Re: Shame on the game : Mon Aug 11, 2014 5:49 pm  

Bullseye wrote:

Tear gas? You're going soft.

Perhaps, but shooting live rounds indiscriminately into the crowd just generates too much paperwork

Re: Shame on the game : Mon Aug 11, 2014 5:54 pm  

Typical. I turned over to watch the cycling once Cas had it in the bag. Missed all the excitement.

Re: Shame on the game : Mon Aug 11, 2014 8:25 pm  

debaser wrote:

Typical. I turned over to watch the cycling once Cas had it in the bag. Missed all the excitement.

I didn't see any of it on TV just a couple of k no bs that ran on the pitch when widnes scored.

From the vids I've seen after it wasn't exactly the huysel stadium disaster. I think hull in 2000 were a lot worse. A bit of rough housing that was about it really.

It was more loutishness than hooliganism.

A fine for widnes or a ban from the cc like queens were given and bans once the cops round the idiots up. But it's not the crisis for rl some people will have us believe. It's very very rare this sort of thing.

Re: Shame on the game : Mon Aug 11, 2014 8:34 pm  

It was unsavory really. There are many videos going around you tube which were taken by members of the crowd who were appalled by their own fans.

The bits that stick out for me was when the fans went for the stewards, it was pretty clear that one of the fans spat in the stewards face, also the lad that ragged the Cas mascot's head off and started kicking it round like a football.

These 'fans' need banning! embarrassing to think they are associated with the sport

Re: Shame on the game : Mon Aug 11, 2014 9:56 pm  

daveyz999 wrote:

It was unsavory really. There are many videos going around you tube which were taken by members of the crowd who were appalled by their own fans.

The bits that stick out for me was when the fans went for the stewards, it was pretty clear that one of the fans spat in the stewards face, also the lad that ragged the Cas mascot's head off and started kicking it round like a football.

These 'fans' need banning! embarrassing to think they are associated with the sport

Spitting is assault and if convicted can carry a prison term .

It's also disgusting

Re: Shame on the game : Tue Aug 12, 2014 7:23 am  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

What it proved, if anything, is the utter idiocy of spending tens of thousands of pounds on dayglo "security" marshals surrounding the pitch looking like a set of garv=den gnomes, they never do anything, and apart from running about a bit into groups, leaving huge gaps wide open for morons to run through, they did little, and achieved nothing. I am not knocking them, btw, the point I am making is that having a cordon of dayglos around the pitch is an utter pointless waste of money, as they aren't allowed into the creowd in the highly unlikely event anything did kick off, and are as much use in stopping drunks invading the pitch as a twelve inch plastic picket fence..

I'm not disagreeing with the tenet of your post, but maybe the math.
100 marshals x £6.50/hr x 5 hours = £3,250. Which is probably the equivalent cost of a couple of police for a day.
While, at the time, I wanted each aggressive Widnes fan to receive a good kicking, with hindsight it was diffused without too much bloodshed. Without sufficient numbers of lowly paid stewards or police it could have inflamed the situation further if they had tackled the morons & reduced numbers further. With video evidence now available the police can deal with the trouble makers at their leisure.

Re: Shame on the game : Tue Aug 12, 2014 10:29 am  

tigertot wrote:

I'm not disagreeing with the tenet of your post, but maybe the math.
100 marshals x £6.50/hr x 5 hours = £3,250. Which is probably the equivalent cost of a couple of police for a day.
While, at the time, I wanted each aggressive Widnes fan to receive a good kicking, with hindsight it was diffused without too much bloodshed. Without sufficient numbers of lowly paid stewards or police it could have inflamed the situation further if they had tackled the morons & reduced numbers further. With video evidence now available the police can deal with the trouble makers at their leisure.

I'm not disagreeing with your post either, IMHO a "human barrier" will never stop even a half-hearted pitch invasion like this one, only fences (perish the very thought) could do that.

A police barrier is both OTT , completely unaffordable and unnecessary, and it is unfortunate that many are suggesting we need to change the whole ethos of viewing and policing all RL matches just because of the idiocy of a hundred or so Widnes drunken boneheaded knuckledraggers. We should be able to rely (as in 99.9% of cases we can rely) on RL fans not to behave like these Widnes scumbags. And of course the vast majority of Widnes fans are genuine RL fans not scumbags, it is just they seem to be the go-to club for scumbags at the moment, if what I read is accurate.

What saved this from being a major incident was the restraint of the Castleford fans. However that should not detract from the fact that the knuckledraggers were attempting to start a major incident. The trouble is that BECAUSE there was not a major incident, BECAUSE not many people got punched etc., each knuckledragger can have the same defence
* had a few too many sherbets
* he's normally a good bloke really
* didn't actually hit anybody
* wouldn't actually have done any fighting
* nobody died
* apart from running on a field and waving, he didn't really do much

All of which is basically true, even if it distorts the reality grotesquely, and means so far as any criminal cases are concerned we can expect very little by way of court penalties. If I ran the CPS, I would be looking at for once putting the controversial law of "joint enterprise" to a good instead of bad use, pick the worst thing that happened and then charge all of them with it. Like the mascot being punched, which must surely earn that knuckledragger some jail time. Or charge the lot of them with affray. But I'm not, and CPS won't.

So it is up to the game to sort the individuals out. I can't tell you how much I resent the thought of anyone going to see a RL match being terrorised (as many near the front of the Cas end must have been). RL's reputation as a rare sport where fans can get on is chipped away at by these vermin and I don't think a "deterrent" is needed, nor do i think anything would deter any other club's vermin-in-waiting, but i do think that the process of identifying these lot and giving each a lengthy ban from the game is about the best thing that can be done. The Widnes club will sadly be punished, because that's how it is, but they should take it out on each and every knuckledragger to the max permitted by law.

[Bulliac]

Re: Shame on the game : Tue Aug 12, 2014 11:42 am  

I realise that only a very few actually threw a punch, but isn't there a charge of, 'actions likely to cause a breach of the peace'? If the whole episode was anything, it was that -at the very least. Though I guess the official punishment from the courts is the equivalent of a couple of 'hail Marys' and a promise not to do it again.

I suspect it will be down to the club to actually apply some sanctions; a few sine die bans maybe?

Re: Shame on the game : Tue Aug 12, 2014 1:12 pm  

Bulliac wrote:

I realise that only a very few actually threw a punch, but isn't there a charge of, 'actions likely to cause a breach of the peace'? If the whole episode was anything, it was that -at the very least. Though I guess the official punishment from the courts is the equivalent of a couple of 'hail Marys' and a promise not to do it again.

Nail, head. Breach of the peace is about as trivial as offences get, the sort of thing that you get a binding over or a conditional discharge. It's what they did collectively, and tried to do, but there is no way CPS is going to do them for that, which is why apart from one or two the criminal consequences will be basically inconsequential.

Bulliac wrote:

I suspect it will be down to the club to actually apply some sanctions; a few sine die bans maybe?

It will. And to pay their own fines, sadly.

Re: Shame on the game : Tue Aug 19, 2014 9:50 am  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

I'm not disagreeing with your post either, IMHO a "human barrier" will never stop even a half-hearted pitch invasion like this one, only fences (perish the very thought) could do that.

A police barrier is both OTT , completely unaffordable and unnecessary, and it is unfortunate that many are suggesting we need to change the whole ethos of viewing and policing all RL matches just because of the idiocy of a hundred or so Widnes drunken boneheaded knuckledraggers. We should be able to rely (as in 99.9% of cases we can rely) on RL fans not to behave like these Widnes scumbags. And of course the vast majority of Widnes fans are genuine RL fans not scumbags, it is just they seem to be the go-to club for scumbags at the moment, if what I read is accurate.

What saved this from being a major incident was the restraint of the Castleford fans. However that should not detract from the fact that the knuckledraggers were attempting to start a major incident. The trouble is that BECAUSE there was not a major incident, BECAUSE not many people got punched etc., each knuckledragger can have the same defence
* had a few too many sherbets
* he's normally a good bloke really
* didn't actually hit anybody
* wouldn't actually have done any fighting
* nobody died
* apart from running on a field and waving, he didn't really do much

All of which is basically true, even if it distorts the reality grotesquely, and means so far as any criminal cases are concerned we can expect very little by way of court penalties. If I ran the CPS, I would be looking at for once putting the controversial law of "joint enterprise" to a good instead of bad use, pick the worst thing that happened and then charge all of them with it. Like the mascot being punched, which must surely earn that knuckledragger some jail time. Or charge the lot of them with affray. But I'm not, and CPS won't.

So it is up to the game to sort the individuals out. I can't tell you how much I resent the thought of anyone going to see a RL match being terrorised (as many near the front of the Cas end must have been). RL's reputation as a rare sport where fans can get on is chipped away at by these vermin and I don't think a "deterrent" is needed, nor do i think anything would deter any other club's vermin-in-waiting, but i do think that the process of identifying these lot and giving each a lengthy ban from the game is about the best thing that can be done. The Widnes club will sadly be punished, because that's how it is, but they should take it out on each and every knuckledragger to the max permitted by law.

I think that about sums it up FA, I found the most disgusting scene was when the Mascot was attacked, and in that instant the thug who did it, not only attacked a defenceless person, but the concept of our sport to the junior supporters of the future...The club mascot is revered by youngsters and the status is one of identifying and belonging to the club. He therefore could not retaliate as to do so would have put the whole concept of the club in jeopardy. That cowardly act epitomised the knuckledragger mentality as you rightly describe them.