I was at the game on Saturday and while the vocal support for the team was fantastic, I don't think we should 'soft soap' the fact that at times the atmosphere was pretty hostile. Last 2 times i've been to Barnsley I've found the welcome from stewards etc very considered, but I wouldn't have wanted to be a steward trying to manage some of the levels of aggression and hostility from some of our supporters. My nephew and great nephew came to the game at Barnsley 2 years ago with me but didn't want to go this time because of what we heard and experienced. I'll sort of put up with most things because I love football so much, but joking about this stuff doesn't strike me as very clever. The pyrotechnic could have seriously injured the lad, so I have no problem with the perpetrator being 'made an example of'. I give him credit for handing himself in,
Perhaps the welcome we got from SYP at Barnsley had something to do with the 'hostile atmosphere' to which you refer ?. Although personally I didn't think the atmosphere was at all hostile inside the ground.. But I've never seen so many police on duty to meet us outside the ground and in the train station in my life. The short walk to the ground was lined with police, some in riot gear, some with dogs, the usual CCTV. riot vans parked up on the central reservations and on street corners and then near the turnstiles another row of robo cops with sniffer dogs. I thought that was intimidating. The firework incident was an isolated one, is not as though they were going off all over the place throughout the match. I don't condone flares or smoke bombs, what ever they are, inside stadiums because I just don't see the point of them, but I'm not 17. If I were perhaps I might think differently ? I also don't think for one moment the young lad who set this one off intended harming anyone and it could have been a lot worse but thankfully it wasn't. Treat people like animals and.......
The police are always terrible at Barnsley, have been for years, no idea why it's particularly bad there, but they always seem to be a bunch of arseholes.
Not really. It was an amber smoke bomb, no more dangerous than any other thrown object. Throwing anything in a crowd is not good, but it isn't worse because it happened at a football match or because it was a smoke bomb rather than a drinks bottle for example. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, there were dozens of bottles being thrown at full time at Huddersfield and no one really said anything after that. If this incident had taken place at another event rather than a football match, no one would have heard about it. It sounds like the person who did it is going to get a very heavy-handed punishment and that also wouldn't be happening if it wasn't at a football match. It's really not right.
To be fair you could say the kid got off lucky( the 17 year old ) whatever happens too him , if somebody threw something in the local park and it hit somebodies 7 year old in the face , they could expect their face booted in depending on the parents .
Only time I've ever been confronted by a copper was at Barnsley in 2013. The fact I'd gone through the station once to get to town, then returned an hour later for my train seemed to rile the bitch no end. Should take it as a compliment that she recognised me I suppose
