Pre-Match Police Issues - Bit of an Update

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GodricBlade said:
Just sharing a couple of bits of info after a personal e-mail crusade yesterday.

1. Had a response from FSF ([email protected]) who says she's working with supporter groups to provide comment back to SYP about what happened on Sunday. Sound like she's got plenty of stuff already but for those non-Tweeters like me (Philistines...) it's another way of raising the problems with someone who's interested.

2. Had a call from SWFC's Safety/Security bloke this morning as I e-mailed them to find out what happened with the turnstiles. He's claiming the club had no communication from SYP that trams had been stopped & 500+ Blades would be arriving late & all together. So they'd gone to normal post kick-off routine to close all but 2 turnstiles. Poor decision to do that as counting people in they knew that 500+ people hadn't arrived yet but again claimed they had "no idea where they were". Says they opened 2 more turnstiles as soon as they could get operators back to man them as they were watching the match! Apologised for the experience & says he would be taking the matter up with SYP as they're meeting to discuss in light of dirty weeds turning up on Sunday.

I'm not bothered about getting any money back. I just want the atrocious organisation & communication between SYP & SWFC to be called to task. Next e-mail (for what it's worth) will be to PCC for SYP. Then MP's for S2 & S6. Then Donald Trump as no doubt he'll have a view....
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It's definitely worth emailing everyone you can - keep up the good work. SYP need to be brought to account; hearing one of them on Radio Sheffield smugly declaring their operation was a total success absolutely made my blood boil.
 
rompodebailey said:
I am a just a, 'mild middle of the road kind of person' and have never really been a star basher, but I have to say Danny04 silence on this matter is fairly deafening.
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DazBlade88 said:
In Danny04's defence, he has posted on Twitter this morning talking about it and has linked to the FSF_FairCop and SYP accounts also.
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To be fair to our resident tea-brewer, would it not be his Editor that tells him what stories are getting run also?
 
GodricBlade said:
Just sharing a couple of bits of info after a personal e-mail crusade yesterday.

1. Had a response from FSF ([email protected]) who says she's working with supporter groups to provide comment back to SYP about what happened on Sunday. Sound like she's got plenty of stuff already but for those non-Tweeters like me (Philistines...) it's another way of raising the problems with someone who's interested.

2. Had a call from SWFC's Safety/Security bloke this morning as I e-mailed them to find out what happened with the turnstiles. He's claiming the club had no communication from SYP that trams had been stopped & 500+ Blades would be arriving late & all together. So they'd gone to normal post kick-off routine to close all but 2 turnstiles. Poor decision to do that as counting people in they knew that 500+ people hadn't arrived yet but again claimed they had "no idea where they were". Says they opened 2 more turnstiles as soon as they could get operators back to man them as they were watching the match! Apologised for the experience & says he would be taking the matter up with SYP as they're meeting to discuss in light of dirty weeds turning up on Sunday.

I'm not bothered about getting any money back. I just want the atrocious organisation & communication between SYP & SWFC to be called to task. Next e-mail (for what it's worth) will be to PCC for SYP. Then MP's for S2 & S6. Then Donald Trump as no doubt he'll have a view....
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F#$k that just go straight to kim jong un he'll test one of his missiles on the rust bucket.
 
Glyn Hodges left foot said:
it was decided that fans would be segregated prior to the match and that the Blades fans would be marshalled together together at City Hall, Supertram would provide several special trams for those fans and they would be provided with a police escort to get them straight to Leppings Lane, non-stopping. The regular service trams were given time to get ahead, so that it would be a clear run.

There were, I believe, three special trams sent out from Nunnery Depot to City Hall to pick up said fans. Normally with heavy loadings Supertram just let the fans get on - when they've decided the tram is full enough then the doors are closed and they set off. Not today - the police were forcing fans onto the tram in a bid to make it as full as possible and get as many people up to the ground as possible. There were approximately 600 fans on the first tram.

Once they'd filled the tram up, the police then decided that that perhaps they should have some coppers on board. So they then pulled some of the fans off the tram so they could get on board. At this point the doors were shut and the tram moved forward to allow the tram behind to pull into the platform. The process was repeated.

Now I doubt very much you've been on a tram with 599 other people, I doubt you've been on a tram with that many other people when it's 30+ inside the tram. I'm sure you are aware however that there's no air conditioning on the tram, or any 'fans' except for the heating. So when the tram isn't moving there is no air circulation and it gets very hot indeed.

This loading occurred at City Hall approximately 12:00.

The first tram was initially held for around 10 minutes, before the police escort set off. They were escorted down West Street, then when they got to the junction before Shalesmoor there were police motorcyclists waiting for the trams to continue the escort. However the police forgot there was more than one tram - so the first tram was held on Infirmary Road for several minutes while the trams behind got their signals and caught up. The plan was that the police would hold traffic to allow all three trams to pass through Shalesmoor quickly.

As you can imagine at this point the temperature on board the tram was very uncomfortable, there was no communication between the police and Supertram and therefore no communication with the fans on board.

When the convoy got going again they managed to get as far as Bamforth Street before the police held them again. By this point a lady at the rear of the first tram had fainted. With no way to contact the driver and/or anybody else the people on board the tram tried to open the doors. Eventually somebody pulled the emergency door release and the fans poured out of the tram. The lady who had collapsed was treated at the side of the road while YAS treated her.

Meanwhile SYP started to escort the fans off the first tram towards Hillsborough whilst moving the now empty tram and the two trams following behind the fans.

Just prior to the Interchange the police then decided to block the road off with police vans, hold the blades fans in one place until the riot police turned up. They then proceeded to put the fans back onto the first tram. Now bear in mind that a) the Supertram staff on the ground were telling the police that the doors were damaged and it wasn't safe to load the fans back onto the tram and b) the tram was not in a platform this wasn't a particularly safe thing to do.

SYP continued to load the fans onto the tram, with police officers at each door manhandling fans onto the tram. Many of the blades fans were protesting against this and were being forced onto the tram. The driver of the tram was instructed to close the doors of the tram by SYP while fans were still being forced aboard. At one point a police officer was holding one set of doors open while another was trying to close then. This resulted in, I believe, a broken set of doors.

This was approximately 12:55, so the majority of fans had been on the tram for nearly an hour. On the second tram there was a pregnant lady who was feeling ill - so whilst SYP were loading the first tram back up they were TAKING people off the second tram. (Are you starting to see how bloody chaotic the whole thing was?).

They then attempted to set off again, but of course the fans on the first tram who had been riled up and aggravated by SYP were confused as to why they had been forced back onto a tram and the supporters behind were being let off. Of course at this point the doors of the first tram are damaged - so the tram can't actually move!

It was utter carnage, and had SYP just moved the tram convoy as quickly as possible through Hillsborough the worst damage may have been a broken window or two. Instead the whole plan unravelled, they had to bring in vans of riot police and NPAS Carr Gate.

I stand by my belief that SYP caused the majority of the trouble through their poor planning, poor communication and poor decision making.

In the interests of full disclosure I have previously worked for Supertram
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Great update. Well described and broken down. Thank you.
 
LoughboroBlade said:
There was a piece on this yesterday afternoon as another poster already pointed out on the other thread, highlighting the first-hand footage a United fan took: http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/polic...fans-miss-steel-city-derby-kick-off-1-8771787
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Is it worth pointing out that Danny04 is a Sports Reporter and this is a News story
The original story hasn't been updated since 15:30 yesterday though when "Sheffield Wednesday had been contacted for a comment".

What's the score George Torr? Give him a nudge Danny..

 
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I think that we will see a 22,000 capacity at Bramall Lane for the return fixture

The police and SAC won't be happy until they've wiped any meaning out of this fixture completely

Giving us the top tier only and then reducing capacity to about two thirds of that is pathetic.

Giving us the top tier only was Wendy's fault thinking they'd sell out the entire stadium
The ridiculous restrictions on capacity in the upper tier was down to the police and SAC because a few hundred Wendies were in the lower tier
 
Edinblade said:
The Shoreham View vlog on another thread has all the evidence needed. This is extremely serious in light of what has happened before. The fact no one was hurt is a miracle.
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On that Vlog, the filmer was asking civil questions of the police who quoted Section 3 of some public order act (wasn't really paying attention) and then talked about threats and sterile areas. I thought the crowd were very well behaved under the circumstances.
 
Sothall_Blade said:
In other news:-

http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/the-s...-london-road-after-steel-city-derby-1-8771224

The Star's fault for reporting it?
Or the usual moronic behaviour from some of our brave "lads".
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Never ceases to amaze me how many people of a certain age don't know where to draw the line.

Have a drink and a sing, even spill out into the road, although out the back would have been better surely. But start harassing motorists minding their own business on a Sunday isn't high jinx, its just downright pathetic.

Couple of lads I know who were there said some of it was really unnecessary and a bit sickening.

It's alright trying to defend it but if it was our flesh and blood getting our car damaged we'd all be fuming. Likewise if this had happened at Hillsborough Corner, there would be a queue of posters as long as London Road on here calling them typical pig scumbags.
 
Glyn Hodges left foot said:
it was decided that fans would be segregated prior to the match and that the Blades fans would be marshalled together together at City Hall, Supertram would provide several special trams for those fans and they would be provided with a police escort to get them straight to Leppings Lane, non-stopping. The regular service trams were given time to get ahead, so that it would be a clear run.

There were, I believe, three special trams sent out from Nunnery Depot to City Hall to pick up said fans. Normally with heavy loadings Supertram just let the fans get on - when they've decided the tram is full enough then the doors are closed and they set off. Not today - the police were forcing fans onto the tram in a bid to make it as full as possible and get as many people up to the ground as possible. There were approximately 600 fans on the first tram.

Once they'd filled the tram up, the police then decided that that perhaps they should have some coppers on board. So they then pulled some of the fans off the tram so they could get on board. At this point the doors were shut and the tram moved forward to allow the tram behind to pull into the platform. The process was repeated.

Now I doubt very much you've been on a tram with 599 other people, I doubt you've been on a tram with that many other people when it's 30+ inside the tram. I'm sure you are aware however that there's no air conditioning on the tram, or any 'fans' except for the heating. So when the tram isn't moving there is no air circulation and it gets very hot indeed.

This loading occurred at City Hall approximately 12:00.

The first tram was initially held for around 10 minutes, before the police escort set off. They were escorted down West Street, then when they got to the junction before Shalesmoor there were police motorcyclists waiting for the trams to continue the escort. However the police forgot there was more than one tram - so the first tram was held on Infirmary Road for several minutes while the trams behind got their signals and caught up. The plan was that the police would hold traffic to allow all three trams to pass through Shalesmoor quickly.

As you can imagine at this point the temperature on board the tram was very uncomfortable, there was no communication between the police and Supertram and therefore no communication with the fans on board.

When the convoy got going again they managed to get as far as Bamforth Street before the police held them again. By this point a lady at the rear of the first tram had fainted. With no way to contact the driver and/or anybody else the people on board the tram tried to open the doors. Eventually somebody pulled the emergency door release and the fans poured out of the tram. The lady who had collapsed was treated at the side of the road while YAS treated her.

Meanwhile SYP started to escort the fans off the first tram towards Hillsborough whilst moving the now empty tram and the two trams following behind the fans.

Just prior to the Interchange the police then decided to block the road off with police vans, hold the blades fans in one place until the riot police turned up. They then proceeded to put the fans back onto the first tram. Now bear in mind that a) the Supertram staff on the ground were telling the police that the doors were damaged and it wasn't safe to load the fans back onto the tram and b) the tram was not in a platform this wasn't a particularly safe thing to do.

SYP continued to load the fans onto the tram, with police officers at each door manhandling fans onto the tram. Many of the blades fans were protesting against this and were being forced onto the tram. The driver of the tram was instructed to close the doors of the tram by SYP while fans were still being forced aboard. At one point a police officer was holding one set of doors open while another was trying to close then. This resulted in, I believe, a broken set of doors.

This was approximately 12:55, so the majority of fans had been on the tram for nearly an hour. On the second tram there was a pregnant lady who was feeling ill - so whilst SYP were loading the first tram back up they were TAKING people off the second tram. (Are you starting to see how bloody chaotic the whole thing was?).

They then attempted to set off again, but of course the fans on the first tram who had been riled up and aggravated by SYP were confused as to why they had been forced back onto a tram and the supporters behind were being let off. Of course at this point the doors of the first tram are damaged - so the tram can't actually move!

It was utter carnage, and had SYP just moved the tram convoy as quickly as possible through Hillsborough the worst damage may have been a broken window or two. Instead the whole plan unravelled, they had to bring in vans of riot police and NPAS Carr Gate.

I stand by my belief that SYP caused the majority of the trouble through their poor planning, poor communication and poor decision making.

In the interests of full disclosure I have previously worked for Supertram
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Having previously worked for Stagecoach Supertram do you know how many passengers one Supertram is permitted to carry? I'm not sure if there is any numbers on the interior or exterior as with buses but a bit of research tells me the Siemans-Duewag Supertram is permitted to carry 86 seated and 155 standees a total of 241 passengers. The Police forcing around 500-600 football fans into one unit is seriously overloading that vehicle which is frightening when it has to go down St Phillips Rd a steep decent with a sharp bend at the bottom. Think the Croydon tram derailment 7 killed 58 injured out of around 70 on the tram.
 
Trigger Blade said:
On that Vlog, the filmer was asking civil questions of the police who quoted Section 3 of some public order act (wasn't really paying attention) and then talked about threats and sterile areas. I thought the crowd were very well behaved under the circumstances.
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If the police had any interest in crowd safety, they would have escorted those fans to the ground in a timely manner, to ensure they arrived in time for kick off. Their actions were designed to provoke agravasion and trouble. Late arrivals crushing to enter the ground have caused a disaster in the past. It’s absolutely disgusting how the police handled the situation.
 

Sothall_Blade said:
In other news:-

http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/the-s...-london-road-after-steel-city-derby-1-8771224

The Star's fault for reporting it?
Or the usual moronic behaviour from some of our brave "lads".
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One doesn't level the other out.
No reason why the London Road incident doesn't deserve publicity and naming and shaming. SYP seem to be getting off lightly though.

As for Danny's Twitter, those views are I believe his own, not those of the Star who were quite happy to quote CS Morleys smug "success" report yet little else from a different perspective.
 
Sean Thornton said:
One doesn't level the other out.
No reason why the London Road incident doesn't deserve publicity and naming and shaming. SYP seem to be getting off lightly though.

As for Danny's Twitter, those views are I believe his own, not those of the Star who were quite happy to quote CS Morleys smug "success" report yet little else from a different perspective.
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True but do you not think the two stories might not be linked in anyway?
If a fraction of our supporters didn't behave like animals maybe all our supporters wouldn't be treated like animals?
 
The basic lack of communication and commonsense, which led to 96 Liverpool fans losing their lives at Hillsborough, seems to have been replicated on Sunday. This is not a minor issue to be ignored or swept under the carpet. The fact that SYP have given themselves a pat on the back for a job well done, is, frankly, staggering. This needs pursuing at the highest levels to bring those responsible to account. Thankfully no-one was injured, but the circumstances created, could have led to more serious consequences, and in future very well might.
 
Sothall_Blade said:
In other news:-

http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/the-s...-london-road-after-steel-city-derby-1-8771224

The Star's fault for reporting it?
Or the usual moronic behaviour from some of our brave "lads".
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Our fans shouldn't have been blocking the road in the first place. But that article only covers what the video shows. The driver might have tried to run over those in the road previously - the comments at the bottom suggest this. If so forgive me for enjoying seeing the passenger get cracked - he had obviously got out to fight. As I said, our fans were wrong in the first place but trying to run people over is a little bit more serious than standing in the road.
 
Sothall_Blade said:
True but do you not think the two stories might not be linked in anyway?
If a fraction of our supporters didn't behave like animals maybe all our supporters wouldn't be treated like animals?
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The link is United. But the people on the trams caused no trouble. We weren't animals. We were treat like them though We were herded on in numbers vastly higher than for safety concerns as has been stated in an act which some shineyarse behind a desk calls a success. Being there, the view of the Police actually in the coaches wasn't the same as the brasses back slapping success claim.

I wasn't on London Road but accept what Ive read and seen in the video. No issue at all. Maybe you could believe the reports from Blades and the video evidence rather than oh butting and seeming to believe that drunks acting up after the match means other fans hours earlier are rightly treated as scum.
 
Sothall_Blade said:
True but do you not think the two stories might not be linked in anyway?
If a fraction of our supporters didn't behave like animals maybe all our supporters wouldn't be treated like animals?
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That is likely an unfortunate repercussion. It's very easy for SYP to point at examples this season and come to the conclusion "well if they're struggling to behave in a relatively less important game against non-rivals Norwich, how do we expect they'll behave against their closest rivals?" That might seem harsh, particularly given it's a fraction of the fanbase that's the issue, but it makes the sort of policing decisions on Sunday easier to justify. If as much energy from outrage over media coverage of our moron element was channelled towards rooting out said moron element from our club, we'd be all better for it.
 
Sothall_Blade said:
True but do you not think the two stories might not be linked in anyway?
If a fraction of our supporters didn't behave like animals maybe all our supporters wouldn't be treated like animals?
Click to expand...

One in no way justifies the other. Besides, the animals have rights too, although I'd freely admit this is a bone of contention (see attitudes to prisoners rights.).
 
metalblade said:
Having previously worked for Stagecoach Supertram do you know how many passengers one Supertram is permitted to carry? I'm not sure if there is any numbers on the interior or exterior as with buses but a bit of research tells me the Siemans-Duewag Supertram is permitted to carry 86 seated and 155 standees a total of 241 passengers. The Police forcing around 500-600 football fans into one unit is seriously overloading that vehicle which is frightening when it has to go down St Phillips Rd a steep decent with a sharp bend at the bottom. Think the Croydon tram derailment 7 killed 58 injured out of around 70 on the tram.
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Your homework is correct, bloody dangerous.
 
Sean Thornton said:
The link is United. But the people on the trams caused no trouble. We weren't animals. We were treat like them though We were herded on in numbers vastly higher than for safety concerns as has been stated in an act which some shineyarse behind a desk calls a success. Being there, the view of the Police actually in the coaches wasn't the same as the brasses back slapping success claim.

I wasn't on London Road but accept what Ive read and seen in the video. No issue at all. Maybe you could believe the reports from Blades and the video evidence rather than oh butting and seeming to believe that drunks acting up after the match means other fans hours earlier are rightly treated as scum.
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I don't think it's right that all our fans our treated like scum.
I think it's an unfortunate bi-product of some of our fans behaving like scum on a regular basis.

Can you say for certain that none of the 100+ known troublemakers mentioned by the police weren't amongst the people on those trams?
They said they were going to monitor those groups carefully and maybe that's what they were doing?
I'm genuinely sorry that everybody suffers because of the criminal actions of a few.

I fully endorse LoughboroBlade's earlier post "If as much energy from outrage over media coverage of our moron element was channelled towards rooting out said moron element from our club, we'd be all better for it".


P.S. I also agree that it sounds like an almighty cock up by the Police and Wednesday with regard to cramming people on trams, making them late for the match and then closing the turnstiles. I'm not defending any of that and the The Star News reporters should be pursuing it.

I'm just saying that our fans could have been allowed to make their own way to the stadium in their own good time if only there weren't idiots on both sides intent on beating each other up.
 
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GodricBlade said:
Had a call from SWFC's Safety/Security bloke this morning as I e-mailed them to find out what happened with the turnstiles. He's claiming the club had no communication from SYP that trams had been stopped & 500+ Blades would be arriving late & all together. So they'd gone to normal post kick-off routine to close all but 2 turnstiles. Poor decision to do that as counting people in they knew that 500+ people hadn't arrived yet but again claimed they had "no idea where they were". Says they opened 2 more turnstiles as soon as they could get operators back to man them as they were watching the match! Apologised for the experience & says he would be taking the matter up with SYP as they're meeting to discuss in light of dirty weeds turning up on Sunday.
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Real sense of history and warnings repeating themselves here. As you said, they would've known that 500 (probably more) were missing at kick off and whatever happened to liaising with SYP.

I was sat in iraq and had twitter and facebook open, i saw that there were problems, there were huge crowds before the game at Hillsborough corner, this was not a normal game. Perhaps SWFC need someone to monitor social media, as i said, without searching for key words, i saw a lot of activity based around fans not getting there in time.

Presuming that SWFC have electronic ticket scanners, they will have seen they were missing large numbers and should've reacted in two ways a) keep the turnstiles open b) contact the fucking SYP themselves and ask whats going on!!

Its not acceptable in a safety matter to claim that they weren't told, its their job to know, its their job to coordinate.

Major questions need asking of the SYP. Why did they not coordinate? Why did they not inform SWFC to keep turnstiles open.

Its a joint effort from SWFC, SYP and no doubt SUFC and Sheffield Transport, SUFC need to be asking some big questions of the other three. Its not acceptable, SWFC were allowed to extend their capacity based on, presumably, certain measures being taken. It seems that they couldn't cope and neither could the Police, which SWFC will have paid for.

They need to do their jobs
 
nopigfansintown said:
@Danny04 has understandably claimed that the Derby day crush is beyond his remit, but many Star sports journalists weighed in on the Ched debate. Any response to my opening post and this debate in general Danny?
https://www.s24su.com/forum/index.p...vans-once-again-ignored-by-media.58349/page-2
Why hasn't the Star condemned the chants of the Wednesday fans re Evans on Sunday?
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I've no idea. I haven't personally because it gives attention to the issue that Ched doesn't want, and then we'd be writing the same story every week. I didn't condemn it when it was sung by Barnsley or Norwich fans either.
 

Another question that needs to be fully addressed is how do they plan on tackling the leg at Bramall Lane in January.

From an outsider's perspective, Bramall Lane seems a much harder place to police than Hillsborough given (1) Bramall Lane being narrow and 'tunnel like' (no pun intended on the pig fans usual method of getting to the ground ;) ) (2) There's more adjoining streets outside the away entrance to manage and (3) the close proximity to the city centre means being able to escort a group of fans is much harder as there's more access points.
 
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