After the Millwall game - club reply to CAST p34, further CAST response p45

J BLOCK

TootingRedArmy said:

Reading the Fans forum minutes...
Why weren't there police in position to deal with trouble at Gate 21.....what a lame excuse, the police started to organise themselves when they were radio'd?  and any police may agitate the situation!!??
So where and what were the 297 police on duty doing exactly?  Oh I know sat in white vans rather than be ready and IN position to react immediately to trouble from Millwall fans? 
Reading the minutes... looks like Police will do same next time we play Millwall as they "don't want to agitate the Millwall fans by keeping them behind" sort of unbelievable but sadly believable........

ME said he’d read stuff on social media about the management of the gate incident that wasn’t true. He said there were two stewards on site and there was radio comms to the control room about the incident. He said the police started to organise themselves to go there but it was resolved before they were needed. He said although it felt to him, and likely some supporters, that the incident was going on for ages, the whole thing was about four minutes long. He said police going in may have agitated the situation that had calmed, which is why the police commander decided not to send them in. EW said that when something happens that hasn’t happened before, the club need to change how they do things, namely what happened with Gate 21 and with pre and post-match communication around high-risk fixtures. JP said it was similar last time Charlton played

This is equal parts absolutely shocking and pathetic. 

FremlinsFellow

How did the club think the police would be able to effectively communicate the post match arrangements with the fanbase? 

TootingRedArmy

From the Minutes...."He said although it felt to him, and likely some supporters, that the incident was going on for ages, the whole thing was about four minutes long. He said police going in may have agitated the situation that had calmed, which is why the police commander decided not to send them in"

......so Four Minutes is an acceptable time to not interven and stop disorder & attacking fans, causing disorder, does Police commander seriously think FOUR MINUTES is OK to have Millwall fans attacking Charlton fans?
Very disappointing meeting, the  fact it was buried down the agenda says alot about the club, we know they don't want to have their own handling of the situ, put under surtinity? as it highlights their Total lack of communication, before, during and after.....
Why didn't the club insist that police were in the JS stand or positioned to react in seconds 

police commander to police in white vans....."Don't worry lads stay looking at your phones, Millwall have broken through a gate and attacked Charlton fans, seems its died down.....no need to arrest the hooligans, just let them out at the end of the match and thank them for not attacking the police and causing damage to the ground!" 

To the Club....We don't accept Police's answers or that Millwall not being kept behind is ok for any future matches, please sit down with the police and sort this out !

guinnessaddick

So have the police arrested the spanner who attacked the Charlton fan? If not what investigation have they done on doing so?

Airman Brown

ElfsborgAddick said:

Hopefully @Airman Brown can help here.

Can we ask the police to keep the fans inside after the game, please give us the invoice and we'll pay the costs.

The police make all these decisions, although the club’s willingness to pay for policing inside the ground will be a consideration. 

We should question whether the idea that Millwall are such an outlier that they require unique handling is a valid judgement. Are they really worse than every other set of supporters at The Valley in all previous circumstances - and was this game really exceptional even in terms of the fixture against previous visits because there were a few more Charlton fans?

I would say the positioning of this by the club and the police is near hysterical and despite that they failed to manage an easily controllable incident at an obvious potential flashpoint. What were these 300 police all doing and why did we need them? Why did the club suppress the messaging put out by the police? Is the club seriously claiming that the police didn’t want fans to know where they could walk after the game? Did nobody ask? Why can’t we be told?