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Hightened Security at AG


RedLionLad

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15 hours ago, Loco Rojo said:

You should write headlines for the Daily Mail.

To be fair it was chaotic.

I'd say there was thousands of people in the que, mostly in the road, where cars were trying to get into the retail park or the small car park.

Its overkill and if they have to do it, why not do the checks at the turnstiles??? Where there are less people and more space?

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4 minutes ago, Red-Robbo said:

We were queueing at 7:44 when they just sort of abandoned doing the checks. 

Top tip for suicide bombers then is to turn up late.

Exactly this RR.  I got in a few minutes after KO on Saturday and just walked in past the 2 stewards on the turnstile and didn’t even realise there had been any security checks until I read it on here later.

As you say, if any terrorist wants to have the maximum effect, they can either hit the huge queue outside, or arrive late and get the maximum number of people inside the stadium.  

Sadly, it does make you feel like some of these things are done just for visual effect, rather than any real belief that they’ll actually prevent an incident.

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7 minutes ago, Riaz said:

To be fair it was chaotic.

I'd say there was thousands of people in the que, mostly in the road, where cars were trying to get into the retail park or the small car park.

Its overkill and if they have to do it, why not do the checks at the turnstiles??? Where there are less people and more space?

I’ve never seen so many Safety Stewards causing such a risk to people’s safety.  If there was anywhere where maximum casualties could occur at last night’s game, it was there, as people were spread far and wide queuing to be scanned.

Cars were checked (as usual) going into the car park but none of the occupants were scanned.

Does anyone know if the Raynes Road entrance had scanners being used?

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Some folk may not like this, but if they have to do this then why can they not ‘target’ certain demographics. 
When I entered last night I ended up in the queue next to a group of about 6 pensioners. These folks were about 85 years old and had walking sticks. They were clearly not a terrorist threat - why was it necessary to give them a full scan, front and back, for 20 seconds. 
Not searching this group of oap’s would’ve saved nearly 2 minutes. I’m sure there were hundreds or even thousands of similar folk who they didn’t really need to scan. 
Surely a more targeted approach would be better and quicker. 
 

Overall, I thought it was an utter joke last night. Talk about ‘covid’ secure as well - ha ha, jeez! How is it sensible to make hundreds of people cram up against one another waiting for a useless scan. 

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28 minutes ago, Riaz said:

To be fair it was chaotic.

I'd say there was thousands of people in the que, mostly in the road, where cars were trying to get into the retail park or the small car park.

Its overkill and if they have to do it, why not do the checks at the turnstiles??? Where there are less people and more space?

To be honest my comment of the photo was a bit tongue in cheek because it looked like people were just stood enjoying the atmosphere in the fan area rather than queuing/being checked but appreciate your view of what you saw. 

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1 minute ago, Loco Rojo said:

To be honest my comment of the photo was a bit tongue in cheek because it looked like people were just stood enjoying the atmosphere in the fan area rather than queuing/being checked but appreciate your view of what you saw. 

Mate, even the Safety Stewards realised what a shambles had been created. The queue stretched around the corner almost to Wickes car park entrance. The ‘chaos’ was caused by many other crossing over to the side of the queue from Halfords and KFC. The entrance to the club’s car park was blocked and traffic was gridlocked out on the main road.

Then you had people not wanting to be inconvenienced by the scans trying to enter through the car park.

Luckily, it was a dry night. Had it been raining, thousands would have got soaked.

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There's not a chance that the scanner I had last night was even switched on. Not a single beep for me with two sets of keys and a phone in my pocket, didn't see or hear it go off for anyone in front of me either!

 

Noticed new cameras pointing at the entrance now as well, is it for us or to make sure the stewards are doing their jobs properly after all the complaints on Saturday??

 

Fingers crossed they manage to smooth this issue out if it's going to be a long term thing?

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2 minutes ago, littlered said:

There's not a chance that the scanner I had last night was even switched on. Not a single beep for me with two sets of keys and a phone in my pocket, didn't see or hear it go off for anyone in front of me either!

 

Noticed new cameras pointing at the entrance now as well, is it for us or to make sure the stewards are doing their jobs properly after all the complaints on Saturday??

 

Fingers crossed they manage to smooth this issue out if it's going to be a long term thing?

That thought did cross my mind. Almost everyone would have had a phone and keys on them, so what do the scanners actually detect?
 

 

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I get the reasoning and everything, but as 2 invalid scooters went in with just a wave of the wand, the guy in front of me had a metal knee and it didn't go off and it didn't pick up on my bunch of keys, what's the point?
I'm not sure they even checked the Stoke lot. 

Pointless.

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1 hour ago, RedLionLad said:

That thought did cross my mind. Almost everyone would have had a phone and keys on them, so what do the scanners actually detect?
 

 

My phone was detected and the guy in front of me also and we had to show they were phones Totally different to Saturdays eave of the wand effort. At 7.20pm delayed by about 5 minutes at Retail Park entrance.

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4 hours ago, One Team said:

No it was worse.

If you did have awful intentions targeting the massive queues for the security checks would be perfect. 

Exactly. If you wanted to cause carnage and get a came called off for terrorism reasons just place yourself right in the middle of 500 people waiting to have their "security scan".....not to mention that if someone in the middle of the "throng" has Covid then that's 10 people around them getting it. As amateur as you can get and whoever came up with that idea needs a good kicking quite honestly.

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Queues weren’t a problem in the entrance off Raynes Rd about 30 mins before kick off. 
 

I understand why they have these checks, but the way they are done seems pointless. The scanner beeped at me, the guy asked if it was my phone, I said yes he didn’t check and let me through. 

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About 15 minutes to get through the queues for the scanners in the Ashton Road entrance last night and as we got to them, they started waving us all through without scanning us.

I thought that they were going to have to delay the KO by 15 minutes as the players were on the pitch as we got into our seats.

Definitely a shambolic affair that had clearly been given little thought by those in charge.

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I didn't need any reminder but it was still a reminder that there isn't an ounce of basic management or planning at AG. Given the benefit of Saturday as a first run, do it all exactly the same again and expect some different outcome - and leave stewards to adlib so some give up and let everyone in and others yards away from them persist in lengthy scans and get abused while a crowd of fans zig zags left and right to the most amenable steward like some kind of team event halfway between We Are The Champions and Pat Sharpe's Fun House.

This is what a management vacuum looks like.

Things that could have been done since Saturday:

- tell people to get there early

- fast track people with season tickets

- have a plan for when the queues build up  and don't leave it to some stewards to wing it and others that don't to get badly abused because there isn't a contingency

- ask people to have jackets open (one of the most irritatingly familiar sounds at AG has managed to be infinitely more logical than the nonsense now, maybe that was the idea) 

- install temporary walk through metal detectors - if there is a serious issue then use the proper solution. They have these at big stadiums and living in a knife crime area my local station can set these up in 5 minutes flat of an evening for everyone leaving the station.

City have the benefit of hindsight and do absolutely nothing to get it right. There is no other business that operates like this and plans nothing. On the plus side hot water came out of the Dolman taps I was so surprised I expected a genie next.

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9 hours ago, Harry said:

Some folk may not like this, but if they have to do this then why can they not ‘target’ certain demographics. 
When I entered last night I ended up in the queue next to a group of about 6 pensioners. These folks were about 85 years old and had walking sticks. They were clearly not a terrorist threat - why was it necessary to give them a full scan, front and back, for 20 seconds. 
Not searching this group of oap’s would’ve saved nearly 2 minutes. I’m sure there were hundreds or even thousands of similar folk who they didn’t really need to scan. 
Surely a more targeted approach would be better and quicker. 
 

Overall, I thought it was an utter joke last night. Talk about ‘covid’ secure as well - ha ha, jeez! How is it sensible to make hundreds of people cram up against one another waiting for a useless scan. 

I'm taking @Olés point seriously - if your a season ticket holder you would have blown yourself up ages ago.

why not just get season ticket holders to one side and target non season ticket holders?

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16 hours ago, Pezo said:

I'm taking @Olés point seriously - if your a season ticket holder you would have blown yourself up ages ago.

why not just get season ticket holders to one side and target non season ticket holders?

Exactly. 
Many things said in jest, and all that. 
There’s definitely a better way of doing this. Whether that’s season ticket holders allowed through, or as I mentioned in my post, why search anyone over 80 for christ sake. 
I mean, to Ole’s point, an 80 year old season ticket holder must be immune to our performances over their many years, so no way they’d be potential bombers! 
 

People won’t want to hear this, but it’s much like the ‘stop and search’ argument. These searches should be targeting a specific demographic which are considered to be of a ‘risk’ category. Not 80 year old season ticket holders. 

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