Are Police Going To Ruin Football?

[CodeRed]

On the back of the much discussed Swansea travel arrangements I read today of a few more Police decisions that are - in my opinion - going way to far.

At a time in football when - by and large - "hooligan" instances are very rare and now non existent inside football grounds, the Police seem to have over looked this and seem hell bent on criminalising decent football fans............

Case 1

The recent Havant & Waterlooville cup game v Millwall was played at Portsmouth. despite the fact that Millwall sold only 400 tickets to fully identified ( named in advance) S/T travel club members, the Police insisted on 500 police being present and have presented a bill in excess of £35,000 to Havant & W

which they cannot afford and will mean they have to release some players etc

When prior representations were made to the Hampshire Police that the police numbers were excessive the response:

The Police said was that it was Havant who were in the FA cup because of their own choosing and if they cant afford to pay they should pull out!

Case 2

On the advice of West Midlands Police Wolves have banned Cardiff fans from attending Molineux in January.

Why can't the police do their job and deal with trouble makers instead of taking the option of banning everybody?

Nothing to do with us you may say, Cardiff/Millwall deserve it etc etc but what about decent fans, why should they suffer.

A few City fans caused trouble at Forest recently after Forest fans (according to those present) attacked a group of City fans. Suppose the Notts Police (if we're both in the Championship next year) say we're going to ban ALL City fans from attending ? How about the 5000 who didn't do anything wrong.

I'm getting the feeling that the Police would be happier banning all away travel

[KevinC]

I'm sure they would much rather that visiting fans stayed at home, no hassle, and no police overtime to pay