The government have just released their figures on arrests and banning orders made over the last year and Saints have been better behaved than most.

They say that the Premier League sanitises football and that could clearly be the case, a few years ago Saints had a high record of banning orders on their supporters, yet a couple of seasons in the top flight has seen these figures plummet.

Strangely the Government dont compile these figures over a season but run them from a date in September therefore these figures although loosely applying to last season actually run from 21st September 2013 to 3rd September 2014

In this period Saints had only 4 banning orders imposed by courts on supporters a ver low figure

To put that in perspective the only clubs with less banning orders issued in last seasons Premier league were Swansea & Aston Villa with 1 apiece & West Brom with 2.

The North East seems to be the place for action with Newcastle having 95 supporters banned over the last year and Sunderland runners up with 18.

Most Premier Clubs had around a dozen with apart from the clubs mentioned only West Ham with 16 and Liverpool & Man City with 14 having over that total.

In total banning orders Saints currently have 24 supporters banned by courts from attending games for various periods of time and this is a low figure, Newcastle as you would expect are leading the way with 127 banned, with Chelsea next on 91, again the average seems to be around 35-45 per club and if you compare both sets of figures its clear that that the clubs with high totals have probably had these contributed to by an individual incident.

Saints had 14 supporters arrested at games in total last season, of which 8 were at home and 6 away, again this compares favourably, Manchester United with 112 leading the way and Arsenal second way behind with 67.

In the reporting period out of a total attendance in the Premier league of 13,930,810 there were 596 arrests a ratio of of 1 arrest per 23,373 spectators, in League 2 where our neighbours Pompey play there were 2,443,978 fans and 159 arrests a ratio of 1 arrest every 15,370 fans, perhaps emphasising how safe it is to watch a Premier League game, certainly safer than many League 2 games.

Talking of Pompey they had 2 banning orders issued in the same period and have 14 fans banned. in League 2 last year they also had 21 arrested.

If we compare it against the previous years figures 596 were arrested in the Premier league in this period in 2012/13 there were 722.

Photo: Action Images

WestSussexSaint added 12:52 - Sep 12 Surely this is all relative to how many supporters actually attend matches and the capacity of their ground. This makes the pompey stats all the more revealing in that 50% of their fans have been banned
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Zambucco added 15:53 - Sep 12 WestSussexSaint I love a bit of banter! True story a recent girlfriend believe it or not a skate! told me she was going to a charity football match, when I asked what the teams were, she thought it was Havant & Waterlooville vs Pompey Legends. I pointed out that it would probably be a 5-a-side match to which she replied "I'm not sure, but it could be 6-a-side" There you go a Pompey fan with a grip on reality!

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luffy22 added 20:57 - Sep 12 Back in the olden days the throwing out of fans (fans????) was part of the entertainment, when my dad first started taking me in the 70's watching the fighting in the archers was better than some of the football. I remember the fans separated by a line of policemen linking arms trying to keep them apart. then they put the funny fence things in. Happy days To add to other posts, I was there when Franny scored!!! what a header, what a cross by Matty. What a day!!!

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