On balance, it's difficult to be balanced in the weight of such idiocy 
A report by MPs into the conduct of the Police during the G20 summit in April has found that Police were "untrained and inexperienced" in dealing with the protesters with "a lack of similar situations" cited by the Metropolitan Police as an excuse for some pretty brutal treatment being dished out by the boys in blue. So, with football matches taking place for nine months of every year, surely the Police around the country should be well versed at handling football crowds?
In my experience, this is simply not the case. So why isn't there the same outcry from football fans every week when they are herded up and frogmarched through towns and cities up and down the country? Are we guilty of misdemeanors by pure virtue of being football fans, with no chance to plead our innocence?
Now don't for one minute think I am trying to defend those who have watched Green Street or Football Factory and believe that sort of behaviour is something to emulate. The undisputed fact is this: a minority of the thousands who make their pilgrimage every week, are morons. There's no getting away from it. Their idea of fun is to get absolutely shit-faced, threaten someone... anyone with violence (opposition fans, their own fans, stewards and the Police) and when they're really having a good day, get hauled out of the ground before half time. They have spent a small fortune on not watching very much football and pissing quite a lot of people off. They are a waste of oxygen and organs and deserve everything they get.
I also don't deny that some coppers, are also of the decent sort. They retain a sense of humour while dealing with the kinds of imbeciles as described above while being courteous and most importantly of all, sensible with everyone else. They are more than happy to direct slightly lost and occasionally bewildered travelling fans to the nearest safe pub and take a somewhat more gentle approach to individuals who are engaged in cheeky mischief instead of illegality ("
Are you denying you have a helmet and that it is in your hand, officer?"). I have heard from coppers themselves that the boys and girls in uniform are not given the autonomy to deal with situations as they see fit, but for the sake of their jobs and the targets they are expected to meet, are forced to follow procedures laid down by those with plush desks and air conditioned offices who haven't got a bloody clue.
But for every decent copper, we have all seen their fellow officers in a more distressing and ugly light. All too often, we witness Police on power trips employing the "what I say, goes" law, their uniform acting as a shield which protects them from any reproach and a means to completely ignore any protestations of innocence. An example of this is the increasing use of
s. 27 of the Violent Crime Reduction Act (2006) against football fans.
s.27 reads:
27 Directions to individuals who represent a risk of disorder
(1) If the test in subsection (2) is satisfied in the case of an individual aged 16 or over who is in a public place, a constable in uniform may give a direction to that individual—
(a) requiring him to leave the locality of that place; and
(b) prohibiting the individual from returning to that locality for such period (not exceeding 48 hours) from the giving of the direction as the constable may specify.
(2) That test is—
(a) that the presence of the individual in that locality is likely, in all the circumstances, to cause or to contribute to the occurrence of alcohol- related crime or disorder in that locality, or to cause or to contribute to a repetition or continuance there of such crime or disorder; and
(b) that the giving of a direction under this section to that individual is necessary for the purpose of removing or reducing the likelihood of there being such crime or disorder in that locality during the period for which the direction has effect or of there being a repetition or continuance in that locality during that period of such crime or disorder.
What that means in layman's terms is that a Police Constable only needs to suspect you of possibly being inebriated and potentially causing trouble at some undetermined point in the future to pack you up and move you on. You might not be pissed. You might be perfectly law-abiding and not intending to change that within the next couple of hours. You might also have paid £50 for a match ticket plus an untold amount actually getting to the game. But one Policeman or woman only has to take a disliking to you for you to find yourself locked on a coach back to where they think you came from with absolutely nothing you say or do at the time capable of changing that.
Understandably, this unjust imprisonment has upset quite a few people. The Football Supporters Federation, in conjunction with the civil rights group Liberty, have launched the
Watching football is not a crime! campaign to challenge the use of s.27 against football fans and with some success. During last month, Stoke fan Lyndon Edwards received £2750 in compensation after the use of s.27 was taken to judicial review and deemed to be unlawful in the circumstances in which it was used against him.
Lyndon was one of eighty Stoke fans who travelled to their side's game at Old Trafford. They were having a drink at a nearby pub when they found themselves rounded up, given s.27 orders, forced on to a coach and driven back to Stoke while the landlord expressed surprise at their treatment, saying they were no trouble and that he would warmly welcome them back again. The press release from Liberty states: "
Deprived of toilet facilities on the coach, the supporters were instructed to urinate into cups, which spilled over the floor of the bus so that they had to sit with urine sloshing around their feet for the 40-mile journey back." South Yorkshire Police, notorious amongst football fans for being the most strict in the country, are also in the process of negotiating compensation payments to Plymouth Argyle fans who were sent back from Doncaster. An unenviable journey which was escorted by the Police helicopter at massive expense to the taxpayer.
When we have laws which offer greater protection to livestock in transit, how long is it before football fans can be treated like the human beings we are? The Police believe that we can be herded like cattle on to trains, prevented from walking along public highways, rounded up and shipped off for someone else to deal with because they "say so". Human rights are important things. Where there has been a crime committed, legislation provides that human rights can be infringed upon. But where there has been no crime committed and no laws broken, what gives Police the power to be judge and jury and blindly trample over the civil liberties of football fans as a subsection of society? Isn't that called discrimination?
If you are a non-football fan reading this, you may have guffawed at the last rhetorical question and if so, you have proved my next point - that football fans receive little public sympathy.
Coming back to the G20 protests, the outcry over the scenes witnessed suggest that society deems it unacceptable to treat protesters in that fashion. Yet the lack of outcry over how Police treat football fans rather suggests that society believes it
is acceptable in those situations. It must come down to how particular groups of people are stereotyped.
When people think of the G20 protesters, they think of slightly aging, crusty hippies who smell of patchouli oil and wouldn't hurt a fly. When many people think of football fans, they see young males in tracksuits with sovereign rings clutching cans of special brew. They forget that protesters can also be balaclava- wearing anarchists prepared to break the law to make a point. And they also forget that travelling football fans are also family groups, gangs of mates of both sexes and all ages coming together to have a bit of a laugh at no one's expense but their own.
It's 2009, not 1979. Organised football hooliganism doesn't exist in the mainstream any more. Tales of pitch battles are told by men who are now old enough to know better and fabricated by youngsters to make themselves look "hard". The Police have won the war against these groups of fans, yet their oppressive regime continues. The minority might have spoiled the way the majority are treated at football games, but until Police stop stoking the fire by forcing perfectly law abiding and reasonable people into situations they should not be made to face, the reputation of football fans is not going to be allowed to change. People, quite rightly, get rather upset at being pushed around for no reason and aggrieved at their perceived guilt of a crime they haven't committed and have no intention of committing. Riot Police, in full Storm Trooper uniforms with shields and batons are deployed as a matter of course, not if and when they are needed. We have video cameras pointed in our faces by Police officers looking for "trouble" inside grounds but indiscriminately film us all.
I have seen a fan dressed as Barney Rubble nearly strangled for doing a fancy dress conga at Aston Villa the other year. I've seen two coppers pushing and shoving a bloke at Everton while his girlfriend screamed at them to stop, just because he didn't sit down the second they told him to. I have had an argument with the Metropolitan Police who would not let me walk down the pavement back to my coach and gave no good reason for trying to stop me. I, and many others, have been detained in cages after the final whistle against my will while the home fans they claim to be trying to protect us from have chance to amass outside (yes Humberside Constabulary, I am looking at you.) I was an Ninian Park this year when fans were told to "piss against the wall" while Police were held us in the ground for nearly an hour after the game, in the name of our own safety and comfort.
The Police need reminding that they are there to protect us, the public, from people who are breaking the law.
They should not be there to break the law themselves in an attempt to antagonise us into doing something wrong so they can add us to another set of Government arrest targets.
Relevant links:
FSF - Watching football is not a crime!
The Guardian: A great victory for football fans
Home Office Football Arrest Statistics 2007/08 Season
Violent Crime Reduction Act (2006) [pdf]
Why have you done this?
For the new site, we're planning on having a "topic of the month" where we specifically ask for input from everyone else. If anyone who isn't a member of the forum wants to comment, they can email me at
[email protected] and their comments will be published in our "letters" section of the new site
