On the game itself, we looked slightly better after going to 532 I thought. Obita was able to get forward into more attacking positions. Good to see us make the changes early. Ultimately, two subs combined for the equaliser.
But overall we just didn’t execute much very well. Misplaced passes, not enough aerial battles won and at times we were a bit hesitant to get forward for some reason. Felt like the sideways passes at the back were opening up space but we didn’t really press forward and take advantage of that.
Exactly, @Malone. Not sure why some are struggling with this. For it to ‘be in our own hands’ we would not have to be relying on others results, regardless of how confident some are that they’ll happen.
I think it's people not looking closely enough at Wednesday, and thinking 1 point ahead 2 games in hand, beat them and it's 4 points ahead and 1 game in hand.
Ignoring that that won't actually be one of their games in hand gone!
@BlueBoy said:
Exactly, @Malone. Not sure why some are struggling with this. For it to ‘be in our own hands’ we would not have to be relying on others results, regardless of how confident some are that they’ll happen.
Some of us are quite thick and have rose coloured glasses on
@BlueBoy said:
Exactly, @Malone. Not sure why some are struggling with this. For it to ‘be in our own hands’ we would not have to be relying on others results, regardless of how confident some are that they’ll happen.
Some of us are quite thick and have rose coloured glasses on
Can you let me know where to get a pair please. Would be very happy to join you!
Plymouth have the poorest form going into these final games and there is every likelihood they will lose to both Wigan & Franchise so ending on 79 points.
PNL have to play Franchise, Rotherham & Donnie, a likely haul of 4 points giving them a final total of 76
I believe we are absolutely in control of our destiny as I think we need a minimum of 3 points from 6 to make the playoffs.
I reckon Wigan will be first, Rotherham second by a point from Franchise, with Wednesday, us & Sunderland making the playoffs in that order.
But MK showed the other night you can't necessarily just rely on logic and form to predict these face offs.
However, I really hope we go into the Burton game at least with something riding on it. Ideally a win securing playoffs, as you couldn't hope for a better game than a midtabler with nothing on it.
With a ground capacity of 9,200 the away end (technically 1,465) was designed to be 15% of the capacity i.e. the regulatory amount you have to give away teams in the FA Cup. However, having cordoned off the front 2 rows this has reduced the away capacity to 1,200. A bit disappointing for a new ground, bearing in mind the away allocation at Kingsmeadow was 850.
I thought the stewarding was over the top today. To see supporters in their 70s outside the ground with their arms in the air being searched seemed completely over the top. There were also too many stewards inside blocking people’s view by not sitting on stools. They were very clever at dragging kids out in a very robust way - I’d like to see them try that with Millwall.
I would be surprised if we didn't make the play offs if we win both remaining games, and surprised if we did make them if we fail to win both. But if we can't beat Wednesday on Saturday then I wouldn't fancy our chances in the playoffs anyway. It's easy to forget, particularly having won in 2020, that being in the playoffs give you only a one in four chance of going up.
Whatever happens, it's been a good season. We're one point behind our 94/95 total, and if we finish outside the top 6 I won't feel too sad. Some on here always seem ludicrously optimistic to me - I suspect that we will look on this season as being an amazing achievement in years to come.
Best points haul ever against that horrible mob today. Anyone upset about not winning against a club we always struggle against can only really look inward.
Today was Wimbledon versus Wycombe 101. A game we’ve seen so many times before and lost more often than not.
And after the second game running, the BFP note that we're on our longest unbeaten run since 2016/17. We went 12 unbeaten the season before last... But what good are facts in news?!
@ReturnToSenda said:
Anyone know what that supporter got dragged out for in the second half? And what the fuck was that tennis ball about?
"That" supporter?
There was at least 6 hauled out, by what I have to say is the most severe, brutal looking set of stewards I've ever seen!
Making for the most insane sight watching a couple of midget teen chavs actually trying to struggle against 6ft 2 brick sh!Thouses! Bizarre stuff
I think their stewards/security were appalling. It shouldn't take 6 burly men to haul out a kid that couldn't find his way out of a wet paper bag.
They were whispering and looking up all game, which antogonises certain individuals.
Credit to the female steward that was obviously sent to difuse the situation and started singing and dancing with the wycombe fans after Bayo's goal.
Also a little bit disappointed that the players didn't come to clap the fans after, bar Scowen and Vokes. They all deemed it more important to leg it down the tunnell for what appeared like a fight!
All in all, could have been worse today as we didn't turn up. Credit to the team for digging in when it clearly wasn't going for us. Strange little stadium. Felt very "temporary "
Yes, it doesn't look particularly well thought out in terms of potential to expand.
But maybe 9,000 is plenty for their foreseeable future?
Some donut chanted "you're only here for the Wycombe" to me in the queue.
I turned round and he clocked my gold shirt was actually a Wycombe shirt and shut up.
Did seem quite a few "new" fans there today!
Has potential to be expanded to 20,000. 3 sides semi permanent and the biggest stand is permanent. Explains the temporary feel I described!
Also didn't realise that the home end was safe standing
We will look back at certain key games and be filled with regret. Cheltenham at home definitely. Fleetwood away for sure. Gillingham away. And this one.
And with the league this right turn all of those into wins and we would be home and hosed.
@ReturnToSenda said:
Anyone know what that supporter got dragged out for in the second half? And what the fuck was that tennis ball about?
"That" supporter?
There was at least 6 hauled out, by what I have to say is the most severe, brutal looking set of stewards I've ever seen!
Making for the most insane sight watching a couple of midget teen chavs actually trying to struggle against 6ft 2 brick sh!Thouses! Bizarre stuff
I think their stewards/security were appalling. It shouldn't take 6 burly men to haul out a kid that couldn't find his way out of a wet paper bag.
They were whispering and looking up all game, which antogonises certain individuals.
Credit to the female steward that was obviously sent to difuse the situation and started singing and dancing with the wycombe fans after Bayo's goal.
Also a little bit disappointed that the players didn't come to clap the fans after, bar Scowen and Vokes. They all deemed it more important to leg it down the tunnell for what appeared like a fight!
All in all, could have been worse today as we didn't turn up. Credit to the team for digging in when it clearly wasn't going for us. Strange little stadium. Felt very "temporary "
Yes, it doesn't look particularly well thought out in terms of potential to expand.
But maybe 9,000 is plenty for their foreseeable future?
Some donut chanted "you're only here for the Wycombe" to me in the queue.
I turned round and he clocked my gold shirt was actually a Wycombe shirt and shut up.
Did seem quite a few "new" fans there today!
Has potential to be expanded to 20,000. 3 sides semi permanent and the biggest stand is permanent. Explains the temporary feel I described!
Also didn't realise that the home end was safe standing
Wow that seems surprising as while they could go "up" for 3 stands you normally have to go "out" a bit as well, and there's no room as they're boxed in.
Hopefully we're not back there for a long while anyway.
Second away game in a row we've seemingly been unable to counter a team with the threat of relegation. They harried and hassled us constantly, not allowing us to play as freely as we have in other times on our 9 game unbeaten run. A point gained or two dropped for the second weekend in a row. Only time will tell.
I was really disappointed to see us move away from what has been so successful on that run so early in the second half.
Whilst we got an equaliser, yet again Bayo and Vokes just do not work together. Bayo needs pace around him to flick the ball onto or little lay offs back to the midfield to then get the ball wide. They get in each others way as both like to occupy the same space.
Vokes ball over the top to Bayo was very instinctive, he's so used to having Hanlan, McCleary or Mehmeti there to run onto that type of ball, it typified why the two of them cannot play together.
I felt that decision to play them both just significantly reduced our chances of winning the game. When Kaikai came on, Vokes should have come off.
A draw was a fair result on the balance of play.
Let's hope some results go our way and we can have one last push to get enough points from those remaining two fixtures. COYB!
@ReturnToSenda said:
Anyone know what that supporter got dragged out for in the second half? And what the fuck was that tennis ball about?
"That" supporter?
There was at least 6 hauled out, by what I have to say is the most severe, brutal looking set of stewards I've ever seen!
Making for the most insane sight watching a couple of midget teen chavs actually trying to struggle against 6ft 2 brick sh!Thouses! Bizarre stuff
I think their stewards/security were appalling. It shouldn't take 6 burly men to haul out a kid that couldn't find his way out of a wet paper bag.
They were whispering and looking up all game, which antogonises certain individuals.
Credit to the female steward that was obviously sent to difuse the situation and started singing and dancing with the wycombe fans after Bayo's goal.
Also a little bit disappointed that the players didn't come to clap the fans after, bar Scowen and Vokes. They all deemed it more important to leg it down the tunnell for what appeared like a fight!
All in all, could have been worse today as we didn't turn up. Credit to the team for digging in when it clearly wasn't going for us. Strange little stadium. Felt very "temporary "
Yes, it doesn't look particularly well thought out in terms of potential to expand.
But maybe 9,000 is plenty for their foreseeable future?
Some donut chanted "you're only here for the Wycombe" to me in the queue.
I turned round and he clocked my gold shirt was actually a Wycombe shirt and shut up.
Did seem quite a few "new" fans there today!
Has potential to be expanded to 20,000. 3 sides semi permanent and the biggest stand is permanent. Explains the temporary feel I described!
Also didn't realise that the home end was safe standing
Wow that seems surprising as while they could go "up" for 3 stands you normally have to go "out" a bit as well, and there's no room as they're boxed in.
Hopefully we're not back there for a long while anyway.
I had to sit in the East stand (home area and to the left of the Wycombe faithful). Huge amounts of space behind the East and South stands, easily enough to more than double the capacity in both these stands. The permanent stand is the West stand and this can't be expanded.
My guess is the away stand (North) can also be expanded but I did not see this area.
@wwfcblue said
My guess is the away stand (North) can also be > expanded but I did not see this area.
Exactly so, the stadium was built strictly to a budget so is indeed somewhat temporary in design/materials. To the extent that some of the corporate boxes aren't current used because the view is blocked by the curvature of the existing roof on the terrace - which will be changed with stadium expansion.
FYI those caught up in the queue to enter because of the lack of/slow ticket scanning, the system went live at the start of this season (obviously) without any pre-testing and they are still working to sort out the bugs/issues. For some games the home fans have ended up queuing back to the main road.
Re the stewards. Whilst I couldn't see what the scuffling was about, I do agree that the stewarding was over the top and, in my opinion, contributed to some of the problems.
As others have said, there was a hugely disproportionate number of stewards in the away end, who, unlike at Adams Park for example, made no effort not to block fans' view of the pitch. Almost all of them were huge and decked out as if they were about to abseil through the windows of an embassy. They appeared to be an outside security firm rather than an in-house team, judging by the branding on their clothes. They honestly looked more like a paramilitary unit than a stewarding team and everything about them was in stark contrast to the happy smiley people at Adams Park (although we know they can be overly soft at times, so I'm not saying we have it spot on).
I didn't have a problem being searched, but it was weird seeing people clearly in their 70's being patted down, especially given the queues outside the ground. Inside the ground the stewards were, at best, overzealous. There was definitely a lot of needless posturing and eyeballing the crowd. There was an air of unease and you could have predicted they were going to go steaming in at the first excuse. One came striding up to my mate, who was drinking from a bottle and demanded to see the bottle, before walking off again with no explanation as far as I'm aware. I heard a rumour someone was kicked out for having a bottle with a lid on. May not be true, but would fit. If true - just take the lid away, particularly as this would presumably be an oversight by the tea bar staff, rather than the heinous crime of bottle cap smuggling. I even saw one steward impatiently move on two fans who were chatting to the media guy (Ryan?) over the advertising hoardings. Even within the confines of the away stand, they seemed to be strictly policing fans' movement.
They seemed geared for trouble, which is curious given our generally good reputation (I know we have a 'yoof' element, same as most clubs, but ours isn't particularly big/intimidating). Didn't some boffin work out several years ago that treating fans like potential troublemakers was far more likely to lead to trouble than if you just treat them as normal people? There was a female steward (who wasn't dressed as Robocop's little brother, so possibly actually worked for the club) who was doing her best to be friendly after one of the incidents, even joining in some of the singing and this alone seemed to have a positive effect, so credit to her.
I can't comment on the throwings-out. Someone threw a tennis ball onto the pitch, which is obviously turbo-dumb, but there seemed to be half a dozen being thrown out, which I'm guessing was due to fans reacting angrily. Some of the ejections seemed heavy-handed to me, but some of the fans were fighting back, so perhaps it was necessary. You shouldn't be grabbing/holding people by the neck though, unless in self-defence. I wasn't directly affected by the stewards, but I definitely felt uneasy about them, which distracted (and detracted) from my enjoyment of the game. You shouldn't have to go to a game and worry that the people supposedly there to ensure your safety might tear you from your seat at any moment.
I would be very interested to know more about this security company and what training they actually have for dealing with football fans. It's depressing that we just accept this kind of treatment. Some stewarding teams seem to act more as a private army, thinking/knowing they can get away with it because its football fans (Remember Elland Road?) These guys seemed more like doormen than stewards and that is just unacceptable at a professional football club in 2022.
I understand Wimbledon's stewards have already been complained about by other fan groups this season and you would hope that they will assess their stewarding arrangement at the end of the season.
The difference with Gillingham was certainly night and day.
The 3 stewards on the gate there just waved me through without a thought of a pat down, and they looked like just normal fans with hi vis.
The Wimbledon crew truly were a sight. All real units, tall and strong. It certainly had you making sure you didn't look or do something that could be misconstrued
However, they weren't all bad. I saw a couple of them smiling when after we'd scored a couple of our fans were hugging them!
@Jonny_King said:
Re the stewards. Whilst I couldn't see what the scuffling was about, I do agree that the stewarding was over the top and, in my opinion, contributed to some of the problems.
As others have said, there was a hugely disproportionate number of stewards in the away end, who, unlike at Adams Park for example, made no effort not to block fans' view of the pitch. Almost all of them were huge and decked out as if they were about to abseil through the windows of an embassy. They appeared to be an outside security firm rather than an in-house team, judging by the branding on their clothes. They honestly looked more like a paramilitary unit than a stewarding team and everything about them was in stark contrast to the happy smiley people at Adams Park (although we know they can be overly soft at times, so I'm not saying we have it spot on).
I didn't have a problem being searched, but it was weird seeing people clearly in their 70's being patted down, especially given the queues outside the ground. Inside the ground the stewards were, at best, overzealous. There was definitely a lot of needless posturing and eyeballing the crowd. There was an air of unease and you could have predicted they were going to go steaming in at the first excuse. One came striding up to my mate, who was drinking from a bottle and demanded to see the bottle, before walking off again with no explanation as far as I'm aware. I heard a rumour someone was kicked out for having a bottle with a lid on. May not be true, but would fit. If true - just take the lid away, particularly as this would presumably be an oversight by the tea bar staff, rather than the heinous crime of bottle cap smuggling. I even saw one steward impatiently move on two fans who were chatting to the media guy (Ryan?) over the advertising hoardings. Even within the confines of the away stand, they seemed to be strictly policing fans' movement.
They seemed geared for trouble, which is curious given our generally good reputation (I know we have a 'yoof' element, same as most clubs, but ours isn't particularly big/intimidating). Didn't some boffin work out several years ago that treating fans like potential troublemakers was far more likely to lead to trouble than if you just treat them as normal people? There was a female steward (who wasn't dressed as Robocop's little brother, so possibly actually worked for the club) who was doing her best to be friendly after one of the incidents, even joining in some of the singing and this alone seemed to have a positive effect, so credit to her.
I can't comment on the throwings-out. Someone threw a tennis ball onto the pitch, which is obviously turbo-dumb, but there seemed to be half a dozen being thrown out, which I'm guessing was due to fans reacting angrily. Some of the ejections seemed heavy-handed to me, but some of the fans were fighting back, so perhaps it was necessary. You shouldn't be grabbing/holding people by the neck though, unless in self-defence. I wasn't directly affected by the stewards, but I definitely felt uneasy about them, which distracted (and detracted) from my enjoyment of the game. You shouldn't have to go to a game and worry that the people supposedly there to ensure your safety might tear you from your seat at any moment.
I would be very interested to know more about this security company and what training they actually have for dealing with football fans. It's depressing that we just accept this kind of treatment. Some stewarding teams seem to act more as a private army, thinking/knowing they can get away with it because its football fans (Remember Elland Road?) These guys seemed more like doormen than stewards and that is just unacceptable at a professional football club in 2022.
I understand Wimbledon's stewards have already been complained about by other fan groups this season and you would hope that they will assess their stewarding arrangement at the end of the season.
Doubt it though.
(Sorry for the War and Peace post)
Good write up that, have you considered writing for the fanzine? ? New stadium maybe but they can't get away with that excuse so late in the season or at all in the modern age. They were definitely lacking any interest in being there to help the fans and were badly organised to the point of looking like they'd never been at a game before. Doesn't excuse all of our lot though. The agro was pretty easy to avoid if you wanted to.
I wasn't exactly keen on them taking people's phones to scan their tickets. Do you think they'd have paid for the damage if they'd dropped one? I don't. All seemed totally unnecessary.
I watched it at home, no travel problems, cheap beer, excellent toilet facilities, not policed by extras from SAS: Who Dares Wins and the added pleasure of @bluntphil and Nick Freeman telling me what I was seeing.
@Wendoverman said:
I watched it at home, no travel problems, cheap beer, excellent toilet facilities, not policed by extras from SAS: Who Dares Wins and the added pleasure of @bluntphil and Nick Freeman telling me what I was seeing.
I'm sure the players would love it if everyone didn't bother going
Comments
On the game itself, we looked slightly better after going to 532 I thought. Obita was able to get forward into more attacking positions. Good to see us make the changes early. Ultimately, two subs combined for the equaliser.
But overall we just didn’t execute much very well. Misplaced passes, not enough aerial battles won and at times we were a bit hesitant to get forward for some reason. Felt like the sideways passes at the back were opening up space but we didn’t really press forward and take advantage of that.
Ourselves, Wednesday & Sunderland all have the same form over the last 5 games (11ptd from a possible 15) so seriously
a) we are not out of it
b) it is in our own hands especially as we have to play Wednesday
It's not actually in our hands though, as even if we beat Wednesday, our max is 83 points.
They can hit 85 even having lost to us.
We are relying on one of our rivals slipping up, or twice for Wednesday.
Plymouth could easily lose at Wigan though, so there's plenty left for us here.
We'd all fancy going to beached Burton needing a win to get in.
Exactly, @Malone. Not sure why some are struggling with this. For it to ‘be in our own hands’ we would not have to be relying on others results, regardless of how confident some are that they’ll happen.
I think it's people not looking closely enough at Wednesday, and thinking 1 point ahead 2 games in hand, beat them and it's 4 points ahead and 1 game in hand.
Ignoring that that won't actually be one of their games in hand gone!
Some of us are quite thick and have rose coloured glasses on
Can you let me know where to get a pair please. Would be very happy to join you!
Plymouth have the poorest form going into these final games and there is every likelihood they will lose to both Wigan & Franchise so ending on 79 points.
PNL have to play Franchise, Rotherham & Donnie, a likely haul of 4 points giving them a final total of 76
I believe we are absolutely in control of our destiny as I think we need a minimum of 3 points from 6 to make the playoffs.
I reckon Wigan will be first, Rotherham second by a point from Franchise, with Wednesday, us & Sunderland making the playoffs in that order.
Hope you're right there Erroll.
But MK showed the other night you can't necessarily just rely on logic and form to predict these face offs.
However, I really hope we go into the Burton game at least with something riding on it. Ideally a win securing playoffs, as you couldn't hope for a better game than a midtabler with nothing on it.
That's what Bristol Rovers thought in 2014...
We're trying to find some positives here, after blowing a game against a toilet team who haven't won since around 1946, give us a chance
With a ground capacity of 9,200 the away end (technically 1,465) was designed to be 15% of the capacity i.e. the regulatory amount you have to give away teams in the FA Cup. However, having cordoned off the front 2 rows this has reduced the away capacity to 1,200. A bit disappointing for a new ground, bearing in mind the away allocation at Kingsmeadow was 850.
I thought the stewarding was over the top today. To see supporters in their 70s outside the ground with their arms in the air being searched seemed completely over the top. There were also too many stewards inside blocking people’s view by not sitting on stools. They were very clever at dragging kids out in a very robust way - I’d like to see them try that with Millwall.
I would be surprised if we didn't make the play offs if we win both remaining games, and surprised if we did make them if we fail to win both. But if we can't beat Wednesday on Saturday then I wouldn't fancy our chances in the playoffs anyway. It's easy to forget, particularly having won in 2020, that being in the playoffs give you only a one in four chance of going up.
Whatever happens, it's been a good season. We're one point behind our 94/95 total, and if we finish outside the top 6 I won't feel too sad. Some on here always seem ludicrously optimistic to me - I suspect that we will look on this season as being an amazing achievement in years to come.
Best points haul ever against that horrible mob today. Anyone upset about not winning against a club we always struggle against can only really look inward.
Today was Wimbledon versus Wycombe 101. A game we’ve seen so many times before and lost more often than not.
stop playing the occasional and play the team , Wimbledon are on awful run of form and likely to get relegated, we should best them all day long
And after the second game running, the BFP note that we're on our longest unbeaten run since 2016/17. We went 12 unbeaten the season before last... But what good are facts in news?!
Had to go in the home end today, the noise from the Wycombe fans was incredible. Loads of wombles were commentating on it.
We aren't playing on Wednesday are we? I've got a tinder date
Has potential to be expanded to 20,000. 3 sides semi permanent and the biggest stand is permanent. Explains the temporary feel I described!
Also didn't realise that the home end was safe standing
We will look back at certain key games and be filled with regret. Cheltenham at home definitely. Fleetwood away for sure. Gillingham away. And this one.
And with the league this right turn all of those into wins and we would be home and hosed.
Wow that seems surprising as while they could go "up" for 3 stands you normally have to go "out" a bit as well, and there's no room as they're boxed in.
Hopefully we're not back there for a long while anyway.
Second away game in a row we've seemingly been unable to counter a team with the threat of relegation. They harried and hassled us constantly, not allowing us to play as freely as we have in other times on our 9 game unbeaten run. A point gained or two dropped for the second weekend in a row. Only time will tell.
I was really disappointed to see us move away from what has been so successful on that run so early in the second half.
Whilst we got an equaliser, yet again Bayo and Vokes just do not work together. Bayo needs pace around him to flick the ball onto or little lay offs back to the midfield to then get the ball wide. They get in each others way as both like to occupy the same space.
Vokes ball over the top to Bayo was very instinctive, he's so used to having Hanlan, McCleary or Mehmeti there to run onto that type of ball, it typified why the two of them cannot play together.
I felt that decision to play them both just significantly reduced our chances of winning the game. When Kaikai came on, Vokes should have come off.
A draw was a fair result on the balance of play.
Let's hope some results go our way and we can have one last push to get enough points from those remaining two fixtures. COYB!
I had to sit in the East stand (home area and to the left of the Wycombe faithful). Huge amounts of space behind the East and South stands, easily enough to more than double the capacity in both these stands. The permanent stand is the West stand and this can't be expanded.
My guess is the away stand (North) can also be expanded but I did not see this area.
Exactly so, the stadium was built strictly to a budget so is indeed somewhat temporary in design/materials. To the extent that some of the corporate boxes aren't current used because the view is blocked by the curvature of the existing roof on the terrace - which will be changed with stadium expansion.
FYI those caught up in the queue to enter because of the lack of/slow ticket scanning, the system went live at the start of this season (obviously) without any pre-testing and they are still working to sort out the bugs/issues. For some games the home fans have ended up queuing back to the main road.
Re the stewards. Whilst I couldn't see what the scuffling was about, I do agree that the stewarding was over the top and, in my opinion, contributed to some of the problems.
As others have said, there was a hugely disproportionate number of stewards in the away end, who, unlike at Adams Park for example, made no effort not to block fans' view of the pitch. Almost all of them were huge and decked out as if they were about to abseil through the windows of an embassy. They appeared to be an outside security firm rather than an in-house team, judging by the branding on their clothes. They honestly looked more like a paramilitary unit than a stewarding team and everything about them was in stark contrast to the happy smiley people at Adams Park (although we know they can be overly soft at times, so I'm not saying we have it spot on).
I didn't have a problem being searched, but it was weird seeing people clearly in their 70's being patted down, especially given the queues outside the ground. Inside the ground the stewards were, at best, overzealous. There was definitely a lot of needless posturing and eyeballing the crowd. There was an air of unease and you could have predicted they were going to go steaming in at the first excuse. One came striding up to my mate, who was drinking from a bottle and demanded to see the bottle, before walking off again with no explanation as far as I'm aware. I heard a rumour someone was kicked out for having a bottle with a lid on. May not be true, but would fit. If true - just take the lid away, particularly as this would presumably be an oversight by the tea bar staff, rather than the heinous crime of bottle cap smuggling. I even saw one steward impatiently move on two fans who were chatting to the media guy (Ryan?) over the advertising hoardings. Even within the confines of the away stand, they seemed to be strictly policing fans' movement.
They seemed geared for trouble, which is curious given our generally good reputation (I know we have a 'yoof' element, same as most clubs, but ours isn't particularly big/intimidating). Didn't some boffin work out several years ago that treating fans like potential troublemakers was far more likely to lead to trouble than if you just treat them as normal people? There was a female steward (who wasn't dressed as Robocop's little brother, so possibly actually worked for the club) who was doing her best to be friendly after one of the incidents, even joining in some of the singing and this alone seemed to have a positive effect, so credit to her.
I can't comment on the throwings-out. Someone threw a tennis ball onto the pitch, which is obviously turbo-dumb, but there seemed to be half a dozen being thrown out, which I'm guessing was due to fans reacting angrily. Some of the ejections seemed heavy-handed to me, but some of the fans were fighting back, so perhaps it was necessary. You shouldn't be grabbing/holding people by the neck though, unless in self-defence. I wasn't directly affected by the stewards, but I definitely felt uneasy about them, which distracted (and detracted) from my enjoyment of the game. You shouldn't have to go to a game and worry that the people supposedly there to ensure your safety might tear you from your seat at any moment.
I would be very interested to know more about this security company and what training they actually have for dealing with football fans. It's depressing that we just accept this kind of treatment. Some stewarding teams seem to act more as a private army, thinking/knowing they can get away with it because its football fans (Remember Elland Road?) These guys seemed more like doormen than stewards and that is just unacceptable at a professional football club in 2022.
I understand Wimbledon's stewards have already been complained about by other fan groups this season and you would hope that they will assess their stewarding arrangement at the end of the season.
Doubt it though.
(Sorry for the War and Peace post)
The difference with Gillingham was certainly night and day.
The 3 stewards on the gate there just waved me through without a thought of a pat down, and they looked like just normal fans with hi vis.
The Wimbledon crew truly were a sight. All real units, tall and strong. It certainly had you making sure you didn't look or do something that could be misconstrued
However, they weren't all bad. I saw a couple of them smiling when after we'd scored a couple of our fans were hugging them!
Good write up that, have you considered writing for the fanzine? ? New stadium maybe but they can't get away with that excuse so late in the season or at all in the modern age. They were definitely lacking any interest in being there to help the fans and were badly organised to the point of looking like they'd never been at a game before. Doesn't excuse all of our lot though. The agro was pretty easy to avoid if you wanted to.
I wasn't exactly keen on them taking people's phones to scan their tickets. Do you think they'd have paid for the damage if they'd dropped one? I don't. All seemed totally unnecessary.
I watched it at home, no travel problems, cheap beer, excellent toilet facilities, not policed by extras from SAS: Who Dares Wins and the added pleasure of @bluntphil and Nick Freeman telling me what I was seeing.
I'm sure the players would love it if everyone didn't bother going