Stourbr*dge 'fans'

[andy]

I refer the Honourable Gentlemen to the reply I gave some posts ago.

Hmm.....

[andy]

Probably a bit unfair of me as you don't generally comment on our downfalls but I was genuinely interested to know if this was a real problem for you or if it was just when we rolled into town. Over 30 or so years I have always noticed young idiots turn up to our games that are not there when I have seen you play other teams.
I have only commented today as I thought they were particularly obnoxious.

[The Reasonable Man]

I have all sorts of opinions on all sorts of things (as you know!). I just don't always share them.

You'll notice, for example, that I never comment on our results/performances - win, lose or draw; good, bad or indifferent.

[andy]

Fair play.

[CRH Yeltz]

Posted on this last night but then thought better of it. However this morning I've decided to.

This has been bubbling away at the Derby for the last 2-3 years. Until yesterday things hadn't overstepped the mark, generally just verbals between the younger lot on both sides whilst the rest of us mix and generally have a good laugh with some banter thrown in.

Now it has boiled over, both clubs need to come down on those responsible and make it clear it isn't on. The rest of us also need to self-police otherwise this will become the norm, leading to full segregation which goes against the ethos of Non League.

I'll be interested to see what our friends down the road do about the flare incident yesterday. In these days of camera phones and social media, I'm sure that there will be plenty of evidence for the WMP to examine. As someone was injured, it should be treated as ABH.

Much as I love seeing us turn the neighbours over, I want our fixtures to remain a great advert for local football and I'm sure most of their fans feel the same.

[yeltz85]

The biggest issue which started a lot of this off on Saturday was the segregation fence for a game that wasn't segregated.

Previously everyone has been mixed in with each other with no issues and general light hearted banter. The fence gave a lot of people something to hide behind.

I have a video about 3 minutes long of abuse, coins being thrown, bottles/cans beer being thrown, a Stourbr*dge fan trying to climb the fence whilst others trying to knock it down.

Talking to someone who helps at Stourbr*dge, the fence caused issues in the play off game against Workington last year also.

[andy]

It begs the question why they pay a security firm to come in and steward it if they don't do any stewarding. If they stood on the home side of the fence they could prevent them getting anywhere near it and root out any troublesome tossers there and then.

[piearce9]

I can sense there's more to come on this, and I've heard Stour are releasing a statement tomorrow. Shame that it's deflected some of the attention from the game (and the result obvs).

I've no doubt that our own good people will be on the case, but we will need to revisit our own plans for the return fixture as there will be heightened focus now. It's been a long old time since we segregated a home game, but would imagine it's an option that needs considering.

[dalevillain]

As mentioned before the security in place was a joke. All the stewards were standing on the ‘away’ side of the fence and not on the home side of the fence so could not get at the Stour fans causing trouble.

A couple of the female stewards were actually trying to calm things down but to be fair they were out of their depth and the rest of the male stewards just stood there and barely did a thing to stop the commotion until the police were eventually called in.

Not saying that every single fan of ours was a saint as we had a moron who through a flare onto the pitch, which is of course is unacceptable but to throw a flare at opposition fans along with bottles and cans is obviously intended to cause harm.

The fact that with a crowd of over 2,000 that no-one was properly searched as they entered the ground is also a concern along with the fact there was insufficient police in place for a local derby so it would be obvious it would bring a higher number of chavs out with the game being played on a Saturday and no other local game on.

[AwayDayYeltz]

I'm more concerned with how, in the world we live in today, more than one person is able to bring in a flare.

The worrying thing, of course, is it is evidently easy to bring in dangerous items that can cause a large number of people serious injury.

How an event that attracts thousands of people has such loose security is negligent - this goes for both clubs.

I hope lessons are learned and full searches are carried out for the coming Cup game and the reverse league fixture.

Common sense is needed.