Another article about the increase in disorder at matches.
Personally I think it's a reflection of current society rather than something just happening at grounds. The use of Cocaine & quality of stewards are good points raised. As are concerns about the potential reintroduction of drinking alcohol in viewing areas. lots t think about and consider.
Mark Roberts has been the head of football policing in this country for eight years but he also attends matches as a season-ticket holder. “I go with family, me
www.thetimes.co.uk
Cut & paste version below for anyone who can't access the link.
Act now or fan violence will get out of hand, warns football police chief
Football police chief Mark Roberts talks to Matt Lawton about the worrying increase in disorder this season
Matt Lawton, Chief Sports Correspondent
Monday January 31 2022, 12.01am, The Times
Football
The disorder at Wembley was alarming, as many fans managed to storm in to the European Championships final
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...of-hand-warns-football-police-chief-qmvnk3rqj
Mark Roberts has been the head of football policing in this country for eight years but he also attends matches as a season-ticket holder. “I go with family, meet friends and have a pint on the concourse,” he says.
It is because of that broad experience, watching football for decades and not only working as a police officer — as the chief constable of Cheshire and the football policing lead for the National Police Chiefs’ Council — that he can apply real context to a situation that causes him great concern.
This month, the police released data that revealed an alarming rise in disorder at English football matches, and Roberts says the police and the football authorities need to join forces now before we see a
return to the darkest days of the 1970s and 1980s. “We are not back where we were but we are heading that way,” he tells
The Times.
The statistics, issued by the UK Football Policing Unit (UKFPU), make for grim reading. There has been a 36 per cent rise in disorder in the first half of this season compared to the same period in the 2019-20 campaign. There has been a 47 per cent increase in the number of arrests, from 547 to 802.
The UKFPU said there had been 759 reported incidents of disorder, with cocaine use becoming a big concern. The police are working with a team of academics to gather more evidence on the link between football violence and abuse of the Class A drug.
On Friday, Roberts had positive talks with the Premier League, agreeing to take a more collaborative approach, but this issue is far from exclusive to the top flight. The UKFPU found that the biggest increase in reported incidents has been in the Championship and National League, which had rises of 58 and 56 per cent respectively.
There have been some high-profile incidents, including the missiles that were thrown at Chelsea’s Antonio Rüdiger and Aston Villa’s Lucas Digne and Matty Cash. The weekend was marred by further disorder. Flares were thrown at Millwall, while at Crewe Alexandra, the assistant referee, Paul Stonier, left the pitch complaining of dizziness after being struck by an object thrown from the stand occupied by Rotherham United fans.
At Wycombe Wanderers’ League One game with MK Dons, Adebayo Akinfenwa was subjected to vile abuse as he warmed up in front of the visiting fans. It was so serious that Wycombe’s manager, Gareth Ainsworth, complained to the referee. At Oldham Athletic on Saturday, a female supporter was the target of disgusting, sexist chants from Rochdale fans.
Violence is not confined to football, Roberts warns, as there has been an increase in anti-social behaviour across the country
Roberts says there is a broader societal problem here. Cocaine use is widespread, while he also thinks that the pandemic is a further factor, not least among younger males who represent a group in which there has also been a significant rise in incidents.
“We are seeing the same thing in the night-time economy,” Roberts says. “People who have turned 18 during Covid are now going out again and some of them don’t really know how to behave. We are definitely seeing new, younger groups engaged in disorder.”
Roberts accepts that what happens in football is often an extension of wider issues. “Football does follow society, and post-lockdown we have seen an increase in anti-social behaviour,” he says. “A lot of violence. It’s not confined to football. Assaults are up across the country, and it leads into football.
“For some strange reason we also seem to see an increase in disorder at football after major international tournaments. Statistically we know it happens but we don’t understand why.”
Cocaine is a problem. The Baroness Casey review into the trouble that marred the Euro 2020 final cited drug use among violent thugs, and Roberts says it is an area that the police and football authorities are now targeting. Indeed, Roberts would like to see cocaine use lead to the issuing of football banning orders.
“Increasingly we are seeing cocaine as a problem,” he says. “It’s an extension of what we are seeing across society. We know when we target licensed premises and conduct drug-swab tests in toilets and other likely places, we are always finding evidence.
“Often people involved in violent offences, when we test them, have used cocaine. We’ve known for quite a while that a lot of hooligan groups use cocaine. We went into a football ground and swabbed all the toilet surfaces and 100 per cent of the cubicles had cocaine traces. We are now conducting a bigger exercise to validate that. It will help to have an academic study to support what we are saying.”
The Casey review considered the impact of alcohol and drugs on behaviour at football
Roberts says the Casey review was a valuable exercise. “I thought it was good. She talks about the impact of alcohol and drugs. I was at the final. I wasn’t in the command role. I just went there to see it.
“The difficulty for the police was that there were also lots of well-behaved fans trying to make their way through the crowd that had gathered in that plaza area at Wembley. To deal with that type of crowd, you would have had to use mounted police, dogs and officers in full riot gear. Frankly I think some forces in Europe would have just done it. But when there are decent fans among them, that’s not something we would typically do.”
Roberts is engaging with the EFL and the FA as well. He says they have to join forces. “What people perhaps don’t realise is what a football incident actually means,” he says. “Take the recent game between Crystal Palace and Brighton. It counts as one but there were actually 25 separate incidents, which included assaults on stewards, missile throwing, pyrotechnics. And none of these statistics include the British Transport Police, who have got real concerns and are arranging their own meetings with the football authorities because of the disorder and violence that rail staff are having to face.
“We all need to work together. We are not going to arrest our way out of it. We did well, dealing with these issues in the past. Then it required the government, football authorities, clubs, fans and police to work together. We need another joint effort here. I would like to see an information sharing agreement between the police and football authorities, so that policing can be more effective and intelligence led. We need the fans’ groups to recognise there is an issue, because our objective is to make it safe and enjoyable for the nice fans.
“We don’t want good fans, fans who go with families, being intimidated by fans fuelled by cocaine and alcohol.”
In recent months a safe-standing pilot has been launched at some grounds, while the fan-led review of Tracey Crouch MP included a proposal for the ban on fans drinking alcohol at their seats to be lifted. Roberts has already expressed his concerns about alcohol but he insists he is not against the safe-standing areas.
“No matter how many times I say I’m not, it’s reported that I’m against safe-standing,” he says. “I’m not. We can do it. But what I’ve always said is we need to be careful about the implementation because it does bring some threats.
“I believe the [trial] at Old Trafford is going fantastically well. But if you have people tailgating and they go into a standing area, it is easier for them to overload. People get pushed out the way, bullied. It happens. What I’m saying is you need proper stewarding, perhaps wristbands to get in the area, more effective monitoring, better CCTV. Otherwise it will be an area that does not attract a more diverse crowd. And when you get an exclusionary crowd behaviour tends to deteriorate.”
Football’s governing bodies are looking at stewarding, with improved training that could include teaching stewards how to gather evidence of violence and anti-social behaviour. Roberts has his misgivings, however.
“The Premier League is supposed to be doing a new training package,” he says. “But right now there is a shortage of decent stewards. If it’s the same or better money for, say, working at a Covid testing site you are going to prefer that to standing on the front line at a football match. People have drifted away from the industry and I don’t blame them. It can be a pretty hostile environment.
“Some fans can get where water doesn’t. In some cases you almost have to admire their efforts to get into a stadium. I’ve seen them fake medical emergencies. They can go from a ruse to charm to intimidation in the space of a minute. If you’re a university student working as a steward for some extra cash, that’s a difficult situation.
“Ultimately we want a safe game. I just want it to be safe for everyone. I don’t want to see it go backwards.”
