Something about football excites passion in supporters. Security and safety stewards have to manage that excitement that can boil over harmlessly – or fatally.
See also separate article ‘No kidding’. <br><br>As Jim Chalmers covered in an earlier interview, football arouses passions and conflict in a way that going to the cinema or the theatre does not. To mention the controversies of the 2007-8 season, several clubs have seen protests against (foreign) owners; and the Emirates Stadium in north London, the home of Arsenal FC, saw arrests after Aston Villa visiting fans chanted about the broken leg suffered in an earlier match by Arsenal player Eduardo. However, a trawl of the internet will find besides apologies for such sick behaviour, people demanding freedom of speech, and reminders of other chants – for example against Liverpool, about the Hillsborough tragedy; and against Manchester United FC, using the Munich plane crash. <br><br>Since the last time Professional Security saw Jim Chalmers, the Government in the form of a letter from Sport Minister Gerry Sutcliffe has come down against allowing standing again at major, all-seater stadia. The letter is worth going into for the official stance on UK stadium safety and security. Mr Sutcliffe began by harking back to the Taylor report into the Hillsborough disaster of 1989, when 96 FA Cup semi-final Liverpool fans died. What Mr Sutcliffe called ‘years of inadequate stadia and football-related disorder’ were not a feature, as he pointed out, of other sports. Inother words, football had to learn some ‘tough lessons’ via regulation. Later in the letter, Mr Sutcliffe explicitly stood by Taylor, and indeed the ‘excellent safety record’ of the last 18 years as a result. As he added, and as sport spectators can testify, stadia have improved. From Wembley to small towns such as Burton and Shrewsbury there are new, edge of town stadia. “However, Home Office arrest statistics show there is a lingering domestic football disorder problem reinforcing this is not a time to become complacent about security and safety at football grounds,” the minister wrote. To sum up: what Sutcliffe called a ‘holistic approach to safety, disorder and crowd management’ works; stadia are welcoming, crowds are going up and, he might have added, Britain hosts big events like the Olympic Games (and the 2018 soccer world cup?). <br><br>It’s interesting that in its 2002 document ‘Standing in Seated Areas At Football Grounds’, the Football Licensing Authority (www.flaweb.org.uk, the body that inspects and issues licences for football grounds) gave safety besides security reasons against prolonged standers. For instance, seating minimises risks for the elderly and small children. Also: “A seated crowd is easier to monitor in the interests of both safety and public order. It is easier for the ground management and police to identify potential problems in advance and respond before they become serious. Known troublemakers can be kept under observation. This becomes harder if spectators are standing.” <br><br>The safety manager, then, besides being responsible for the safety and security of paying customers – the person, put it this way, who is in the dock if something goes terribly wrong like another Hillsborough – has to balance competing interests. The diehard fan may resent being told by a steward (or a fan behind) to sit down. The local authority who gives the ground licence may take a dim view of persistent standers as a hazard. The football club if fined can complain that it is punished for the behaviour of others. The stewards are, as the FLA document spells out, having their authority called into quetsion by those standing: “While there is no automatic correlation between standing in seated areas and misbehaviour, there is evidence that some groups of standing spectators regularly adopt a hostile attitude to stewards and to the authorities generally. This can make it harder to tackle offensive conduct such as racist chanting or obscene language.” <br><br>Significantly, the document speaks in terms of risk assessment, being proportionate. For example, if the visiting supporters are standing and the home club has tried its best to prevent this happening, that is more reasonable than if many home fans are, by standing, being intimidating, and causing offence to other customers, who do not come again (bad for business!). Yet, as the FLA acknowledges, heavy-handed stewarding (or policing) could be counter-productive. <br><br>As for enforcing ground regulations, you cannot bring into Wembley for example obvious things that are a threat to public safety such as knives, darts and flares; and less obvious things such as laser pens (that, as is a matter of public record have been aimed at some players from the stands by fans), ‘illegal merchandise items’, pushchairs and prams and back packs (a trip hazard), and trumpets and drums and ‘unlicensed musical instruments’. To quote further from the Wembley regulations: “Racial, homophobic or discriminatory abuse, chanting or harassment is strictly forbidden and will result in arrest and/or ejection from the ground.” Offences under the Football (Offences) Act 1991 include the throwing of any object within the ground; and ‘the chanting of anything of an indecent or racialist nature’; and entry onto the playing area or any adjacent area to which spectators are not generally admitted without lawful authority or excuse. Persistent standing in seated areas during an event is strictly forbidden. Also forbidden is smoking; and ‘threatening, abusive or violent behaviour, and foul or abusive language’.
Stat attack
According to the most recent statistics from the Home Office, for the 2006-7 season, covering the top five tiers of English football, 43 per cent of all matches were police free. As in previous seasons, Premier League and clubs with the largest crowds are not necessarily the ones with the most security issues. None of the four clubs with more than 100 fans subject to banning orders were in the Premier League: Leeds, Millwall, Stoke and Cardiff. Some current non-league teams – Oxford and York – have more banning orders as Championship teams such as Norwich and Ipswich. Does that mean East Anglia is football trouble-free? Do the stats mean anything? Arrests in the Premier League were down, to 999, while arrests in the Championship were up, to 1102. Arrests totalled 3788 – most of those were outside the stadia. Does it mean a thing, given that not far off half of games had no police? Only 41 of the total arrests were for racist chanting. Twelve Premiership grounds had no arrests for racist chanting. Does that mean racist chanting is almost zero inside grounds? The club with the most arrests was Premiership Tottenham – does that make it the least secure club in England? The club with the most arrests for racist chants was Sheffield Wednesday – how fair is that on that club?
