A Steward's viewpoint

[working class hero]

They can't see the supporters from the entrance to the concourse and are, therefore, not doing what they are paid for.

There are several rows of spectators between the concourse and the pitch. They are also in need of supervision. If the stewards all stood on the pitch it would be all too easy to criticise how they obstruct the view....

[working class hero]

I don't see what your problem is with 'the numerous youths who spend half the game with their arms aloft, watching to see who is watching them posturing"
Why does it matter to you what people are doing at the back of the stand?
You get to watch the game, nobody gets in your way.

Perhaps you need to remove the blinkers and smell the coffee?
The youths of whom I wrote are situated halfway down and in my way. They have their back to the pitch as they are trying to make sure the guys at the back can see just what good supporters they are. If I stand up the miserable scrote behind me whinges......

Allowing those at the back to stand might be OK - but then the people at other levels will want parity. If you really cannot stick to the rules perhaps you need to watch some lower league football where standing is available.

I would love to stand. I spent my youth standing at the Moss Rose [Macclesfield] / Elland Road / Old Trafford / Turf Moor / Maine Road / Pitoddrie etc.....

However, times have changed and we need to change too. If it were not for the Madejski we would still be a lower league club. The ground helped recruit some of the current team. And if we were still at EP we could, frankly, not afford to exist.

It is a mixed blessing. But still a blessing.

[RoyalBlue]

The club can't have one rule for people at the back and one for another. It has to either be all standing or all seated in the home ends and the club is told by the FA that it has to be all seated.

Do the club pay you extra for the right to brainwash you?! 'Cos you have just come out with another of their standard shyte lines.

I'm sure the FA tell all clubs all sorts of things about standing. Difference is most other clubs take it with a pinch of salt, apply a sensible degree of interpretation or just plain ignore it, without any come back from the FA.

RFC seem one of the few clubs to take everything literally and then add some, just to make life as difficult/irritating/unpleasant for their own fans as they can!

Message for the safety officer: Stop playing with your cameras and picking on standing for a while - sort those sodding buses out! I think you'll find that one bloke yelling through a megaphone will not be regarded as taking all reasonably practicable steps to ensure safety when some poor supporter gets run over!

What rubbish.

Fans have got to take responsibility too, there's always a rush to leave the ground and some people are too impatient so they barge through the crowd, and (check this) cross the road without looking.

Wow, imagine that...
Fail to see a bus coming and splat!

Poor supporter, must be the Safety officers fault for not taking reasonable practical steps.

Take some responsibility, stay on the paths and I guarantee you will not be run over on the roads.

Clearly you hang back and don't see what actually happens as thousands of supporters leave all at once. You also clearly have absolutely no idea about crowd dynamics (probably making you an ideal employee for RFC!).

You cannot possibly get thousands of people onto a pavement just a few metres wide and therefore, short of putting barriers all along the edge, thus creating another safety hazard, you can not prevent significant overspill onto the roads. That has sod all to do with people in a hurry crossing the road without looking.

The potential hazards could be almost completely alleviated by making the buses wait just 5 minutes longer before they leave. At that point, your argument about supporters taking full responsibility for their own safety might just be valid.

As things stand at present, the safety people are failing to take all reasonably practicable steps to ensure the safety of the departing supporters and I'm pretty sure the courts would see it that way too.

[Forbury Lion]

I suppose Hillsborough wasn't the fault of the officials who let all the fans surge though the gates either?

[Yellow Jackets]

Certainly wasn't the fault of stewarding

[working class hero]

I suppose Hillsborough wasn't the fault of the officials who let all the fans surge though the gates either?

And if the fans had been on time they would not have been surging. And the crush would have been at the turnstiles instead. The officials tried to avert a disaster and created another....

[Dai Brainbocs]

Certainly wasn't the fault of stewarding

It might not have been the fault of stewards in the narrowest definition, but how could it have been anything but a failure of stewarding in broader terms? It's not like a meteor hit the ground or something.

[zac naloen]

I suppose Hillsborough wasn't the fault of the officials who let all the fans surge though the gates either?

And if the fans had been on time they would not have been surging. And the crush would have been at the turnstiles instead. The officials tried to avert a disaster and created another....

It was a lose lose situation, Hillsborough would have happened in one form or another no matter what the officials had done in that situation.

[Yellow Jackets]

I don't think this is the time or the place to be talking about what happened at Hillsborough to be honest, especially as a case study

[alad]

Certainly wasn't the fault of stewarding

Policing/stewarding. Same thing at a football game, the main aspect of both respective jobs is crowd control. You do realise that inept policing played a major part in the Hillsborough disaster?

Your attitude is very poor and you can clearly see you have no people skills as you come across like a teacher telling the naughty kids off. As long as people like you are employed by RFC you'll get people calling you w@nkers. Either change your attitude or get a new job.

[who are ya?]

Has the FA given stewards instructions to try their hardest to ruin atmosphere at football matches?

[Dai Brainbocs]

I don't think this is the time or the place to be talking about what happened at Hillsborough to be honest, especially as a case study

I can scarcely believe this. You are employed (OK part-time and at base level) in what might loosely be called the safety industry. Why should any such incident not be discussed (with respect) at every opportunity, especially by people who work in crowd control?

[Royal Lady]

I don't think this is the time or the place to be talking about what happened at Hillsborough to be honest, especially as a case study

I can scarcely believe this. You are employed (OK part-time and at base level) in what might loosely be called the safety industry. Why should any such incident not be discussed (with respect) at every opportunity, especially by people who work in crowd control?

Probably because he has no answer to the questions being fired at him.

[Legend]

I hate the tramp looking steward who patrolls the South / East corner. He has brownish longish hair with a slight beard and bowls round throwing his weight around as if he's some Cockney oxf*rd gangster when in reality, he probably got bullied at school and feels a sense of power when he puts the orange jacket on. Sad (unt

[Yellow Jackets]

I only came on here to give you an insight into what it's like. You want answers after answers from me which I simply don't have. I work 5 hours part time per week and do the job i'm told to do.

Stewards and Fans are never going to be the best of friends. When I watch my team play I prefer to stand, it's natural, but when i'm told to sit i sit, simply because I know how annoying it is to have to tell people the same thing over and over. I wasn't expecting you all to start saying "actually yeah we'll all sit down from now on" that wasn't the point of me coming on here. I do a job that i'm employed to. I get told to ask people to sit and that's what I do. If I don't then I get sacked, so it's a no brainer really. I don't know why the FA feel it's dangerous to stand, I don't know why they have other rules as well. I'm personally pro standing, but don't think it's just at Reading where you get told to sit down. It happens everywhere

[readingbedding]

The club can't have one rule for people at the back and one for another. It has to either be all standing or all seated in the home ends and the club is told by the FA that it has to be all seated.

Do the club pay you extra for the right to brainwash you?! 'Cos you have just come out with another of their standard shyte lines.

I'm sure the FA tell all clubs all sorts of things about standing. Difference is most other clubs take it with a pinch of salt, apply a sensible degree of interpretation or just plain ignore it, without any come back from the FA.

RFC seem one of the few clubs to take everything literally and then add some, just to make life as difficult/irritating/unpleasant for their own fans as they can!

Message for the safety officer: Stop playing with your cameras and picking on standing for a while - sort those sodding buses out! I think you'll find that one bloke yelling through a megaphone will not be regarded as taking all reasonably practicable steps to ensure safety when some poor supporter gets run over!

What rubbish.

Fans have got to take responsibility too, there's always a rush to leave the ground and some people are too impatient so they barge through the crowd, and (check this) cross the road without looking.

Wow, imagine that...
Fail to see a bus coming and splat!

Poor supporter, must be the Safety officers fault for not taking reasonable practical steps.

Take some responsibility, stay on the paths and I guarantee you will not be run over on the roads.

Clearly you hang back and don't see what actually happens as thousands of supporters leave all at once. You also clearly have absolutely no idea about crowd dynamics (probably making you an ideal employee for RFC!).

You cannot possibly get thousands of people onto a pavement just a few metres wide and therefore, short of putting barriers all along the edge, thus creating another safety hazard, you can not prevent significant overspill onto the roads. That has sod all to do with people in a hurry crossing the road without looking.

The potential hazards could be almost completely alleviated by making the buses wait just 5 minutes longer before they leave. At that point, your argument about supporters taking full responsibility for their own safety might just be valid.

As things stand at present, the safety people are failing to take all reasonably practicable steps to ensure the safety of the departing supporters and I'm pretty sure the courts would see it that way too.

Absolute bullshit.

For a start you're only talking about the supporters who walk away from the ground, this includes you because your bleating about the safety of the departing supporters doesn't even mention the people who cycle, go by bus or by car there.

Have you thought about the people parking their cars there?

Do they have to wait 5 mins???

Where did you get this 5 mins anyway, have you timed this Safety Man?

Why would making the buses wait 5 minutes improve things anyway?

People are going past them for 20 minutes, so what would 5 minutes achieve?

In regards to pavements not being wide enough, yes we should whine, bitch, moan and complain about the MAN WITH THE MEGAPHONE as he has sole responsibility of building those pavements.

Do me a favour.

If you would have said that the bus stops should be further away from the ground to give everyone the chance to disperse then I would have agreed with you.

But of course, it's all about how YOU want to get home.

[Royal Lady]

They can't see the supporters from the entrance to the concourse and are, therefore, not doing what they are paid for.

There are several rows of spectators between the concourse and the pitch. They are also in need of supervision. If the stewards all stood on the pitch it would be all too easy to criticise how they obstruct the view....

There are stewards at the front who "look after" those fans. I haven't mentioned anything at all about standing on the pitch.

[STAR Liaison]

Thre is a lot of LOLable posturing on this thread, and at the end of the day we KNOW the rules - sit down unless it's a moment of high excitement. Acting like a twat in Y26 isn't going to make anything happen where it really matters.

However, if the club truly want fans to comply then they MUST be seen to be acting equally towards the away fans.

It might be "harder", but tough - do it or be seen to be hypocrites unworthy of the respect that is needed to really make change happen.

I perfectly understand where you are coming from and I have asked the club to be open about how many away fans the eject - but they are reluctant to do so. Their way of dealing with away fans is to do so without winding up the rest of the away fans - which we can certainly understand as Reading fans up the noise etc when one of ours is marched out at an away game.

So your quote should have a different emphasis - that if the club truly wants fans to comply then they MUST BE SEEN to be acting equally towards the awy fans.

I am happy to keep trying for the information but would some of you mail me at info@star-reading.org asking for this so that I can produce more than this thread as evidence for the need to have this info.

[RoyalBlue]

Thre is a lot of LOLable posturing on this thread, and at the end of the day we KNOW the rules - sit down unless it's a moment of high excitement. Acting like a twat in Y26 isn't going to make anything happen where it really matters.

However, if the club truly want fans to comply then they MUST be seen to be acting equally towards the away fans.

It might be "harder", but tough - do it or be seen to be hypocrites unworthy of the respect that is needed to really make change happen.

I perfectly understand where you are coming from and I have asked the club to be open about how many away fans the eject - but they are reluctant to do so. Their way of dealing with away fans is to do so without winding up the rest of the away fans -

Yeh, much better to wind up the home fans who pay their effing wages!

I suspect the reason that they don't want to reveal numbers is that they know damn well that will expose their argument as being the load of shyte that it is.

If STAR keep asking and the club keep telling them to get lost then maybe it really is time for STAR to be a little less accommodating towards those members of the senior management team at fault.

[Skin]

Birmingham today. The whole lower block (home) to our right stod for the whole game more or less. The stewards let them get on with it, no confrontations and no injuries. This worked well. I'm sure its the same at all their home games. Tonight on TV. Man Utd fans standing behind the goal, 90 mins and no problems reported. Again the stewards (club directive) seem to let them get on with it, again this hapens at all their home games. There are examples of this harmony between fans and stewards, and clubs alike, every time you switch on MOTD or a live game, or indeed visit another ground. No injuries or deaths are ever reported as a result of this, no stands are closed by the LFA.
Examples for all to see of how standing is tolerated at various clubs it seems, whether you agree with it or not?
RFC seem to want to toe the line, fair enough, but is it really neccessary at the cost of causing animosity like this between stewards and fans alike?
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't but if the LFA haven't taken any significant action against home fans at other clubs, why would they want to with us?