Were stopping people from getting in before the game then during half time and the second half they sent the ob in to try and get everyone out but they were ignored. Nice to hear a good atmosphere in West Stand aswell.
Still struggling to understand the purpose of the evacuation. We entered the ground under emergency lighting and the tannoy wasn't working in upper north so there was clearly a problem well before kickoff. When told to evacuate immediately before 2nd half - which we did as my two young children also attend matches so didn't fancy getting caught up in any scrum - the tannoy was back, as was the lighting. Stewards in upper were totally useless - those in the lower even more so.
They got the game on, which considering the safety license, was probably a massive achievement. I take it part of the delay was checking the floodlights would work?
Still would have blown the fuse properly if we were losing.
I was told before kick-off that i couldn't go in the north upper where my season ticket is, even though there were already people up there. To be fair i then had no problems going in the north lower turnstiles and then making my way up via the nw quadrant to my usual place in J block.
At half time i was in the concourse, the lights were off, then came on, then we were told we couldn't back up.
Everyone seemed to go back up, and then at the start of the second people started moving again downstairs. Police came, but they didn't seem to bother with J block, H block etc, only with the centre blocks.
Admittedly i have zero knowledge of health and safety, but what exactly were the safety implications of us staying up there? I honestly couldn't tell.
Why didn't the club tell everyone in the north stand to move at the half time whistle, why wait until about 5 mins before the second half was due to start?
Was a shambles. The stewards didn't have a clue. We were asking a steward in the West stand where the other North upper lot had gone to sit and he said 'i didn't know there was a problem in the Upper North'. When we saw everyone in the Upper North we thought we could go up there as there were so many up there it must have been alright. When we asked another steward he said that all those people were there before the power failure....very unlikely. It was obvious people were going through the North West to get into the Upper North and the guy was still saying there was nothing they could do.
I understand health and safety is a b*tch but the common sense was severely lacking.
Apparently OB said we had to evacuate the north upper due to lighting going out in the stairwell, when the lights come back on they were on a reserve battery and noone knew how long it would last... Complete shambles, if they were going to evacuate, clear a block or two and get everyone in there, don't just say 'sit where you like'
Watched stewards helping people to climb railings between east and north-east quadrant before the game to get into the north.
When we got evacuated had to keep asking stewards where we should go as no direction given. Got into north lower to be told to go to other end and that we couldn't sit until halftime lot were back in seats, couldn't keep battling through crowd with kids do decided to leave as the steward called cheerio after us. By the sounds of things if we had just disobeyed the announcement I could have seen the game!
Btw was in seats at half two, there was already emergency lighting being used when we entered. Also, they were still managing to sell beer ok at half time!
What I found funny was that we had to evacuate the stand, yet the OB decided to stand the whole way down the stairwell between the J and L blocks. Surely that's more of a health and safety risk?!
Stayed in our seats as did the rest of the block. Plenty of ob were asking people to leave but gave up after a while with everyone singing "we can see you sneaking out"
I got to the upper north entrance a but before 3. Waited for a few mins and was told to go the west or east. Walked round to the west, no queue and found good seats easily in the upper tier. Of course people are going to be inconvenienced and I imagine some were separated from friends, but in all, it was handled well in my experience. Only a 15 min KO delay seems pretty good. No complaints from me.
Take your point BBClaus but I'm concerned that it wasn't safe for you to be in the stand but was for my party including children. I would have happily relocated but the stewards were unable to direct me to an alternative seat once the decision had been made.
Who decides that just before kick-off to the second half that several thousand supporters should be moved?Bloody stupid idea! What was they expecting? They should have known that we wouldn't want to leave our seats with a good view etc, leave the ground and go into another part of the stands, missing part of the game! Can't we be trusted to walk down stairs without light? Or rather than attempt to move us during the game, ask us to leave in blocks at the end instead of us all going at once.
I think the club made some really bad decisions today regarding this. The power supply problems, according to the club's twitter feed, hit both the east and north stands (upper and lower). Fair enough delaying the kick off, but although evacuating and closing the upper was probably the right decision, to do it at the start of the second half was quite frankly daft!
Quite a few people around us were surprised the game even went ahead, as without a PA there would have been no way of carrying out an evacuation. Also, why was there no announcement on the big screen? This would have at least told those in the ground why kick off had been delayed.
Although, hearing songs from the west stand did make a pleasant change. :-)
All the North Upper turnstiles where closed when we arrived at about 14.50. Entered via East North quadrant and made our way to normal seats in H block. Was very quiet, maybe only 30% of a normal full block.
Comments
The Chuckle Brothers couldn't have made a better comedy of all things North Upper this afternoon.
An absolute calamity.
Still struggling to understand the purpose of the evacuation. We entered the ground under emergency lighting and the tannoy wasn't working in upper north so there was clearly a problem well before kickoff. When told to evacuate immediately before 2nd half - which we did as my two young children also attend matches so didn't fancy getting caught up in any scrum - the tannoy was back, as was the lighting. Stewards in upper were totally useless - those in the lower even more so.
Still would have blown the fuse properly if we were losing.
Bang goes out transfer kitty!
When we got evacuated had to keep asking stewards where we should go as no direction given. Got into north lower to be told to go to other end and that we couldn't sit until halftime lot were back in seats, couldn't keep battling through crowd with kids do decided to leave as the steward called cheerio after us. By the sounds of things if we had just disobeyed the announcement I could have seen the game!
Btw was in seats at half two, there was already emergency lighting being used when we entered. Also, they were still managing to sell beer ok at half time!
Very disappointed!
Can't we be trusted to walk down stairs without light? Or rather than attempt to move us during the game, ask us to leave in blocks at the end instead of us all going at once.
Was a shambles, especially when I was told "sit where ever you want just not the north" was frustrating..
Quite a few people around us were surprised the game even went ahead, as without a PA there would have been no way of carrying out an evacuation. Also, why was there no announcement on the big screen? This would have at least told those in the ground why kick off had been delayed.
Although, hearing songs from the west stand did make a pleasant change. :-)