 Friday, 26th Aug 2011 11:06 The club have issued a joint statement in conjunction with the Police re the trouble at the Millwall game. The following statement is made after consultation with Hampshire Police, The Safety Officer and Safety Management Team at Southampton Football Club.
"The last time Southampton and Millwall met at St Mary’s was on 08 August 2009. A total of 2,242 Millwall fans attended the fixture, which ended in a 1 – 1 draw, and there was no disorder before, during or after the fixture.
In advance of this season’s match, Southampton Football Club and Hampshire Police assessed the fixture in keeping with normal practice, and the match was categorised as medium risk.
There were no reported incidents of disorder in the City before the game and both sets of supporters made their way to St Mary’s Stadium monitored by the Police and the City CCTV. However, during the game there were 7 ejections from the ground (1 home supporter and 6 away supporters for various breaches of ground regulations)
When Southampton scored on 18 minutes the temporary netting – introduced as an additional measure on the Millwall side of the permanent Northam segregation netting – was breached by a surge of volatile Millwall fans. At no time was the permanent segregation netting breached and Southampton Football Club are more than happy with the current segregation netting that is in place, which is similar to those in use at many if not most other stadiums in the country.
There was no intelligence suggesting that there would be any violence after the match and to have held supporters back without good cause would have meant impeding those supporter’s human rights. Having carefully considered the situation, taking into account there was no violence prior to the match, nor intelligence to suggest any pre planned disorder after; supporters were released on the conclusion of the fixture.
A closure of the stadium north car park closure was discussed; however, as the Police Cordon Trailers were not part of the pre match planning they were not available on the day. This will be reviewed for future fixtures and will be in place for any further visit from Millwall. The closure of the north car park often causes issues with home supporters, however, safety is of course paramount and if it is deemed necessary in future then it will be enforced.
Three Millwall supporters were arrested in the north car park post match and another in the City later that evening. A Police enquiry is ongoing and Southampton Football Club will assist Hampshire Police with evidence to follow up this incident with further arrests that we hope will lead to Football Banning Orders."
There are some important points that need addressing in this statement, the first is that both the Club and police having clearly been aware of the problems that occurred and the reasons why etc should take steps to reassure Saints supporters, not just those affected some of whom had a very distressing time, but others who are aware of the incidents and may feel some concern about their own safety at future games, a simple copy of the above statement on the Club website and issued to the press would go along way towards doing this.
Whilst behaviour as was witnessed at this game is now thankfully rare, if it puts one person off from going to a game then its an issue that needs to be dealt with, it happened many know it happened, it needs to be dealt with and supporters reassured as to future fixture..
Regarding the points the police made about not having prior intelligence that trouble would occur and that the previous fixture went off without trouble, my memory of that fixture is that it went off without trouble due to the vigilance of the police, I remember a mob of around 600 excitable Millwall supporters being shepherded to the ground under police escort.
But the real issue is the failure to segregate supporters after the match, whilst the police may not have had their hi tech metal fence on hand, this is a fairly recent introduction and after it became clear in the ground that a sizeable proportion of visiting fans were excitable, they could easily have done what they did for countless years at St Mary's before, close off the North car park using the portable metal barriers and directed Millwall fans up Brittannia Road, this has worked well in the past as it takes the steam out of the situation, just why the police did not do it this time is open to speculation.
The most noticable observation though is comments made by supporters, most seem to know exactly how the situation could have been dealt with, they know that because for the last ten years they have attended games at St Mary's and seen trouble prevented in exactly that way, therefore it baffles them as to why the police should get so caught out now after ten years of practice.
But this statement covers the fact that both Club and police are aware of why the problems occurred, so perhaps a statement to all supporters would put minds at rest that this is a one off and that lessons have been learnt.
In closing it should be stressed that the Club should probably be absolved of blame for decisions on the day, they follow the recomendations of the police and certainly the stewards in the Northam end and outside were in a difficult situation and handled it well, whilst the club would be part of the consulting process, it would be the police who would make the decisions regarding crowd disorder, certainly outside the ground and once off club premises (including the outside car park) it is purely a police decision.
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