After attending the last 3 away matches at Sunderland, Middlesborogh, & Stoke, many Evertonians have had bad experiences with the Police. Here Mickey Blue Eyes gives his own report.

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POLICING OF MATCHES: WHERE TO NOW?
by
Mickey Blue Eyes.

It was rank bad luck for us to have successive away matches at Sunderland, Middlesborough and Stoke. Not merely because of the distance, but because of the standards of policing at each venue. Travelling is bad enough. When you have to go through a policing system which might have been formulated at Gestapo, NKVD, CIA or MI5/6 headquarters then you have to seriously question whether any of it is worthwhile.

For me, it all came to a head at Stoke. It was the very last place I expected to go through this kind of garbage. You had to experience it to credit it. It was like being in apartheid South Africa, a Soviet Gulag or a Brit internment camp. Do not think I exaggerate. Small wonder, then, when more and more fans are deciding to travel independently to circumvent the kind of policing a democracy is supposedly there to prevent. It is at the point where travelling by coach is so horrendous an experience that it can only bring pleasure to the kind of policeman who joins the force for entirely the wrong reasons, or to a tiny band of troublemakers attached to the game.

When our coach arrived at Stoke it was directed through the gates of a parking compound surrounded by a fence at least two metres high. This was directly outside the away end. Though you could walk elsewhere if you so chose, the whole area was designed to direct you immediately into the ground. But before you got to the turnstiles there were two rows of police who searched everyone on the way in. It was about as ugly an experience as it is possible to suffer. And the fact is, it brutalises EVERYONE, police as well as fans, to say nothing of the nearby community. All it does is confirm recent observations that the police are becoming more and more isolated from the community they are supposed to serve. How much longer before police start referring to citizens as "civvies"? Why has the individual policeman allowed himself to be maneuvered into this position?

But wait. There's more.

At the end of a game in which there had been no sign whatsoever of crowd problems, a row of police formed up one metre apart opposite the away stand. Again, you had to see it to credit the evidence of your own eyes. They were arrayed in complete riot gear: Visored helmet, armoured gaiters, riot shields, belts with handcuffs/billyclubs, and possibly body armour too. Believe me, it looked even worse than it reads. The whole away fans area was surrounded by a similar force as we exited. Let's put it this way: If any other fans ask me about visiting Stoke I'll say, "Don't bother. You aren't welcome. The police make it obvious." Only the Stoke police can tell you why and few of them seemed incline to talk about anything, let alone offer a public explanation.

So, here are some rhetorical questions: What could be more calculated to drive wedges between fans? What could be more certain to ensure the game deteriorates to the point of worthlessness? What greater sign could there be that the police, amongst others (and I'll come to that later), haven't a clue how to deal with football fans en masse? Have they learned absolutely nothing over the years? Are we all ready to abandon the game to a tiny minority of loonies and/or a militarily inclined local chief constable?

Added to this was the unedifying experience of once again being herded (it is the only suitable verb) into a dangerously overcrowded space under the stands. Wherein you had to scramble for overpriced beer and awful food in the freezing cold. You did this because nearby pubs mostly didn't want away fans, plus you didn't want to be seated in the stadium where it was even colder. Relying on aggregate body heat is not my idea of modern civilization. Under normal circumstances you just wouldn't want to know and would leave the scene as fast as your feet or wheels could take you. In fact the only thing which saved the day was the enthusiasm of the fans and the match itself. Outside of that, it was a dead loss. It was even worse than policing of matches in the north east, and that is saying something.

At Middlesborough we had the police once again filming and photographing the crowd for no apparent purpose, for there were no incidents there either. But you expect it in the north east where the policing is the worst and most brutal I have had the misfortune to experience………………until Stoke.

And then came the Cardiff-Leeds match and the attendant crowd problems. It would be enough to make you despair if you didn't feel such intense outrage at being dealt with in a way not too different from the CRS in Paris. For those who are unaware, you do not ask a member of the CRS the time; they are so tooled up in actuality and in their heads that you might as well try to hold a conversation with a chimp bearing a loaded .45 Magnum with the safety catch off and a twitching hairy finger on the trigger.

So, surely it is time to take a step back and review the situation before it gets out of hand again. If it once again goes beyond the pale I believe the game really WILL be killed off. Allow it to deteriorate much further and it won't be worth saving anyway.

First, let's look at the ideal and why it went wrong, and then where we stand now.

THE IDEAL: THE WAY WE ONCE WERE.

A long time ago it was quite possible to travel en masse and freely mix as visiting supporters at a match. The only time anybody even remotely thought of police action was in shepherding of crowds in and around the stadium. Oh sure, there was the odd scuffle or bad mouthing, or even isolated gang action, for that has always been part of organised sport of almost any description. It can't really be otherwise where emotional commitment is involved. The difference now is in the SCALE of fans reaction to each other.

Today's younger spectators would be amazed at the lack of fans segregation and organised policing pre-1970. It simply wasn't required the way it is now. You really did stand next to each other and shout your head off for your team with little chance of an opposing fan going off into paranoid orbit. You got beat, you got glum, and you went home to sulk. And that was in the days of much larger crowds, and in standing terraces at that. It was never ideal but it really was much, much better than the present situation. None of this is misty-eyed sentimental nostalgia. It is fact.

The question is: Can we ever return to it? I believe we can, though not without a lot of joined-up thinking and action by everybody concerned. It will probably take a long time. But surely it is well worthwhile if we can save our game?

THE IDEAL: WHY IT WENT WRONG.

It all went wrong because we the fans allowed it to. It happened gradually, not overnight. Fact is, properly organised, we could have stopped it dead in its tracks. We didn't. The police and the establishment have merely made things a good deal worse. These are the bottom lines. As usual, there are complicating factors in the origins and the detail.

The first signs of contemporary problems began to appear in the late fifties as more and more fans traveled to away matches. Even then, violent incidents were at a minimum. The most overt signs manifested in isolated damage to trains or coaches. At that stage it was usually dismissed as the lunatic action of a few idiots and occasional headlines were quickly forgotten. It would go away, we all thought. Wrong, and very badly wrong.

Instead of going away it began to increase very slowly, osmosis in human behaviour. By the early sixties it had even become a source of "humour." The appalling Jimmy Tarbuck, erstwhile "scouse comedian," once came on stage in London carrying a train carriage door. But you expect that kind of thing from an untalented nobody who has made a living from metropolitan sycophancy. The point is, the ineffable Tarbuck was merely symptomatic of the kind of acceptance then prevalent. Action then might well have throttled the monster at birth. Instead, what we got was the likes of Tarbuck and the beginnings of extreme regional chauvinism. The fans even started making jokes about it themselves. Thus was reached the first level of acceptance.

The sixties also brought with it the rise of self-confident regionalism, aided by the popular music explosion on Merseyside. At the same time, social change swept the western world. There are still some loony establishment figures in our unloved metropolis who (incredibly) "blame the sixties" on Merseyside. Whatever, few kids these days can even remotely understand just how potent this combination became. But you can get a slight handle on it when you realise eventually it almost swept away De Gaulle in 1968 France before the tidal wave ebbed.

Naturally, footy was no more immune to social change than any other form of popular culture. Inevitably, this expressed itself in football club support, always a strong community based activity. Once again the affect was gradual, not sudden. Organised singing and chanting returned to the game after a long absence, beginning in earnest at "Glory! Glory!" Tottenham. Other fans took it up. Soon it hardened into clear club identification with certain songs, which had a long tradition of its own. All the while, crowd incidents were creeping up imperceptibly. There was much talk of "atmosphere" and how desirable it was, when what was happening spontaneously bore the ominous outlines of a Nuremberg rally at each venue. Younger fans began to claim that you weren't really a supporter if you didn't join in. Thus was reached the second level of acceptance.

At this stage, a fair and wide awake Fourth Estate might still have helped save the day. Instead, the sports pages had become a trashy receptacle for the worst kind of chauvinism. They still are. Fans were even referred to as "Blue" or "Red" armies. A classic example was the blatant bias shown by the media to Manchester United in the wake of the awful Munich disaster. This was quite understandable and acceptable in the immediate wake of the tragedy, but not subsequently, and it contains the roots of present day reaction against the club. Regional media now openly speak of "hatred" for United, including their own. Metropolitan media is so skewed in its narrow perspective of events elsewhere that it is grotesque. The media too bear a large responsibility for subsequent events. Honourable exceptions merely prove the rule. This was the third and final level of acceptance before the final collapse of the ideal.

THE IDEAL: FINAL COLLAPSE.

By the time the seventies came around there was no room left for complacency by anyone. By then, pitch invasions were the norm. Usually they were quite harmless and in celebration of a goal. However, it mattered not: The taboo was broken, the altar desecrated. It was just a matter of time before the church was looted. From then on, everything got worse. The fans made no effort to save the situation and the establishment responded in the only way they ever know how: Increasingly draconian measures. Fact is, neither fans nor establishment cared enough to rescue the game, and the only response of the media was to gather like a pack of jeering jackals……………for the untalented and unprincipled it was, as always, a news event, not a cause for genuine social concern.

First, we had fences erected around the pitch. That was enough to give the unvocational amongst the police their first legitimacy of separation. So, a zoo was created and too many began to behave like pack-animals on both sides of the fence.

Then the arteries of club support finally hardened into small groups who indulged in open, organised violence against each other. It was all so depressingly predictable. Police methods reciprocated.

By the end of the seventies, the post war political consensus had vanished and the establishment had reverted to its inevitable sour right wing posture. Politicians were openly referring to dissident citizens as "scum" and, later, in another inevitable development, that "there is no such thing as society," a straight steal from the extremist rantings of long discredited Ayn Rand. The media joined in. Our social fabric almost came apart, indeed there is a good argument that it did and that it has remained torn ever since. Small wonder football once again began to reflect events. Like everything else, the game finally imploded. We have been dealing with the results ever since.

HOW WE GOT TO THE PRESENT STATE.

There are two main events which drove us into our present condition: The disasters at Heysel and Hillsborough. They have seared us all. The loss of life is the worst tragedy of all, but another lower level tragedy is the fact that both involved the Pinkies, a club who have brought nothing but good, honesty and honour to the game, particularly in the notoriously corrupt world of seventies-eighties European football. The club administration and management stood out like a beacon before and after they were blamelessly inflicted with these dual horrors.

The subsequent media feeding frenzy saw fit to use both tragedies as a stick to beat Merseyside and football. Only the honourable saw them rightly as symptomatic of a deliberately divided society incapable of caring for its own citizens. The truth is, they could have happened anywhere to anyone and we all know it. That is how far the game had fallen. If we cannot be safe at play, just when can we be safe?

Of course these were not the only events. They were simply the worst. Before Everton fans get sanctimonious about this they would do well to remember the murder of a Millwall fan in the early seventies. They might also remember it was Everton fans who first unfurled a "Munich 58" banner at Old Trafford in the mid seventies, thus breaking a taboo which too many other loonies have taken up elsewhere throughout the game. As I said, the story brings credit to nobody.

The cumulative affect was to result in (legislated, which shows how politics can affect sport) all seater stadia and more organised and sophisticated policing. The latter also coincided with increased, organised police brutality during the miners' strike and street riots in our major cities. The police methods and attitude used were later applied to football matches. This included surveillance, control and intelligence techniques. The nightmare had finally arrived, and in an allegedly democratic society. Visiting an away match is now an unacceptable, totally police-organised event. Big Brother is here. The only people this can satisfy are police and establishment control freaks with limited intellect and even less understanding of the long term implications of their creation.

Since then, organised minority fans' violence has largely subsided. But the price has been too high and it is time to look at the situation again.

WHAT DO WE DO NOW?

Well, me, I don't have THE answer. Nobody has. If an acceptable consensus solution is to be reached it can only be by grown-up talk among equals. It cannot be left to the control freaks at the Home Office or at the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), both of whom have deserved their reputation for stiff collars, narrow foreheads and even narrower thinking.

At which point it would be as well to agree immediately that it is hardly ever the police who cause the main problems. They merely react to them, albeit in the unacceptable manner described above. The fans have to organise, be accountable for their own actions and get involved in the whole process. That is the only way we can establish an enduring and acceptable solution.

The police themselves can help initially by dealing unequivocally with the training and motivation of their officers. Some of this is positively neanderthal. Example: Last year there was what can only be described as a police riot in Slater Street. After the pinkies had beaten Manchester United some of their fans gathered there to sing and chant. When the situation began to look difficult some of the pub managers called the police. Instead of calming the situation, they stormed in in full riot gear and belaboured everybody in sight, even chasing a couple of fans all the way to Lime Street and attacking them in a bar. It was an action "worthy" of Franco's Guardia Civile or the aforesaid CRS. The Merseyside Police of old would have sorted this nonsense out without resorting to organised thuggery. Subsequently, one of the riot squad came on to a radio phone-in and said, "It is our job to clear the streets." Er, no, officer. It is your job to keep the peace. The difference probably escaped him, though it wouldn't if he had a true vocation for the job.

So, EVERYONE has to get together: Fans, clubs, police, national government, local authorities and maybe some businesses. Somehow, the fans have to formulate and articulate their own responsibilities and act accordingly. Somehow, the police have to accept that they are not a brigade of quasi-military going into action at every match, that they are there to help. The clubs have to take an inclusive approach instead of hiding behind the secretive PLC label. National government and local authorities have to formulate and articulate a sensible national policy and co-ordinate the whole thing. Businesses have to stop looking at fans as though they are mere targets for rip-offs.

As I said at the beginning, there genuinely was a time when it was all much better and much healthier. We can get it back. We can dissolve the overbearing and mostly unnecessary police methods. We can restore our game.

But it will take time, hard work and good will on all sides.

If we don't make the effort, The Beautiful Game will fall back on the bad days of the seventies and eighties. There are already overt signs that the novelty of the present league set-up is wearing off, that the same applies to all seater stadia. Draw your own conclusions as to what may happen next.

The questions are: Do we want our children to get used to a leisure time which involves a band of brutal-looking policemen? Is that the kind of society, never mind football policing, we want? Does the average bobby REALLY want to look and act like an overbearing legalised bully? The answer to all these questions is surely a resounding NO!

It is up to us. Let the past be prologue to a better future. (09/01/02)

What do you think? Do you agree or not? e-mail Blue Kipper