Segregation

[patrickstarfish]

Apparently one Barrow fan was arrested yesterday.

Big brawl of about 50 people after the game as well!

[barrowranger]

Why am I not surprised that it's one barrow fan that gets arrested, followed by a flood of tweets about how the police were heroes and the barrow fans are yobs.

Those macc fans were drinking and quite a lot of them were on God knows what, when the stewards were told about the beers they said "unless I see 'em actually take a drink I can't do anything"

Bring your own beer party for the Wrexham game then....

[barrowfan]

Are the stewards paid?

[mikemarshhewasgood]

Poor yesterday and I hope there is an inquiry because someone should answer for it. Very unprofessional

[nebulus]

the problem started because small section of barrow fans objected to where the maccy fans were standing and they was singing and chanting.there was no punches thrown,just a bit of lurching forward and an exchange of idle threats from both sides fuelled by beer.as for the stewards they acted swiftly once things got irate.its ok slagging them off,,but if you think you could do better im sure they would appreciate more stewards,dont think either set of fans involved can be proud.

[boyliegladbach]

It's not difficult.
At kick off as usual most Barrow fans were in pop side.
Macclesfield fans are stood in area being goal where Barrow fans stand when attacking HS end.
After the toss Barrow are attacking the HS end.
200 fans start heading to HS end. I said at time "this could all go wrong"
All that needed to happen was,
Someone in charge with a bit of a brain tells the stewards to hold the Barrow fans walking round at the end of HS end close to floodlight. Meanwhile the other stewards move the Macclesfield fans into the segregated area.
Barrow fans then released onto Holker Street end.
Would have taken about 2 minutes.
Instead it took one policeman and about 6 stewards about ten minutes to sort it out.
It wasn't difficult to see this situation, I knew it was going to happen from where I was stood.
Totalling unnecessary incident that could have been easily avoided.
Families day, loads of kids behind goal witnessing Macclesfield fans trying to fight with stewards and Barrow fans, (who conducted themselves very well in my opinion.)

[barrowranger]

the problem started because small section of barrow fans objected to where the maccy fans were standing and they was singing and chanting.there was no punches thrown,just a bit of lurching forward and an exchange of idle threats from both sides fuelled by beer.as for the stewards they acted swiftly once things got irate.its ok slagging them off,,but if you think you could do better im sure they would appreciate more stewards,dont think either set of fans involved can be proud.

I think you need to get your facts straight. There was no bother with where they were stood. For the first 15 minutes there were chants fired back and forth but no problems. Then they start singing that Barrow is a racist town and rightly objections were made to this fact. As soon as the barrow fans moved forward their fans swarmed towards us. Rightly barrow fans pushed them back.

The issue is the segregation, issues like this don't happen when the 'safety officer' does his job correctly. Are you telling me that police in the Macc area havent told Barrow about their travelling fans. Either that or is it just the Barrow police that tip off every force in the country to our arrival.

[mikemarshhewasgood]

Not slating stewards who probably do the role for free but the organisation of crowd control left a lot to be desired. Without being biased Barrow support was quite restrained and some were telling mac fans to respect the fact a lot of kids were in the ground

[Alhosk]

when the stewards were told about the beers they said "unless I see 'em actually take a drink I can't do anything"

Hmm, so the ground regulations are wrong then?

"Fireworks, smoke canisters, knives, bottles, drinking glasses, cans, flags, banners, poles or other similar objects which may be used as weapons are not permitted within the ground."

[barrowfan]

Not slating stewards who probably do the role for free

Do they?

[barrowaberdeen]

It just beggars belief that it wasn't segregated given the history surrounding the cup game. Common sense really. Stewards didn't really know what to do and were placed in a poor position.

Barrow fans showed a fair bit of restraint I thought.

Got to say fair play to the lad from Macc who came and apologised to us in the Soccer Bar at half time and also to the young policeman who dealt with it fairly and moved the Macc fans rather than piling into the Barrow support as per usual. No surprise it's a Barrovian arrested though, we are the only town in the country where it's the home supporters that are targeted first every time.

All could have been avoided if it had been segregated. Eye off the ball.

By the way, well done on getting 240 odd kids in the ground, I think only possibly a York home game about 5-6 years ago did we do as well. My 4 year old grandson lasted a glorious 8 minutes, despite lack of promised candyfloss and cost me two other adult minders and a hoodie out of the busy club shop- so well done the club for that. Those ladies and everyone there made a real effort to make the kids feel welcome- well done. It's not the easiest venue to do kids stuff, maybe a few more signs up might have made it easier. Good to see some of them at the traditional half assed presentation.

[Bigfathoss]

By the way, well done on getting 240 odd kids in the ground, I think only possibly a York home game about 5-6 years ago did we do as well. My 4 year old grandson lasted a glorious 8 minutes, despite lack of promised candyfloss and cost me two other adult minders and a hoodie out of the busy club shop- so well done the club for that. Those ladies and everyone there made a real effort to make the kids feel welcome- well done. It's not the easiest venue to do kids stuff, maybe a few more signs up might have made it easier. Good to see some of them at the traditional half assed presentation.

That must have crucified Russell Dodd who has frequently derided (particularly in a very sneering manner at previous meet the board evenings) the option of free or 'quid-a-kid' tickets for kids.

[Lancaster Branch]

Those ladies and everyone there made a real effort to make the kids feel welcome- well done. It's not the easiest venue to do kids stuff, maybe a few more signs up might have made it easier.

I presume one of those was Margaret Straker? She spoke very well on Friday night. If we have the organisational ability to do it we should flood the schools with free or cheap tickets. Secondary and primary, get them all involved.

[mulholland]

'Organisational ability' is one of the many things we don't specialize in. Yesterday was a debacle.

[Ste Story]

Aii bit of a shambles yesterday. As soon as their main group of "lads" walked through to the holker street end carrying bottles of beer and generally slagging off Barrow, it became blatantly obvious to everyone that there'd be some sort of trouble. Really is worrying to see 20-odd year old lads stand in front of Stewards drinking beer and taunt home fans and kids without recourse.

I too thought that the home fans showed much restraint, when really it could have turned into a blood bath as there neanderthals attempted to taunt and start fights. Disappointing but not at all surprising that the few stewards there again seemed much happier trying to cajole and harass the Barrow fans while behind them the Macclesfield lads were trying to get round them and square up to people. As mentioned the new copper seemed to have his head much more screwed on, got the Macclesfield fans away and onto the other side of those hideous scaffold bars to diffuse what was one lighting of the touch paper away from carnage. Days of old you'd probably have seen coppers attempting to nick Barrow fans or generally steaming around like robocop. He mentioned he's going to be at the football much more often so hopefully he'll form a good working relationship with the fanbase in general and not fall into the traps and personal vendettas we've seen previously.