Everyone to blame except the fans

[miasmum]

https://apple.news/AlkSin_eYQxKofUjtsuviXQ

So there you go it’s everyone’s fault except the fans. I particularly love this comment….. Wembley staff also criticised the police. One said: “The difference on Sunday was the amount of public disorder and drunken and violent behaviour outside the stadium in the hours before the game. That is the responsibility of the police and they failed.”

[Workingman]

Hmmm, the statement from the Wembley wonk can be read another way.

There are laws about being drunk and disorderly in a public place and the police have a number of options for dealing with it. They can issue an on-the-spot fine, take you into custody for your own safety and that of others, right up to charging you and taking you to court where you can be fined or sent to prison or both.

If they did none of those things then they can in some way be blamed, not for the drunkenness and disorder, those are down to the individual fans themselves, but for not dealing with the said offences as per the law.

Two different things imo.

[miasmum]

I absolutely understand and agree with that WM. but it’s the fact that they are completely ignored whilst they blame everybody but. Had the police gone in heavy handed they’d be wrong there too. They can’t win.

Personally I blame he councils that extend the licensing laws. Open at 8am in the morning? Then grant a further extension to allow for extra time because 15 hours can’t possibly be enough. I also blame those that keep serving the already inebriated

[Workingman]

Agreed, but I also blame UEFA for it being an evening kick-off instead of an afternoon one. That would have obviated the need for the licensing laws - throughout Europe - and they would have still made money. The TV and sponsors would have gone with it whatever time it was on.

I see that the FA has been hit with four charges for disturbances inside the ground. It also has a separate disciplinary investigation into disturbances outside the ground both before and after the match.

[Suff]

I'm sorry but it cuts both ways. If fans, breaking the law cause problems in Hillsborough, were the problem of the police, then fans here causing problems is the problem of the police always.

It is one way or the other. Personally I believe fans were responsible in both scenario's but the vast majority don't agree with me.

[TheOstrich]

Spot on, Suff.
At Hillsborough the fans were basically to blame but the police panicked and thus created the disaster. But you can't say that, of course, it's sacrilege.
Invariably, a disaster is the result of a combination of factors, not a single thing.

At Wembley the fans were again to blame, no question. But the FA are also to blame because they failed to arrange the proper level of private security.
Failure to work up a proper game plan beforehand, methinks, and certainly not the fault of the police, who had enough to cope with elsewhere, like in Trafalgar Square.

[Workingman]

I still find it amazing that UEFA have got away scot free - not paying ones dues - with this. Not one word of criticism in the media or from politicians for the kick-off time

There was never a footballing 'need' for an 8pm kick-off. Not one excuse, but that's what happened. What followed was a direct result of that.

I am not excusing the fans, they own their own behaviour, nor am I blaming the police, far from it. But why give the fans many hours to get tanked up and cause trouble? It makes no sense at all.

[miasmum]

Couldn't agree more, but apparently its better for the TV companies if it is on in the evenings
https://theathletic.com/news/italy-engl ... x9tGqry7YW

[Suff]

Spot on, Suff.
At Hillsborough the fans were basically to blame but the police panicked and thus created the disaster. But you can't say that, of course, it's sacrilege.

You can say it. But they didn't "create" the disaster. The fans did that by pushing. All they had to do was stop. What the police did do was not to avoid a disaster in the making, because they didn't know how to respond to it and their standing orders were not to help. They panicked and people who were already dying did not get saved. It is a point of view, I know, but it is mine.

Wembley was different. The fans knew better but still got drunk and disorderly. Security should have been able to deal with it as WM says. Whether paying for additional policing or private security to assist.

[Workingman]

Suff and I have been on enough exercises to know that they work in the general sense.

We are told "You are here and they are over there, get on with it" and we have been well drilled to react to this, this and this, and so have they. What sometimes happens is that we or they pull a stunt out of the bag and we have to react, on the hoof as it were. That's when exercises and their outcomes become valuable.

The police and security are always working to my second example. Yes they can train to form and hold a line or let the horses through, and so on, but they and their 'attackers' are working to a script. Rioters, drunks, ravers etc are not. They often do not have leaders as they are disparate groups and individuals doing their own thing and nobody, not even them, knows what that "thing" will be. You cannot exercise for that.

It is why I will very rarely criticise the police for getting things 'wrong' because it is only hindsight that tells their detractors what was the 'right' thing to do. I wonder if they would have made their 'right' choice whilst wetting their underwear at the time.