"Watford head of operations concedes Queens Park Rangers fans will be in the home end during tomorrow’s (Saturday’s) match but does not expect there to be trouble and hopes there will be a party atmosphere inside Vicarage Road. " This from the Watford Observer web site. “We fully acknowledge that Watford supporters will have supplied tickets to QPR fans so there are likely to be QPR supporters all over the stadium." “In an ideal world that should never be a problem but we will deal as robustly as we can with incidents of disorder rising out of that. But we are hoping it will be a party atmosphere and it won’t be a problem.” What action will be taken against those Watford fans who sold tickets to QPR, especially the one QPR lad in the Rookery who was the victim of a sustained assault.? Who ever sold him the ticket has responsibility for this. About 100 QPR fans collected at the Vic end of the Lower Rous and had to be policed so that there were insufficent numbers of PCs/stewards preventing encroachment from the main bunch of away fans.
The fault lies with WFC ticketing policies the rous stand was full of rangers , even some in the rookery that got a pasting for their troubles! But if our fans will help sell tickets to away fans ,then there is not a lot the club can do !
To be fair there were a few QPR fans near us in lower Rous but they were relatively reserved so no probs. If the situation was reversed I guess a few of us might have sneaked in the Loft. The fault is with the process that the club has that allows this to happen. So what constructive suggestions can we make to ensure no repetition?
What we should have done is given them the entire stand, in exchange for publicly demanding that they paid for the additional policing and stewarding cost. We should publicly have pointed out that we haven't given away league fans the whole end for several years, not even for Newcastle or Leeds, partly because the risk of increased policing costs for all matches would wipe out the potential windfall of the extra ticket sales. I'm 100% certain QPR would have gone for it. Database incompetence aside, it has to be said that the club were in a no-win situation. They could either strictly enforce a "no proof that you bought the ticket, no entry" policy, but that would have hit as many genuine hornets as QPR fans.
Good point well made North. But do you think they might have a word with those 'orns that bought tickets for away fans?
It would be a logistical challenge, albeit not impossible if we were determined enough. But we can't afford to alienate 200-300 regular ticket buyers, and therefore I doubt we will. In defence of the club, I'm sure we would take that idea more seriously than 70 other Football League clubs.
Agreed. But I guess the guy who took a hammering in the Rookery was nicked and they could have got his ticket/seat number and traced it back. Then what ? You are right that the club will not want to upset season tocket holders. Anyway 200 Rs in the wrong end is about 5k or a weeks wages for Doyley!
Oh, if we could have stopped them getting in, we would have (we wouldn't have had to refund them either). But the 2-300 people who bought them the tickets could translate to around half that amount, 20-odd times a season.
Oh dear NNW I believe you are seriously wrong. QPR were given the standard 2300 tickets - you may have noticed there were vastly more than this number in that section, I blame the supporters who jumped over the turnstiles or came through 2 at a time. I only wish the stewards had controlled this better. The club could not give any away team the other half of the Vic Rd end - there are season ticket holders in there who would not want to be moved. The ticket office did all they can (supporters names on all tickets), I bought 3 extra tickets for the game on the 2nd day of sale and it was clear that tickets in home ends were being given to QPR fans. Watford fans should not do this - end of. I could see the Lower Rous was a mess and I could not have tolerated that situation. It is clear Watford FC supporters - you, me and others have picked up the cost of the Met Police horses (they are extrememly expensive). But they had to be deployed today, some of the QPR fans just didn't know when to stop. It would have been better if QPR had gained promotion at home to Hull last week, I dare anyone to clear the mess left behind by QPR today including the dressing room area. And no doubt the facilities in the away end were trashed again. I believe QPR will not face a points deduction, so they wont be back at the Vic for 18 months or so. Sorry who was it that thought it would be a good idea to give QPR more tickets? Barmy.
No excuse for attacking fans is it ... ...... seems sad supporters cannot even sit in the same stands without violence. I have has to do it in the past at sheffield and leeds just to get a chance to see the orns....
More tickets but make them pay the policing costs. Would have solved all the trouble in the Rous and Rookery. Yes, a few people would have been miffed at moving, but I should think the majority would have preferred not to be in the Vicarage Road end today. And if double the number of fans resulted in an extra 100 people on the pitch, we could have tried our luck at demanding compensation for destroying our pristine playing surface.
i agree with NNW...they should have been given more seating. They're local, and it was a huge game for them. It was obvious that this match was going to attract a lot of away support. i also agree that anyone sitting in the family stands must have had a very unenjoyable afternoon, i still don't get why the away fans are next to the family stands...it's madness.
any improvement on last season, is an improvement...i'm happy too, though not sure why we're posting our joy in this thread lol
Just back, it's been a long day I actually think the stewards were quite sensible letting the group at the end of the Rous get on with it. There was very little trouble other than one minor incident in The Rookery and in the part of the Rous I was in, nearer the halfway line, Watford and QPR fans were getting along and both cheering their teams on without a hint of violence. In hindsight, given it turned out not to be an important game for you it would have made sense to give us the whole Vicarage Rd end and move the season ticket holders as other clubs have done in the past as it's the club's right to do so. Jumping the turnstiles or going in two at a time just didn't happen. There were evidently the right number of people in the away end.
I have a mate who is a season ticket holder in the Lower Rous. At the Hull game he complained there were a number of Hull fans sitting by him. He was told that the Lower Rous is a mixed end - away fans can buy tickets themselves for it. That really surprised me but it might explain why so many of the QPR fans were all together in the stand.
There were plenty of QPR fans in the freeloaders area below the directors box. I don't have much of a problem with it but it clearly proved very provocative to other Watford fans. Once the goals were celebrated and the banner came out there was plenty of abuse shouted, one fan threatened enough that his wife dragged him outside to a torrent of abuse...and that's in the supposedly silent Upper Rous. I've watched Watford in the away end on a dozen or more occasions over the years. Aside from looking out for your own safety, I've always thought it was considerate to keep my thoughts to myself when we scored...I know other fans are passionate about their team too. I'm not sure whether the club could have done more yesterday, but I there's a proper review of how it went and a few lessons learned. In a perfect world I'd like the club to be able to do more. It's often a handfull of Watford fans who sour the atmosphere where I sit. They've been spoken to in the past, calmed down briefly, stopped the racist remarks, but can still be aggravatingly negative about their own team. At least no-one's offered to deck them for a couple of seasons now!
The trouble there is that people did complain when Brighton were given all of the Viccy Road end for the cup match so maybe the club didn't want to risk the anger again. Instead they'll get a lot of complaints from supporters who were in the Lower Rous end surrounded by QPR fans (who'd probably got tickets off our own as suggested) Not the best planning but no-one should have a problem with the pitch invasion as we've all been there!
