Knuckle draggers on a train

I remembered yesterday what I hate about public transport - the fact that the public use it! So much nicer being in your own little cocoon of a car on a journey. I traveled up from Buckinghamshire using Chiltern Railways, Cross Country and the one that goes from Sheffield to Leeds via Barnsley. The connections worked perfectly and the trains were clean and efficient and I got to Barnsley and back in a day without feeling the tiredness that a 300-plus miles round trip gives you when you drive all of it.
The outward journey only had minor irritations but the return was the one that REALLY got up my nose. A gang of about 7 or 8 Ipswich fans got on at Derby - presumably they needed to get to Birmingham for their onward journey. I heard them before seeing them - drunk, boorish and cretins to a man. They entered the carriage where I was sitting and before they got to me I heard at least three references to Barnsley fans. They had spotted my shirt so obviously thought it would be fun to try and goad me into some kind of reaction. The next half an hour or so was all loud volume singing, shouting and swearing, plus lots of beer can banging on the tables. Somebody (or maybe even several people) complained and the ticket inspector tried to get them to shut up. His conversation was on the lines of "If I get one more complaint about your threatening and intimidating behaviour the transport police will be waiting for you at the next stop". Naturally these boys were having none of that and decided to argue the toss with him, loudly and in a moronic way. He walked away, not wanting to get too involved, and they returned to their attempts to get a reaction out of me.
I was reading my paper and was plugged into my Ipod but could hear clearly what they were saying. There was much about the lack of success of BFC in comparison to the illustrious history of Ipswich Town. Oh and, of course, there was plenty of abusive chanting about Norwich. It was relentless and I just kept my head down most of the time, refusing to give them the satisfaction.
Now.....some on here will consider that this is pretty normal match day travel behaviour on a train. Get drunk, shout a lot, swear at will and be as offensive as possible. I don't and it ruined what should have been an enjoyable trip home after a fantastic game of football.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has "enjoyed" this kind of train journey. In my experience it enhances the match day experience having brief chats with opposing fans. On a long trip you see loads of different football shirts and many are happy to chat. That's how it should be.
Not yesterday though. The boneheads had their way. I think our railways need something like the American Sky Marshals on board. A couple of guys with the power and the presence to deal with cretins like this - handcuff them, stick them in a cage at the back then hand them over at the next station. Is it worth a suggestion to the railway companies?? Will never happen, obviously...

Anyway, APART from all that, what a brilliant day at Oakwell. There should have been 20,000 there to enjoy that. The football was superb, the commitment to win every ball plain to see and the only criticism would be that we should have had a bag full of goals. How Haynes missed that sitter I don't know. And Jacob...try passing once in a while. His runs are great to see but I would like him to release the ball now and then instead of having a shot every time. On that performance the only way is up for the rest of the season. Well done boys and well done The Management..

 

i had the same kind of behavior from some minority of Brentford fans being rude and offensive gauding a few years back put that on the side that i actually made some friends with brentford fans ,assumed they were kids(young adults ) in the minority.but i got accosted by two old ladies that said i should go back to my part of the country ,and northerners should not stray in this area!even though as you did say nothing and carry onto relatives in surrey on my train journey.
as far as Barnsley fc are concerned-we have i think as very successful season to look forward to .we just need to let a few more potential fans know just how well we are playing.
"Barnsley are the big climbers" in the CHAMPIONSHIP Manish Bhasin The Football League Show - 2011/2012 - 19/11/2011

 

2 weeks ago, after a very enjoyable weekend in London, myself and my girlfriend got on the train back. Was a pleasant journey till the point we landed in Leicester at around 6pm . . . .to be greeted by a hundred Leeds fans going the same way to Sheffield. What a set of horrible lovely people. Antics involved singing, drinking, swearing as loudly as possible, harrassing 2 young lasses (1 of them liked it, thats not the point!), nicking old peoples seats, trying to "borrow" a young lads ipod, shouting at people trying to get off at another stop and generally intimidating any poor sod who happened to be in earshot.

Now I'm a rarely intimidated kind of person, and I've probably been close to this kind of thing (from Barnsley fans mainly) on many occasions, but I didn't like this one bit. Maybe it was the fact I was with my girlfriend, maybe it was because I had a Barnsley pin badge on and was hoping they didn't clock it . . . . or maybe it was just that they were a set of ****ers, I don't know.

What I do know is that the Transport Police were stood about 8 yards from all this, and they did **** all.

 

Idiots - unfortunately the country (indeed the world) is full of them.

I didn't think Haynes chance was exactly a sitter, the ball was beyond the far post so it was quite a tight angle and he was coming in at speed to get on the end of it. Maybe a fully match-fit Haynes might have scored.

It was a fine performance and the following players deserve mention -

Butters & Perky - excellent midfield pair, constantly winning the ball and playing intelligent passes.
Foster & McNulty - really to gelling as a centre-back pair
Jim O'Brien - another good performance and hard work
Matty Done - where's that pace come from?
Steele - Only called on twice (one was going over anyway) but showed good concentration, it would have been easy for him to nod off
Vaz Te - constant threat on the left, would surely have scored on another day
Davies - 2 well-taken goals and led the line
Bobby & JayMac - Steady games but not really tested by the Pikey's so got forward regularly
Danny Haynes - didn't get on for long but looked to be almost back to fitness

Yes, all 12 deserve mention.

 

Sollution to this problem........shirters need to wise up

Although football violence is not nearly as common as in its hay days of the 1970s and 1980s, it still exsists
Any one wearing colours and traveling miles on public transport needs to get street wise.
I would say anyone wearing colours and traveling from Buckinghamshire all the way to Barnsley is just asking for trouble
If you want to wear colours at matches that are a long way from home then do not use public transport

And before anyone starts to slag me off by saying 'it shouldn't matter that you are wearing colours'. Then all I can say is that I am describing the REAL world here.

 

How do you know?

I didn't think you went to any away games nowadays.

(I don't disagree about wearing colours by the way - I never do that anywhere - sad but just seems like common sense).

 

Re: How do you know?

Few idiots on the train I was on this Saturday - they turned out to be Rotherham fans on the wrong train anyway. All of them were drinking and swearing - one bloke told them to pack it in because kids were on the train - he ended up with a mouthful from them.
They started on some bloke sitting next to them who was asleep -
Look at his ugly face - he's miserable , bet he lives in a sexless marriage

On hearing this the original bloke who'd had a go at them turned round and shouted :
I wish your parent's would have had a sexless marriage then we wouldn't have had to listen to your crap for the last half hour!
Best put down i've heard in ages!!

 

You go for a monochrome look then

This sort of thing?

<img src="http://www.newclothing.co/wp-content/uploads/black-and-white-clothing.jpg">

 

I think your Sky Marshall idea is a good one and definitely something that would work. They'd only need it on high risk journeys like football specials, etc so costs needn't be a major factor. I would imagine that the trains would win back some lost customers if they knew that they would not be subjected to this kind of anti-social behaviour when travelling.

 

Although not sustainable in may instances anymore, this kind of issue is why I wish football 'specials' were still in existence. Especially when you travel to games down south, the range of people on trains is so wide that clashes of cultures and behaviours is unavoidable. On several trips I've seen drunk Barnsley fans, businessmen, families, young couples and students all within a few yards of each other. On very few of those occasions have the Barnsley fans done anything out of order, but swearing WILL happen, as will the odd dodgey song. When this happens next to people very unaccustomed to such behaviour, it's very awkward. But short of saying right, all football fans in this carriage etc, it will always happen.

 

I don’t think many people would have an issue with a bit of banter and a bit of good humour and high spirits but some take to far as has been experienced by some of the posters in this thread. Once the line is crossed and behaviour becomes intimidating, threatening and anti-social the 'marshalls' could step in. The problem is that in my experience on public transport trips to football there are too many idiots who cross the line and spoil it for other people around them.