I don't know of any incidents (except 1.) . But the presence and numbers were bonkers. An excuse for the 1pm curfew for coaches non existent. Except in the rules and they can. The incident. Barnsley fans (including yours truly) were walking towards the Bloomfield rd entrance. And a complete nobhead walking in the other direction. (Blackpool fan with 2 mates.) Shouting and singing abusive songs in full voice about Barnsley. Not one copper on foot and those on horses intervened, all within earshot. Could have been very confrontational. (If anyone deserved locking up. It was him and his mates). I don't know if he reached the other end. If he did. Our fans deserve credit. I can think of one or two that would have not take kindly to what he was singing. And decked him. I can only think it was the village idiot. And coppers were hoping he'd get a good hiding.
There was this incident. https://barnsleyfc.org.uk/threads/smoke-cannisters-being-thrown.329768/ I noticed something looked like it could have kicked off at full time around the corner by the main stand. Some man was threatening some young lads who would have barely been in their teens and may not have been. Generally though it was more peaceful then a lot of our away games behaviour wise.
I get that. And saw it. (The flare incident) But I'm talking more in general. Re the heavy handed way our coach parties were restricted from going into Blackpool till 1pm. Yet they stood by and let this moron spout his bile. We were allowed to rock up in Chorley. Yet twice stopped when going to Bolton and initially Fleetwood. ( But for Fleetwood that got changed to anywhere including Blackpool.) Last season, Barnsley fans were praised for their exemplary behaviour in Chorley b4 the Bolton games. By West lancs police. Ways and means were used to get there yesterday. No rules to my knowledge were broken. Just a flaming inconvenience and extra cost for our supporters.
So you wasn't just banned from Blackpool but also anywhere else on the coast? That's really harsh. They could have let you go to the brilliant Cleveleys or Lytham.
Banned from stopping within a 10mile radius. Allowed into Blackpool at 1pm. Didnt affect me. As we had 70 of us there fri -Sun. But caused a big inconvenience for our day travellers. Our group are in the main. Families and Mature adults. And we tried to explain folk wanted to arrive early so families could enjoy time with their kids on the prom etc. Prior to the game. Other avenues were used, so they could achieve that. at great expense. To the families and ourselves as an organisation.
Hard to understand why people bother with away games any more when there are so many restrictions. Is it really worth it?
It is a more recent phenomenon. A year or so. But you are right. The rules have been in place since the 1980s. But apparently, in the main it is the lancashire police. Urged on by an MP who is the greatest obstacle. The daft thing is. The towns we are prevented from entering. Complain of big losses in trade. Especially the pubs as you can imagine. Incidents are very rare nowadays as most independents will not allow the idiot element to travel with em. And a lot of that element now go via other means. Which must affect those decent ones having to put up with em. The rules (laws in fact ) for coaches and organised football trains. are antiquated. As they've been around nearly 40yrs. And really need to be looked into, for changes to happen. I kid you not. In around 28yrs. And run over an estimate of 1000 + coaches we have not had 1 arrest for public disorder that I can remember and only 1 at all. FFS Jay walking. Was the charge cos he ran across a dual carriageway to get back to the bus.(A funny story actually. But I'll leave that for another day. )
Restricting the internal movement of citizens is a classic authoritarian move much loved by military Juntas, fascists and communist monoliths, The fact its allowed to happen as routine is highly disturbing - if you are acting on specific intelligence, then fair enough, but to just blanket control movement like this is undemocratic and a violation of basic human rights, more importantly it sets the "mood music" to make this seem "normal", so when its used more and more to control us, people just accept it. https://thefsa.org.uk/news/police-admit-unlawful-use-of-section-27-on-stoke-fan/ "James Welch, legal director at Liberty, said: “This is yet another example of overly broad powers being used inappropriately. If you give the police powers that are not tightly defined, they are going to abuse them."
