The narrative of the story so far appears to be that a big Boston crowd of troublemakers have come in and caused lots of problems for a friendly little village club. In many ways that true, there was some pretty poor behaviour on show from some of the hangers on that will inevitably turn up on this kind of occasion. However, that was true of both sides yesterday and having witnessed plenty of transgressions from both sets of fans I feel it’s necessary to add a bit of balance. I would also note that the vast majority of the 2000+ there from both sides were able to watch the game in an unsegregated ground without any issues whatsoever (I stood next to some Ferriby fans and was able to respectfully disagree over the penalty without getting clubbed to death).
With all that in mind, the question for would be “were these event’s foreseeable?” and the answer is a resounding yes. In fact with the layout of the ground and the marshalling strategy (or lack of), I would say they were almost guaranteed in my opinion.
Boston are well known to take high numbers of travelling supporters and, as already mentioned, inevitably trouble causers will attach themselves to these types of big occasions. That’s not an attempt to somehow justify their actions, it’s just pointing out an unfortunate reality. Likewise, North Ferriby is in close proximity to Hull and it wouldn’t have taken much at all for some local troublemakers to have come along. With all this in mind, you have to have a strategy in place to deal with these eventualities. Sadly, it appeared there was none present.
My initial observations were as follows. There appeared to be a group of youngsters linked with North Ferriby keen to cause some trouble and that had already started when I entered the ground at approx. 14.15 with them standing adjacent to the already congregating travelling contingent. There were some very minor scuffles even at that point. At that point, I could only see 3 stewards who appeared woefully out of their depth. They attempted to clear the group but they were able to keep returning. Boston fans threw smoke bombs onto the pitch before the game and North Ferriby fans were also throwing smoke bombs and some on the pitch after they scored early on.
I scanned around the stadium and noted that there was a single entrance and exit. The areas behind the goals were incredibly cramped with many spectators unintentionally blocking what also served as access routes to and from other areas of the ground. As the toilet and refreshment facilities were located in one stand, this would ensure a permanent stream of individuals walking up and down all match. There was absolutely no segregation and no facility for segregation, with the result being fans of both sides being interspersed with one another.
I have since heard reports of 6 stewards being on duty, if so, that’s a 100% increase on my estimate. However, this is still woefully inadequate for a 2000+ crowd. If just 1% of the crowd, i.e. 20 people, had begun fighting, that would have left the ratio of stewards to fans at almost 1:4. I literally thought after about 1 minute of surveying the situation that there was going to be trouble. Luckily, that trouble seems to have ended up being relatively small compared to what might have happened.
All this has led me to wonder how on earth this stadium could host Conference National football. Let’s be honest, there are some big ex Football League clubs it is simply not fit for purpose to deal with big games. When I look back at the times Boston were forced to carry out all sorts of remedial work at York Street in order to secure promotion, I wonder how on earth this ground would be deemed suitable.
I will end this rather long post by saying that while any kind of assault is abhorrent and I certainly do not condone the actions of morons purporting to be football fans assaulting people. However, I think North Ferriby the conference and the F.A. need to take a long look at these arraignments and acknowledge that the current situation is simply not fit for purpose and make sure that steps are put into practice now to deal with games of this stature. I brought my youngsters along and I had genuine concerns for their safety at times which is a very great shame for non-league football.
P.S.
I am not inferring in the slightest that this had any bearing on the final score whatsoever before I’m accused of sour grapes.
