cycle of violence

[kevtherev]

abit silly having the both palace games as evening kick offs,people drinking all day,play it early on a sunday or even saturday and you'd cut the trouble in half straight away

west ham,millwall,pompey and saints are games that need looking at by the OB,if they don't want a repeat

OB calling it a success,but 28 arrests in this day and age isn't good,then youv'e got the crimes that went unpunished,i'm sure they didn't nick everyone

I think midweek games are a recipe for disaster. Like you say, the people who are looking for trouble would be on the piss all day. Its not the people who knock off work at 5 o'clock and rush to the game that are the problem. Its the ones that take a half day or a whole day off and go on the lash from 1 o'clock. Even a Saturday normal kick off would be easier to police.

 

[redoubtable seagull]

Can see future palace games being Sunday 12 o/c KOs. Then the palace can be kept in for as long as it takes to clear Brighton fans from the station.

 

[Charles 'Charley' Charles]

The ridiculous thing is that a lot ofyou are posting absolute drivel declaring Palace as being violent scumbags etc. I'm not saying we don't have a idiotic minority of fans looking for bother but the bullshit about it being all us and your boys were lillywhite with your innocence is naive at best boldfaced lying at worst. Its been corroborated by a lot of your fans in other threads here that the morons who threw rocks at the Falmer Station were BRIGHTON fans throwing rocks at...BRIGHTON fans thinking that they were Palace fans. Sadly the most obvious option for me is keeping your boys behind 30minutes in the stadium where you can drink in your nice bars etc and letting the away fans go early. Think how quickly you can shift 2,200 away fans compared to 22000 Seasiders.

To be fair I agree, and posted this on other threads. If (especially in instances of Palace, Millwall, West Ham) we are kept in watching the teles, having a drink, you can then use both platforms at Falmer for 2500 away fans. Both platforms to Brighton and Lewes for awaiting London bound trains. Yes I know lots wont be happy being kept in, and not all supporters of London clubs are London based. However the majority are. Clearing the relatively small amount of away fans would take little time at all. Let's be honest there is no way we could clear 20,000 home fans in half an hour to all over Sussex and beyond. 2500 away fans could be cleared using both stations in under half an hour. It is, being honest the most logical solution if everyone is gonna have their concerns over "trouble clubs". Although would say having been to several Brighton v Millwall/West Ham matches home and away the only time I've known any trouble was in the play-off season in '91.

 

[Davemania]

I think you may have just hit the nail on the head Rev.

Crazy decision to allow non-segregation, I appreciate the "treat them like humans and they will behave like humans" reasoning but this was Palace, It was always going to have an edge to it.

Personally I used Park and ride on Tuesday to avoid the trains but walking past the South at the end was like going back in time 20 years.

Im all for the theory of treating fans like humans and therefore they will behave like humans but, as hillian says, this was palace and as we all know....they aren't human

 

[essex]

a couple of points;

a) there didnt actually seem to be that much trouble in my opinion, few arrests and injuries suggests such. moving up a league attracts many more away fans and it probably came as a shock to the general public who all had their iphones on film mode
b) Escorting volatile away fans straight between 2 home pubs requires very strong lines of police. I think the police just about got away with it but it won't always be like that. better to find another route
c) I can see similair rowdy marches of away fans with millwall west ham pompey. Away fans will go to Brighton for the crack as well as the football so it needs better planning or will inevitably end in the violence that didnt happen this week
d) The location of stadium will create flashpoints in Brighton centre and in the mad scramble at Falmer.

Solution.
Lay on buses from a point near the station that can take the fans direct to Amex and then back to station after the game. They can be well policed and avoids all the mess at Falmer station.

PS I dont believe that seats were damaged maliciously in the away end. Sheer excitement leads to standing on seats. Unfortunately many seem to have got broken

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

28 arrests could turn out to be a low figure taking into account we still have home games against Millwall , West Ham , Portsmouth , Southampton , Derby , Cardiff and Birmingham City.

 

[Seagull Steve]

To be fair to Palace, the trouble outside the stadium straight after the game was started by Albion fans. I was right in the middle as a few of our lot jumped on a few of them walking past. I have absolutely no time for violence and got out of the way sharpish. But as it started kicking off, I saw a father and young girl around seven, the girl looked absolutely petrified. I felt sorry for her and imagine her dad may have to really battle to get her to come back. I missed (thankfully) all the throwing of stuff and any further incidents. But I do think the old bill did cock up. For example as I came away from the West, this copper shouted Brighton down the steps, Palace down the slope, I went towards the slope on my MOBILITY SCOOTER, wearing my Brighton shirt, and quite unbelievably he pointed towards the stairs and said that way mate. It didn't matter which way they pointed the crowd, as they were always going to meet up at some point before the station. IMO, they had the horses in completely the wrong place too.

 

[Shooting Star]

28 arrests. I didn't really expect the total to be any lower than that, but it easily could have been much higher. Imagine if the game had finished 1-1, with both sets of fans staying til the end in a gripping contest? Or if Murray hadn't have scored the third which signalled a mass departure of home fans (including myself). In the interests of safety, it may have been a godsend that we did lose 3-1. It meant Palace fans stayed in the ground celebrating after the final whistle, whilst the majority of Brighton fans had left at the beginning of injury time. I missed the first train to Lewes but was safely on the platform before it started kicking off near the bridge and police horses riding up it.

Obviously this is ridiculous. There will be future games with Palace where fans will stay right til the end and thus if segregation isn't deployed, it will kick off far worse than it did on Tuesday night.

 

[blue'n'white]

The way to avoid pretty much all trouble is to make the Palace match a "bubble game". It causes maximum inconvenience to away fans, and it's by no means ideal. They have them in Holland for high risk games; fans have to board a coach at their own ground and pick up tickets, usually at a service station, en route on the day of the match. I'm personally against the idea, but then I'm not exactly thrilled to hear stories of stone throwing into large groups of innocent fans gathered at the station, either. Hooligans fighting one another is one thing and, like it or not, that will always happen. When innocent fans get caught up in that nonsense, it becomes a wider issue that needs sorting out.

I know that the powers that be have done this for Cardiff matches which caused the maximum amount of inconvenience for a couple of Cardiff ST holders who I know live in Surrey. I forget which match it was a few years ago - in London though. I don't think it was Millwall - it could have been West Ham. Cardiff were bussed up to a service station at the top of the M4 where my mates got on then were bussed to the ground and let out inside the ground then back to the service station after the match where they picked the car up.

 

[blue'n'white]

Can see future palace games being Sunday 12 o/c KOs. Then the palace can be kept in for as long as it takes to clear Brighton fans from the station.

Yes this is what I have said on other threads - it's the most sensible time to have a match that has the potential for this amount of trouble. I think the police made a massive mistake in asking for this and Cardiff and Millwall to be evening games

 

[perseus]

It was all sarf London hooligans from reports I have heard. And it was more serious than reported.

 

[Return of the Rev]

future home games should only include palace fans who travel on official coaches,some would miss out or be inconvenienced but thats the price they should have to pay! Any rogue fans filtering into brighton should be left un escorted. problem solved

 

[essex]

All this talk of "bubble games" and picking up at service stations is ridiculous for Brighton v Palace, Millwall, Pompey etc.
It has a chance of working when fans travel a long distance and their journeys converge e.g cardiff to west ham. But when teams are local it would be stupid. Imagine a Palace fan living in Haywards Heath having to travel to Selhurst and back again. Or in reverse a Brighton fan living in South London having to travel down to the AMEX to get a coach back and forth. Its not going to happen. Instead those fans will try and get tickets in home end making situation worse.
Unfortunately the police role is to prevent criminal activity as well as react. So they could do a lot better at channeling fans seperately to avoid trouble. Especially after night matches.
I travelled to Russia to watch England a couple of years back and it was a very violent place. That is until we had to meet in Moscow centre and get coaches to the ground. From that point I felt safe and there was no trouble. We had police escorts and led straight to away end and picked up afterwards.
A similair scheme should happen in Brighton for the big games. Falmer will not improve for years and away fans on night games will not want to be kept behind.

 

[Croydonbloke]

It was the craziest idea I have seen at football for a while, making 2500 Palace fans walk right through hoards of Brighton fans straight after the game, yeah great idea that was!!!

 

[Westdene Seagull]

As for bussing them all to a particular station isn't great either. Not EVERY Palace fan is heading back to Croydon, some may even live in Brighton, Coldean, or wish to meet up with friends and family who are from Brighton. I remember the 5-0 at Selhurst, and I had a real job getting on anything other than a Brighton train, despite the fact I don't live anywhere near Brighton. There were also friends I was with who were meeting friends in Croydon, and had to make a run for it through the Police line to avoid being frogmarched to the station.

Absolutely agree that this isn't a solution. I went to Cardiff, Ninian Park, a few years ago. We were visiting friends so drove from their house to the stadium. Decided to leave 5 minutes before the end to avoid bumping into Cardiff "fans". Stewards told us we couldn't leave as did the South Wales police. We were told that we would be marched to the train station with all the other Albion fans. It was only because I found a Sussex Police Officer I knew and he told the stewards to let us leave that we didn't end up being forced to catch a train we didn't want.

Herding is a crap idea and shouldn't be used EVER.

 

[Aquilaugh]

should be plenty of tiks to go round

Why ?

 

[Aquilaugh]

future home games should only include palace fans who travel on official coaches,some would miss out or be inconvenienced but thats the price they should have to pay! Any rogue fans filtering into brighton should be left un escorted. problem solved

And the same applies to Brighton fans for the return fixture I suppose, or are you being particularly 'holier than thou' about Brighton fans ?

 

[Dr. Notthenineo'clocknews]

all this segregation stuff and making them walk this way or that way or keeping them/us in after the match on different trains and buses and so on, what would happen in the (unlikely) event of us playing them in an FA cup semi or summink at Wembley?

 

[Return of the Rev]

And the same applies to Brighton fans for the return fixture I suppose, or are you being particularly 'holier than thou' about Brighton fans ?

no same applies! the point is to stop the fighting not punish one set of fans!

 

[Croydonbloke]

I blame Alan Mullery.