Thought it might be a good idea to dedicate a thread as otherwise important issues risk being lost in among other threads. Obviously if admin disagree they will delete.
What i witnessed today was over-policing on a grand scale. however the dust is yet to settle and stories of what went poorly and what went well is probably still to emerge.
The Casey review of Met Police culture found serious insttutional cultural problems, but i suspect one that was missed is that they are still stuck in the dark ages when it comes to policing football fans, and we bear the brunt each time we play Millwall in particular.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65110300https://www.met.police.uk/police-forces/metropolitan-police/areas/about-us/about-the-met/bcr/baroness-casey-review/I'll post a few pics later of what i saw and could barely believe, unless there's a move to close such a thread meanwhile.
Comments
This box
2) a group of Millwall fans broke through the emergency gate between the Jimmy Seed and Curbs, with fights breaking out on the stairs up to Lansdowne Mews with Charlton
A baffling lack of police in many areas of the ground. They all seemed to be standing in front of the control box, rather than doing anything useful.
A lot of vans parked up in Charlton Church Lane, and several more elsewhere. Seems they want to treat millwall as the millwall of old, and this just adds to the tension.
I had presumed along with many others that they would be stretched today in particular so it felt very much like overkill. So what is the justification? Is it to appear stretched in order to preserve budgets?
Before the game there was a line down the middle of Floyd Road. I am used to seeing it after games. So why before today?
Then there a squadron of reinforcements marching up Floyd Road to join their colleagues in the victory of the station. Did anyone see a "risk group' arrive at the station in the half hour before kick off?
It seemed no-one could get in once the police had surrounded it and it wasn't clear if anything had happened there. About 6 police vans attended as well as 2 horses and police on foot, and then the vans sped off. Again not sure the police actually engaged with any trouble at this location.
Old Bill are fucking useless
They would rather arrest someone for an abusive tweet.
Millwall fan's by and large are interbred uneducated low life scum
Night Night all
Surely it should be a given there would be some in each stand.
The club want the money, fuck the consequences
We can disregard all the s*** from the club regarding today.
Problem is that Millwall fans, like Charlton probably come from all over now. So many would no doubt find their own way to the area... Whereas the police have taken the approach of: "They're Millwall fans, so must come from that area"
It's not a high profile enough game for it to be a bubble fixture like the south coast or south Wales derbies, but it makes no sense to close the station completely for one set of fans if you're not even going to force the other to use it.
I used to respect the police but they are fcking clueless these days.
They were everywhere today apart from the places they were needed most. Thick cnuts.
As a neutral I left before final whistle and at front of queue I was faced with 3 large and not very well behaved police horses keeping fans in. A narrow exit, 20ft wide, nobody behind knew what was going on, pushing from the back, fallers, a potential Hillsborough.
Eventually common sense prevailed and exit was allowed to maintain safety.
I went down Brentford nick, waited nearly 3 hours for Inspector in charge to appear and gave him pelters. I don't think the experiment was repeated.
Funnily enough, we met again at Sunday football and he is now a good friend. Not sure if he remembers me from then.
I mean, the people in that stand are apparently so dangerous that 20,000 of your own fans need to be inconvenienced for their own safety, but you man the gate with a couple of minimum wage stewards.
I'm totally sick of these c*nts turning up and us rolling out the fucking red carpet for them, with a VIP lane back to the train station. Totally embarrassing.