South Yorkshire Police

Stopped this game kicking off at 5-30pm and therefore limiting BFC's income.

Now they have forced club to stop selling match day tickets today at 11am, again living BFC's income.

All this when we absolutely need every single BFC fan we can get, into Oakwell.

South Yorkshire Police......thank you very much for this support in your local team. Why not get off your ar5es and actually do the job you are paid for ie. police a public event instead of restricting it.

This is why football is dying a slow death, because we allow ridiculous decisions to ruin the game and the fans always always always come last in this.

 

This needs investigating the so called small clubs are not deemed worthy of police attention as opposed to the so called larger clubs, despicable' discriminatory, and totally unjust

 

Isn't being able to get tickets upto four hours before our biggest game in years good enough? If people didn't know by 11am this morning if they wanted to go to it then **** me. People would find any reason not to go today. Police have done the right thing.

 

That's not the point, the point is we are not being considered in the same vein as the so called larger clubs

 

Just read Chronicle, Don stuck it them big time. Expect the home ends to be invaded. I know I would.

 

Plod will be locking people up all day for absolutely nothing to justify there actions leading up to this game, id bet a weeks wage where hearing about large numbers being locked up come Monday, and they'll get away with it too because its always the fans to blame no matter how much the filth provoke it

 

Maybe so but there is a counter argument in that if the game had been allowed on TV the away following would not have been as desperate and intense as they would have stayed home watching imo

 

100% disagree.

South Yorkshire Police have dictated today, not BFC. Like I said, if they do their jobs properly, they should know how to police a football match that could have had ~15k fans........they do it in other parts of the county, so why not Oakwell.

It's a shocking array of decisions.

 

I reckon any other home game against them even if we had played them in our last home game police would have let Hull have another 2k. But last match is when idiots run on the pitch like they haven't seen grass before in their lives. I believe our own inability season after season to stop people running on the pitch has played against us and police don't want to risk trouble for the sake of a few extra fans.

 

What a bitter, pathetic bunch of replies (apart from Dreamboy). I shouldn't expect anything else, though, seeing as certain people see the Police as evil until they need the help!!!!!

 

What a pathetic post ^^^^^^^^^

 

You miss the point entirely I'm afraid.

Oakwell can accommodate ~24K fans, so surely if there is a public arena that can hold this many fans, then South Yorkshire Police should have resource and tactical plan(s) to be able to accommodate this without the need for (a) rejecting a late KO on Sky and then (b) insisting on a 11:00am deadline for ticket sales.

I am NOT bitter and NOT pathetic........just a level headed guy who believes this is "tail wagging dog".

 

Well I think that the police were completely **** today. Stupid decison not to allow it to be on sky. Stupid decision not to allow ticket sales till kick off and then completely inept at policing the crowd inside the stadium today and completely failed to stop a criminal offence being carried out.

You appear to be confusing people having a problem with the decision making from the idiots at the top and the bureaucracy with people having a problem with front line officers. Personally I think that police officers in general are great, it is their superiors making stupid decisions which is the problem

 

The police didn't limit the attendance and as such the capacity of Oakwell has nothing to do with the situation.

The Police's tactical plan was to dictate the kick off time and make the match all ticket. Which seems to have worked bearing in mind I haven't heard any reports of major problems today.

The match being all ticket prevented me from going today as I've been working abroad and haven't had chance to get a ticket (as I wanted to spend this morning with my 6 week old baby rather than rushing down to Oakwell). That's life sometimes. I'm not sure why everyone is making such a big deal out of it.

If Cryne and the Don weren't so **** at marketing the club and driving commercial progress then he wouldn't be so over-reliant on bonus pay days from Sky TV and visiting fans, which is the only reason this has become such a big issue.

 

Didn't the police refuse to allow us to sell tickets to Hull fans in the designated away section of the west stand? Therefore limiting the attendance and lowering the capacity of the ground by around 2,000.

That doesn't really make sense though as you have no idea if there would have been any trouble if it had been at 5pm. To argue that the policy worked because there was no trouble is a bit like publicly stating that there will be 100 police bomb sniffer dogs at Oakwell today and then stating it was a brilliant policy that worked when they don't find any bombs even though there was never going to be any bombs anyway.

 

I know to 3 first timers that were turned away after deciding to go this morning, even with me, a ST holder, vouching for em it was a no from the club understandably cos of Police advice.

So 60 quid lost and will probably put em off turning up on off chance again.

Still excellent game and a big thumbs to players and staff.

 

Did we sell out the home end? If so, the capacity still has little to do with the matter and brings me back to the points you failed to quote from my post that the only reason this is an issue is due to lost revenue from Sky and away fans due to BFC's ***** commercial activity. So 2,000 Hull fans couldn't come and the Police are cnuts? Are you really that bothered? Are you not more concerned that the club has zero commerical sense making 2000 folk from Hull such a vital and key ingredient in the success of BFC?

As for your second point, it's hard to respond to such logic. They conducted a succesful operation (i.e. no trouble) and you criticise and you use hypothesis and speculation to make a point. The fact is that no trouble occurred. So that's a succesful operation in any sane persons reasoning. I'm not sure what else to say on that or how you can argue with it.

 

I think my views on the clubs commercial skills are well known aren't they? But capacity clearly has something to do with it when the police wouldnt allow us to sell our CAPACITY away tickets. I don't see how you can possibly argue that isn't the case. We have the ability to sell almost 8,000 AWAY tickets, the police only allowed us to sell 6,000. Capacity was reduced. Fact.

And of course it was a successful operation, it doesn't make it right though. If the police had said no away fans at all and only home season ticket holders allowed today there would have been no trouble. Would you have said that the police were right in their decision because it meant there had been no trouble and therefore a succesful operation?

 

Let's not forget that the same team's fans had restrictions imposed on them when they went to Huddersfield and those impositions were made by West Yorkshire Police. Additionally which team's fans decided Harborough Hill WMC needed structural alterations a few seasons back? Personally I couldn't care less that 2000 Hull fans couldn't get in. If we want to accomodate more away fans increase the capacity of the North Stand to make segregation easier.

To compensate there were 2000 additional Barnsley fans today who, unless they were hypercritical, enjoyed a great game in a cracking atmosphere and that's the real way for Barnsley FC to thrive by getting more paying home spectators to attend on match day.

 

Top decision by the police, not seen as much aggro around town for years, would've been a war zone with a 5:30 kick off, more away support and drinking time. Them Hull lads were game in town, haven't seen em like that for a while.