine that the club can't pick and choose the the numbers of PCs at the match either, if the police say you need 100 I don't think they would supply 50 just to fit into the clubs budget. As for whether or not it is a wider issue I stumbled across this statement from Dave Whelan (Wigan chairman): "We are not allowed to say what category matches are, how many policemen he [the chief constable] sends. That is nothing to do with the football club, it is entirely a police decision and we cannot even question that." And also this from S****horpe: "It is often very difficult, if not impossible to actually see and therefore question the intelligence used by police in determining the categorisation of a match and hence the cost." So it looks like the clubs hands are tied due to the Police as opposed to the Council, and to reiterate the Council cannot allow an unsafe events to occur.
Are you talking to me ? You've got a nerve - I can hear your voice from the across the pitch - I think you even managed to confuse a Crawley defender. ( don't actually mean that ) - however I did read on another forum ( can't remember which team ) - a fan complaining about being ejected for being too loud ! - I had better be careful.
