Less than thin, blue, but out of line
Vision dreams of passion
(Blowin through my mind)
And all the while I think of you.
Words: Tom Reed
Cover image: Ian Parker
It’s never a good thing if you know a referee by name and the same seems to be true of high ranking policemen, who rarely appear in public for anything positive these days.
Chief Constable Mark Roberts is the latest policeman to elicit a groan whenever his visage graces our screens and the Lead for football policing at the National Police Chief’s Council reinforced his celebrity status for all the wrong reasons this week.
Appearing at a Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee meeting on safety at sports grounds, Roberts dropped a bollock by reinforcing an ill-judged comment regarding standing at football matches.
Taking “what’s that got to do with the price of fish” incredulity to new levels, the reaction to the Alan Partridge-esque suggestion that the act of standing facilitates racism and drug taking was one of widespread ridicule.
Roberts resembles a perma-pissed off Jim Broadbent, rarely seen without his epaulettes and has form for the sort of unnuanced gaffe he produced in front of the committee, such as comparing dance music festival Creamfields with regards drug use.
His former role as Deputy Chief Constable at South Yorkshire Police is just another depressing detail for those who know the history of policing football and Roberts’ comments did the cause of a true form of community safeguarding, that of sporting crowds, a disservice.
Indeed, Roberts pointed to progression in football ground experiences since the ‘80s coming partly down to “support of supporters, broadly supportive of (police) measures” but if reaction to his latest comments are anything to go by, he may have some more work to do on that.
The committee itself didn’t bring much to the table in terms of verifiable evidence, more a knockabout with a few anecdotes to get suit shoulders (and epaulettes) going.
White lines appeared to be on minds as the subject of cocaine use at football matches was high on the agenda.
Except that Peter Houghton, Director Of Operations at the Football Safety Officers Association, appeared to be confused how easy it is to spot coked up football hoodlums hellbent on trouble.
Houghton trotted out a lovely story that will no doubt have had those with a penchant for hi-viz nodding, saying “a good friend of mine at Cambridge United said when he checked the gents toilets after the match, it looked like a launderette, there is that much powder everywhere.”
On discussing a video of disorder that the committee had been shown before the proceedings, Houghton added “In fact if you look at some of the images that Mark showed us before, it’s abundantly clear that one or two of those are not drunk they’ve been using erm..”
Houghton was quickly pressed on the “difference in behaviour from someone who is violent after drug taking and violent after drinking?”.
To which his response was “It’s actually quite a hard one to call that”.
These sort of observations in light of a lack of hard and long-standing evidence detracted from some cuter counter-points on stewarding and police officer turnover due to the pandemic from Martyn Henderson OBE, Chief Exec of the Sports Grounds Safety Authority.
Yet, Roberts’ reference to “a government pledge to reintroduce safe standing” points to the inexactitude that brings little to a macro-level discussion on sports ground safety with safe standing an entirely new technology and no reintroduction of anything.
Unfortunately, the meeting will be remembered for the Roberts’ latest rick and his conflation of two separate issues in criminality at football and standing up at football games. It may have been a tough watch for the police football liaison teams actually working hard to build relationships with fans week in week out.
Roberts’ views can sadly be dismissed as coming from someone who spends far too long in the insular world of studying CCTV for the first sign of trouble and not count a bean for any serious discussion on the rollout of safe standing.
There was a lot of talk about “migration” to safe standing areas and potential space issues which might actually suggest that its actually pretty popular and needs to be catered for more.
Maybe, instead of being shown a video nasty compilation of people fighting at football, the committee should have screened hours of footage of the hundreds of thousands of people that file in and out of football grounds each week, enjoy themselves without harm and go home.
A check to see if the cleaner’s dropped the Shake n’ Vac at Cambridge?
After all, context is everything, for fans that want to watch games without grief and Chief Constables too.
Fans enjoy the safe standing rail seats at QPR.
