There’s more to securing a stadium than looking after the ground, a return visit to Kidderminster Harriers Football Club suggests.
Mark Rowe reports on a historic night, April 22. <br><br>The phoned-in report about an hour before kick-off was confused but the gist was clear enough. Some young Burton Albion fans arriving in Kidderminster by train had broken a pub window. Another report was of a car having its roof banged. In the control room the CCTV operator had on a monitor the camera showing the road to the ground. Sure enough several youths made their way to the stadium, and over the radio the control room sent stewards to head off any potential trouble at the social club. Here in the fifth tier of English football – it was the same night as the first leg of the televised Champions League semi-final between Liverpool and Chelsea – were some of the typical stewarding decisions and choices faced at events. If people turn up at a stadium drunk enough to be swaying, do you refuse them entry? That would be turning away revenue; and would it be less of a risk to let the people in, to manage them, and if they misbehave, then eject them? It did not come to that, but a little nearer the kick-off a lad asked for St John Ambulance; he had hurt his ankle. From the control room window in a corner of the main stand and on CCTV we watched the injured lad aided by a uniformed St John Ambulance woman and a friend hobbling to the St John room. Control asked if someone could discreetly ask if the lad had come by his injury by kicking a car? The boy said he had done the injury on a kerb. There were a couple of other incidents that saw a steward talking to supporters in one case; and separately a policeman and policewoman in the car park, again covered on CCTV talked to a young man sometimes accompanied by a woman. This was of particular interest to me because I could see the talked-to man was standing in front of my parked car, and I was silently praying he did not kick off and damage the car. <br><br>So for a match with no history of trouble between the teams, categorised as low risk, and due to be unpoliced, it was on the one hand not without incident but on the other hand all in a day’s work. It put into perspective something I raised earlier with deputy safety officer Jim Chalmers – former senior West Midlands Police officer and football match-day commander, president of the Football Safety Officers Association. The 5.45pm briefing that Kidderminster (and, separately, Coventry) safety officer Pete Smith gave to the supervisers, wearing lemon jackets, ended with him saying, as I heard him say at the equivalent fixture the previous season: "Perhaps the greatest threat we face is one of complacency so do the job as you have been trained and just be careful out there." <br><br>Since, I had read a book about the legendary football manager Brian Clough, titled Provided You Don’t Kiss Me; by a football reporter who dealt daily with Cloughie in Nottingham Forest days. Clough’s son Nigel is by the way the Burton Albion manager. The author began by writing, feelingly, about how a reporter’s life became sickeningly routine. Jim replied first with a Brian Clough story; there can be few people in football even now without a Clough story. Jim was a chief superintendent in charge of a full Villa Park. "At the end of the game we [controllers] are sitting in this tiny control room; walking along the touchline I see Brian Clough. On his own. The ground is practically empty. [I’m] mainly concerned with watching what is happening outside, didn’t give it a second thought. A few minutes later there was a knock at the door, it was Brian Clough." Jim being a Scotsman did not try to recreate Clough’s accent but went on: "He just said, ‘Chief superintendent, I just want to thank you and your officers for everything you have done for us today. Thanks for making a good afternoon for us.’ And he just turned around and walked off. And to this day unless anybody tells me differently I have never known any manager do it. I can’t understand the pressure they [football managers] are under; it meant a great deal to me and my officers. I can’t remember whether he won or lost, even. And that was my Brian Clough story. That was the measure of the man." <br><br>We paused. Outside it was a fine spring evening. Blossom was on the trees and in the distance were the hills of Worcestershire. I had raised the story to ask about the stadium security equivalent to that reporter’s numb feeling for his job. As Jim said, stewards had to be as sharp on this Tuesday evening, for the last home game of the season, as they were on the first Saturday, nine months before. Jim had talked about pressure, but as I said, there was pressure too on the control room commander. And yet who has pressure? The well-paid football manager? Or the man with a family and mortgage who has lost his job? . At that moment, as Jim hinted, fellow FSOA member and Liverpool safety officer Jed Poynton was in the Anfield control room. A big European night, a 40,000-plus crowd.<br><br>Decisions have to be made; or not made, which amounts to a decision of sorts. Previously I have reported how Jim, when training a new steward, found the Hillsborough tragedy of 1989 was hardly known to the newcomer, who was after all maybe not born at the time. Yet Hillsborough still casts a long shadow. (See separate article about persistent standing.) It was a shock for a sport to find that 96 people could go through the turnstiles in Sheffield and be crushed to death within the hour. As Jim put it – to quote him from memory – he and colleagues are there to make sure that the supporters and everyone else arrive safely; have a safe time; and leave safely. Whether home fans leave happy, is not in the safety officer’s power! As it happened, Kidderminster beat Burton 4-1, but – the historic bit – other results meant Burton reached the end of season play-offs for the first time. Usually, the very nature of win-lose-or-draw sport means that even if half the fans leave satisfied by a result, the other half feel disappointed. And it’s human nature that upset fans can get angry, vent their anger maybe; ‘kick off’, in a phrase. Opposing fans may taunt the losers. Hence segregation of visitors in one end. As the game had been important for Burton, and not far to travel, a fairly high number of the 1761 crowd – 426 – were visitors. That compares with the eventual three West Mercia Police officers and (it varies game to game) 30 or so stewards. At the end of the game, it being the end of the season at the stadium, the players did a lap of honour, clapping fans who clapped back. As Pete Smith had asked supervisers, who briefed stewards, all available stewards stood in front of the stands to deter any ‘pitchside incursions’. And as in the briefing, the tannoy announcer warned that if any fans did invade the pitch, the players would not do the lap of honour. The announcer went as far as to tell the crowd that anyone who did go on the pitch would be arrested, which was perhaps asking too much of the police present! <br><br>That explained the attention Pete Smith at the supervisers’ briefing gave to the estimated number of visitors, and coaches. An away end of 426 may require different stewarding compared with the previous year’s visit of 212 fans (the exact number is thanks to a people counter), let alone a couple of the smaller Blue Square Premier teams that visited Kidderminster in 2007-8, who brought 17 and 19 standing fans. Near one to one stewarding! As someone joked. But to return to complacency – in other words, not giving a job the respect it merits. While Pete Smith briefed his supervisers on the same things as previous times – remember radio discipline, be vigilant, make checks, report anything unusual, do not celebrate when the home team scores, as it might offend – Pete took care to ensure that the car park superviser had the coach parking in hand. As with so much of stadium safety and security, it is hard and perhaps pointless to separate the safety from security. To name two risks, when a coach arrives, you do not want fans (who may have had a drink beforehand and may simply be feeling a bit merry) trying to wave at a coach to tell it how to park, which could expose them or others to being run over. Or: fans feeling aggressive may hang around the visitors’ coach knowing that there they will be sure to find visiting fans to have a go at. <br><br>The last year has seen the smoking ban come in. Some stadia have enforced it differently. Kidderminster defined the law that no-smoking applied to any of the enclosed or semi-enclosed areas of the ground, as much for the directors and chairman in the lounge as for the standing fan on the terraces. Jim reported that there had not been confrontation over the change; indeed, he had been surprised there hadn’t been more. Another development is the expected fifth edition of the Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds, known as the Green Guide for short, to update the 1997 edition. One likely change to the guide – which local authorities who give safety certificates may well demand of stadia – is that stewards should have a level 2 NVQ, supervisors a level 3, and safety officers and their deputies a level 4 qualification in spectator safety.
The level three vocational qualification covers preparing stewards and venues; dealing with accidents and emergencies; helping to manage conflict; controlling and detaining people at a spectator event for action by the police; and customer service.<br><br>So the last whistle of the season blew, the crowd left in no time. But it never really stops. There is next season to look forward to; who will be the new teams visiting? What trouble if any will they bring?
