Obviously it is a bit more significant than just a football
match, especially to the supporters of both teams. Apart from south coast
bragging rights being at stake, there is a long and, at times, unsavoury
history between followers of the two clubs separated by 20 miles of the M27.
The last time the two teams met in Portsmouth in 2005, there
was violent disorder and five, yes FIVE, people were arrested. Five out of
20,210 at the match. That’s 0.02% of the attendance.
This, it seems, is justification for the Hampshire
Constabulary to designate December’s encounter a so-called “bubble match”. This
means if you are unfortunate enough to follow the red and white striped lot,
you will only be able to attend the match if you board a coach at one of three
designated stops in the wrong half of Hampshire and travel to Fratton Park in
convoy, under police escort, being allowed off the coach only to go straight
into the stadium. You will not be at liberty to visit any of the local
hostelries or food outlets, or indeed do anything other than watch the match.
If you don’t live in Southampton, you’ll still have to go there first to catch
the coach. So, for example, if you live east of Portsmouth, you’d have to
travel 20 miles past the ground and then come back again. And if this
restriction of your civil liberties isn’t bad enough, the traffic conditions in
and around Portsmouth will ensure that the convoy of coaches become sitting
ducks for the unsavoury elements which unfortunately do exist in our island
paradise.
Road closures and restrictions on pub opening will also
impact the home fans. And don’t forget the inconvenience already imposed by
moving the game to 1pm on a Sunday.
And all this to prevent the possibility of a repeat of the
violence that led to FIVE arrests last time out.
"Superintendent Rick Burrows is leading the planning
for the policing operation on December 18. He said: ‘The most important
objective of the day is to ensure that it is a safe environment for everybody
coming to the football.’"
Surely the most important objective of the day is to provide an
appropriate response to the level of
threat
perceived to be presented by a
small minority, whilst preserving the
basic human rights of the vast majority of law abiding citizens planning to
attend the match?
Still, football fans are an easy target. We always have been. That is why, for
as long as I can remember, we have been assumed to be guilty until proven
innocent. Treated like cattle. Treated as a mob, so that the police can assume
all of us are guilty and just arrest the nearest person in any disorder, even
if they’re an innocent bystander, because it’s easier. In the week the release of papers relating to
the Hillsborough disaster was
debated in
parliament, it would be nice to think that police (and society’s) attitudes
had altered in the last 22 years. The
police’s contempt for the Liverpool supporters on that fateful day in April
1989 contributed significantly to the deaths of 96 of them.
Sadly, in 2011, nothing much seems to have changed.
