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Ground Regulations and the Steward love hate saga

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Hello All it's me again I am almost as regular on here as Harry J Allstars.

Having sat and read through a lot of the comments on the message board I am more than aware that certain individuals are unhappy with the stewards.

 

Unfortunately love them or loath them every single club throughout the country has ground regulations and because of this there have to be stewards to enforce them. Without these regulations our capacity would be a big fat zero and every game would be behind closed doors even less of an atmosphere than in the Northfleet End at the moment.

 

My stewards are all briefed prior to the game and then given instructions via radio throughout the game by either myself or the designated controller who is in a position to see everything going on in the ground. This is identical to most other clubs of our level. They act to try and ensure the safety of supporters and contrary to popular belief their enthusiastic rather than officious which is obviously misinterpreted however, if someone continually flouts the instructions given I would be annoyed if they were not officious.

 

On the issue of the gentleman that crossed the segregation line, a number of factors transpired to creat the situation and I will be dealing with these prior to the next home game. The gentleman has stated that he was unable to get through the segregation gate near the away burger bar which is permanently manned by a steward on a radio and I actually walked to this gate as the man in question crossed the terracing to check and sure enough there was the steward so in my opinion he made little or no attempt to follow the initial instructions given to him or there was a misunderstanding. I spoke to the individual following a discussion with one of his friends and fair play to him he admitted he knew he had done something wrong and yes he did get a ticking off from me but he apologised and as far as I was concerned I took him on face value as a genuine but frustrated supporter. The problem was clearly caused by the closure of the turnstiles and this will be addressed, the steward was following one of the ground regulations regarding not allowing a supporter to cross a seg line which he is supposed to do so I will not critisise him.

 

As I have already stated the stewards are all in a period of training and this takes time but I am very pleased with their handling of the games and I thought on Saturday they did a good job. Sure there is always room for improvement, who can hand on heart say they are 100% perfect, but we are working towards this.

 

You must remember that of 1100 or so supporters at the ground only a very tiny percentage had a problem of which some of these were people doing something wrong like standing in walkways, trying to get beer onto the terrace etc. the rest were happy.

 

One gentleman had complained to me of continued foul and abusive language in a certain area and we located an extra steward in the area concerned and it stopped so the lads and ladies obviously do improve the environment for watching football. The gentleman concerned took the time to phone me to thank me which I greatly appreciated and I hope to keep this sort of language down because we want families to come to our club so this was very positive.

 

And finally before I bore you all silly or in some cases sillier, a message to the gentleman smoking pot in the stand we have a wonderful photo of you in full puff which if you continue will be passed to our Police liason officer so kindly keep your filthy habit in the privacy of your own home.

 

Enough said for tonight I am off to be depressed watching England.

 

See you all against Morecambe.

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Sorry Harry didn't mean to overstep the mark.

 

As for panicing we have had one policed game since I joined the club in December against Aldershot, this compares very well with the previous season and start of this one when many games had a police presence.

 

When the call went for the Police to attend the Canvey incident it was purely to help some inexperienced stewards perform an ejection without getting their lights punched out. At no point did we ask for the level of policing we got and we were as taken aback as everyone else. Initially 3 police officers arrived and were happy at how we had calmed the situation and as they moved around to help eject the individual the mini buses arrived. This could possibly have been due to a misunderstanding during a telephone conversation but as I was under a segregation net at the time trying to stop some bloke smacking a group of 14 year olds I was unable to make the call myself. If the adults from our side who ran around to join in had stayed where they were I would not have felt the need to segregate for the last 3 games but as I am interested in allowing people to watch football not mindless idiots hurling abuse and coins I have made the decision to segregate.

You will all know that in the past games such as Bishop Stortford were unsegregated and I didn't have a problem making the decision but if a group, albeit a small group, of adults find it necessary to act in this way then it makes it very difficult to unsegregate games safely. I would also add that the same group were in the ground on Saturday but behaved perfectly well perhaps because of the one ejection who knows?

 

I appreciate no one likes segregation but I am purely interested in supporters safety and I will make the decision as I see fit.

 

Thanks to those who support what we are doing. As I have said before many of the stewards read these message boards and question why they bother giving up their time to be abused and mocked thankfully they do because without them there would be no game to watch.

 

If anyone feels they can do a better job as a steward I have a supply of application forms waiting feel free to come and see me.

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The supporter who was ejected – which team did he support?

 

How old are the individuals that turned up against Canvey? Have you seen them at previous matches or was it a one off?

 

I was under the impression from reading the website that they were 14 or 15, but they have been described here as adults.

 

Are we talking about a separate group entirely?

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The supporter was from Canvey and he was being provoked by a group of around half a dozen adults some of whom were unfamiliar. They quickly dispersed when the police arrived but more worrying was the fact that there were loads of teenagers (many new faces) some quite clearly with their fathers or accompanied by adults who were also using foul and abusive language to which the Canvey supporters reacted. The police were told it was coming from both sides but because of the one guy from Canvey trying to get through they focused their attentions on the away support. There were adults and kids running around to get "a bit of the action" and there were several incidents of coin throwing from both sides so perhaps you will understand my concerns about being unsegregated until I am sure that this kind of thing wont happen again.

Over reaction maybe but the club or I will be liable if someone is injured so seems sensible to me.

Many clubs in the Conference are now advising that all of their fixtures are to be segregated from next season where as I hope we can still use a bit of common sense but only if I can trust all of our fans.

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I don’t really see what the fuss is about regarding segregation, and wouldn’t object if all games were segregated.

 

It would be very difficult for the club to impose banning orders on unruly fans that haven’t actually broken the law, so wouldn’t it just be easier to allocate a section for this type of fan and ‘encourage’ them to use it. It would be cheaper and easier to control than groups of teenagers scattered everywhere, and if they were all together, and away from the away supporters what problems could they cause?

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Fleet4Life Newbie

Fleet4Life

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Same as Anon above. I haven't got a problem with the Stewards and never have done. From where I sit it looks like they control the crowd well. Has anyone got a serious problem with the stewards? It looks like stupid little things that will probably never happen again, that the stewards maybe do not handle the best.

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FleetFanatic Newbie

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Anonymous said:
Sorry Harry didn't mean to overstep the mark.

As for panicing we have had one policed game since I joined the club in December against Aldershot, this compares very well with the previous season and start of this one when many games had a police presence.

When the call went for the Police to attend the Canvey incident it was purely to help some inexperienced stewards perform an ejection without getting their lights punched out. At no point did we ask for the level of policing we got and we were as taken aback as everyone else. Initially 3 police officers arrived and were happy at how we had calmed the situation and as they moved around to help eject the individual the mini buses arrived. This could possibly have been due to a misunderstanding during a telephone conversation but as I was under a segregation net at the time trying to stop some bloke smacking a group of 14 year olds I was unable to make the call myself. If the adults from our side who ran around to join in had stayed where they were I would not have felt the need to segregate for the last 3 games but as I am interested in allowing people to watch football not mindless idiots hurling abuse and coins I have made the decision to segregate.
You will all know that in the past games such as Bishop Stortford were unsegregated and I didn't have a problem making the decision but if a group, albeit a small group, of adults find it necessary to act in this way then it makes it very difficult to unsegregate games safely. I would also add that the same group were in the ground on Saturday but behaved perfectly well perhaps because of the one ejection who knows?

I appreciate no one likes segregation but I am purely interested in supporters safety and I will make the decision as I see fit.

Thanks to those who support what we are doing. As I have said before many of the stewards read these message boards and question why they bother giving up their time to be abused and mocked thankfully they do because without them there would be no game to watch.

If anyone feels they can do a better job as a steward I have a supply of application forms waiting feel free to come and see me.


Can I be the lazy one that stands in the empty terrace?
Or maybe the one who can't be arsed to escort one person 10 20/30 yards to the home section?

Sorry to seem like I'm making fun of you but please.....

.....you've got to learn from the mistakes, not just defend the actions. So far, when mistakes have been made, there's always an excuse. Why not just admit the mistakes?
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UP FLEET Newbie

UP FLEET

Posted
Posted
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FleetFanatic said:
Quote:
Anonymous said:
Sorry Harry didn't mean to overstep the mark.

As for panicing we have had one policed game since I joined the club in December against Aldershot, this compares very well with the previous season and start of this one when many games had a police presence.

When the call went for the Police to attend the Canvey incident it was purely to help some inexperienced stewards perform an ejection without getting their lights punched out. At no point did we ask for the level of policing we got and we were as taken aback as everyone else. Initially 3 police officers arrived and were happy at how we had calmed the situation and as they moved around to help eject the individual the mini buses arrived. This could possibly have been due to a misunderstanding during a telephone conversation but as I was under a segregation net at the time trying to stop some bloke smacking a group of 14 year olds I was unable to make the call myself. If the adults from our side who ran around to join in had stayed where they were I would not have felt the need to segregate for the last 3 games but as I am interested in allowing people to watch football not mindless idiots hurling abuse and coins I have made the decision to segregate.
You will all know that in the past games such as Bishop Stortford were unsegregated and I didn't have a problem making the decision but if a group, albeit a small group, of adults find it necessary to act in this way then it makes it very difficult to unsegregate games safely. I would also add that the same group were in the ground on Saturday but behaved perfectly well perhaps because of the one ejection who knows?

I appreciate no one likes segregation but I am purely interested in supporters safety and I will make the decision as I see fit.

Thanks to those who support what we are doing. As I have said before many of the stewards read these message boards and question why they bother giving up their time to be abused and mocked thankfully they do because without them there would be no game to watch.

If anyone feels they can do a better job as a steward I have a supply of application forms waiting feel free to come and see me.


Can I be the lazy one that stands in the empty terrace?
Or maybe the one who can't be arsed to escort one person 10 20/30 yards to the home section?

Sorry to seem like I'm making fun of you but please.....

.....you've got to learn from the mistakes, not just defend the actions. So far, when mistakes have been made, there's always an excuse. Why not just admit the mistakes?




I think you will find the club have to have someone there on a health and saftey reason
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jc Newbie

jc

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UP FLEET said:I think you will find the club have to have someone there on a health and saftey reason


However, at times during Monday's match, there were no stewards in the Northfleet End.

Past experience demonstrates that the chances of there being any trouble at the Forest Green match, or indeed at the forthcoming Morecambe game, were/are very slim, given the friendly reputation of the fans of these two clubs. As Chatham Gary suggests, segregation for such games seems pretty pointless.

That said, if people hadn't built up a rivalry against Canvey that doesn't really exist, and certain undesirables (including, it must sadly be admitted, some actual Fleet fans) striking up an unsavoury slanging match at the Canvey match, we wouldn't be in this situation now.

It must be said that, had there been an exclusion zone at the Canvey game similar to the one employed on Monday, the trouble probably could have been avoided. But this is easy to say in hindsight, and once again, I give Chris Baker credit for giving his side of the story on this forum.
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UP FLEET Newbie

UP FLEET

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Granted, segregation for matches like fgr etc where no bother has been a problem in the past, or some like northwich morecombe, where the fans have come to us so far and so few of them, should remain un segregated, i for one enjoy the banter with morecombe fans.I was at Northwich friday and was speaking to the two lads who came to us earlier in the season and stood drinking outside the bar and sang all through the match with no shirts on, and they was telling me about the pratts at the end who was throwing sweets and coins at them.So unfortunatly there are a few who spoil it for the rest of us.It will be a shame to have to go fully segragated but i wouldnt be suprised if we did.

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It sounds to me that most of you guys do not want promotion to the League as this would lead to segregation at every game and let's face it more and more chavs trying to cause trouble. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

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