Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the decision I think Monday is a brilliant chance for fans of both clubs to prove south Yorkshire police wrong and show that we support different clubs but so what? We are all football fans who love the game and love where we live. Watch the match, have a laugh and a joke with the Dee dars that you see (and Dee dars you have a laugh and a joke with us dingles too) and may the best club win. It's a game, it's entertainment, let's have some friendly banter and enjoy ourselves watching a good game of footy as proud Yorkshire folk showing that we are better than the London lot, better than the scousers and the mancs, we're Yorkshire and we can watch football without kicking lumps out of each other. Then we can all go back home and tell SYP to do one when they try to force us all to kick off at 3am on a Sunday morning in case there's any trouble
Whatever we think of Wednesday, I am confident even their fans have more class than those of Millwall. And whilst there might be some goading and banter, I don't expect them to rush at, essentially, families like that filthy lot did.
I assume Sheffield Wednesday fans have been given blocks of seating in the upper tier. That appears to be the seating level that has proved least popular with Barnsley fans. Blocks of seating on this tier were first made available to Barnsley supporters on the North side of Wembley, starting at the half way line, and seats have been filling up in an anticlockwise direction from that point, with new blocks opening as more seats are sold. However, not many seats have sold and we haven't yet got round the corner, so to speak, in terms of selling out these upper tier seats. There is a huge swathe of empty seats on that tier: all behind the goals at the west end of the stadium and right round to the halfway line on the south side where Sheffield Wednesday's allocation begins. I would imagine, therefore, that Wednesday's additional allocation are blocks of seating in the south side upper tier opening up in a clockwise direction towards the west end goals as more of the additional seats are sold. Supposition on my part, but I can't think of any other method by which it could be done. I don't believe Wednesday fans (or Barnsley fans) are going to walk through the empty seats of the upper tier to go battling with opposition supporters. Neither set of fans have any history of doing that. Giving Wednesday a few more blocks of seats in that tier will not increase the chances of that happening. The two sets of fans will still be much further away from one another than if we had sold out our allocation. If we had sold all our seats we'd have an upper tier block next to theirs. As it is, there will be several blocks of empty seating between the rival fans. Nor do I believe it will make any difference to the outcome of the game. Players win football matches not supporters. And anyway, all one end of the ground will be red with more Barnsley supporters than we've had at a home game since Everton in the cup. It won't look like we're outnumbered from the pitch, the players won't be looking to the upper tier, they'll just see Barnsley fans filling half the ground. But if I'd bought tickets in the middle tier on the south side of the stadium, blocks 227 to 235, the most expensive seats in the ground, and the seats now most likely to have Wednesday fans behind them, I wouldn't be very happy. I don't want to go to Wembley and be surrounded by opposition supporters. Not because I fear a beating, but because it's just nowhere near as enjoyable. I want to be surrounded by Barnsley fans and Barnsley songs, not hear their chatter and their songs. I don't want to hear about 'dingles' and 'six fingers' from just over my shoulder. I don't want my view of the pitch obscured for the entire game by a group of drunk Barnsley fans in front of me shouting abuse back up at the Wednesday fans. And I don't, at 3-0 up, want a cup of piss thrown all over me from one of the half dozen Wednesday cretins, the likes of which all clubs have in their number.
Well said. If Monday goes off without any incidents then SYP will have less power surely in the future when they want to penalise everyone by refusing to allow a 3pm kick off for our derbies.
Spot on from the Club. Couldn’t have asked for more. Pi$$ poor from the EFL. Those on here who think it’s all going to go off in a nice friendly manner, and this decision makes no difference. Dear me. Let’s have a chat on Tuesday.
I think it’s a horrible situation when tickets have already been bought. I’d have seriously thought twice about going if I’d have known Wednesday fans were going to be behind me. It’ll be impossible to enjoy the match as they’ll either be gloating behind us or angry and chucking stuff at us.
I'd be hoping they would net the first couple of rows of seating off but not going to protect from people chucking stuff. You'd hope these areas will be well policed but given the recent track record of Wembley I'm not exactly confident of this. Same as the poster above- wouldn't have spent £70 on a ticket to have Wednesday right behind me if I'd have known.
Any case for a mis selling case? Bought tickets in a Barnsley area of the ground, expecting to be surrounded by like minded fans, only for the conditions of the ticket to be changed after its purchase.
Had this debate at great length in our house. i just don’t get how event organisers give us a bigger allocation in full knowledge that Wednesday will have higher demand, and then change minds to make amends. Totally understand the need for equal distribution of allocation at the outset. But how about a “neutral zone” which once sales are known - the club with higher demand can request. This means that sales in other areas are across three tiers, and not dispersed. It would have been far better to have BFC fans in 3 tiers in a concentrated area.
I'm the same, but not overly concerned tbh. Front row, so there's 15 rows behind me and I'd hope they'll net off the front couple of rows on the tier above to hinder Weds from chucking stuff with any degree of accuracy. Not ideal, but there's more scope for contact in the tube stations.
I’m in 227. Quite looking forward to it tbh. Adds an edge to things. It’s pretty obvious which team EFL want to see in the Championship. We shouldn’t be surprised at that. I just desperately hope that doesn’t extend to the officials or VAR. If there’s any crowd trouble in those areas, it will be completely on the authorities. That said, we all saw how much was done about Millwall. If a single object comes over the tier, I’ll be wading straight into the stewards. I also probably now need to retract my previous comments about their additional allocation. I didn’t quite realise they were in blocks above Barnsley fans, and I definitely didn’t realise the club had objected. If the club have objected, there’s no way it should have been allowed IMO. That has to be viewed as favouritism towards one of the teams, surely?
Learned what?...apparently it was OK....only a small number of fans ''A spokesman for the FA said: "The FA condemns the disorder caused by a small number of fans at today’s League One Play Off final between Barnsley and Millwall at Wembley Stadium. "We will work closely with the clubs, the Football League and the Met Police to identify those involved and take appropriate action. "We would like to take this opportunity to praise the actions of our stewards and the police, who responded responsibly under provocation."
spot on, can’t say in overly pleased about it. Organisation from the FA and Wembley seems to be shambolic. forcing people to buy seats high up (as they did, by limiting the supply) is also a total joke
Hopefully they will only give them the back half of the blocks they get so that the front half remains empty. That will help alleviate the issues you mentioned.