So what price your safety at Highfield Road? About £9,000 a game is the average policing costs according to the Chairman’s speech given by Mike McGinnity at the club’s recent AGM.
I am sure we all would love every game to be police free. In fact, I would like to see football hooliganism legalised by allowing firms and other like minded individuals to use a venue well away from any football ground to settle their scores on the premise that anyone attending does so at their own risk. I would then bring in a stiff jail sentence of anyone convicted of fighting at a football match, so we could all watch the game and safety.
Now this is highly unlikely to happen, certainly in my lifetime and we do need police at matches.
Take the Plymouth home game as an example, the club wanted this as a police free game despite the fact that Plymouth had sold over 1500 tickets (2,000+ turned up) and threats had been made by an idiot claimed to be from the Plymouth hooligans on a message board. It was only after there was talk of a fans protest, from what I deduce from Mr McGinnity’s speech, that the police were in attendance at the game.
What protest there was, became quickly snuffed out by two City goals but at the end of the game, Plymouth supporters were clearly riled and attempted to get on the pitch, a bottle was thrown at the assistant referee on the Sky Blue Stand side. Thankfully, the police were able to prevent any serious major outbreak like the Portsmouth affair a few seasons ago in which a number of Coventry supporters were jailed.
The stewards do a good job at Highfield Road despite not being on the £42 plus expenses and travel that those who steward Fulham reserve team matches get and to expect them to potentially risk their lives stopping away supporters from causing trouble without immediate police assistant is a bit much in my opinion.
I feel that by opening up more lines of dialogue between City supporters, the club and the other agencies involved, the club will not be faced with unexpected police bills and everyone will be able to watch the match in a safe atmosphere and I‘ll be happy to assist the club on this matter if asked.