Give ’Em Beans! - What Our Columnists Said

The Fiery Furness is an occasional contributor to our pages, lighting them up with the incandescant flame of his righteous wrath and anger. Saves on the heating bills anyway...

The FIERY FURNESS

• on CROWD CONTROL

There's not many things that get my back up. But one of them is the namby pamby attitude of the authorities to anything which is safety related. Take football matches. At any game the authorities get together to decide how many people it is safe to let into a ground. They didn't always do this. Many years ago it was up to the club, in discussion with the police, to decide how many spectators to admit. But not any more. Because of a couple of tragedies in the 1980's the government wet their knickers and decided to make it law that every ground in the country should be licensed. That meant every football club had to apply for a Safety Certificate from their local authority. If you had an old wooden stand, or not enough fire extinguishers or narrow gangways, etc., you could only get a Safety Certificate if you didn't use that part of the ground until it was replaced with something else that allowed people to leave quickly in the event of a fire.

So clubs like Wrexham are, to this day, playing in front of empty wooden grandstands while they try to find enough money to knock them down and build a better stand. Okay. Fair enough. The Bradford fire was started in an old wooden grandstand so maybe these are sensible precautions.

But then there was Hillsborough. Remember? Scenes straight from hell as Liverpool supporters were crushed against the safety fencing while hundreds of fans tried to push onto an already packed terrace. As the dead and dying were laid onto the grass, who could be criticised for saying that this could never be allowed to happen again?

So restrictive attendance limits were imposed wherever a large crowd was expected. And these limits are stupid. Barrow v Nuneaton and Barrow v Wigan. Crowd limit 3,500. Actual attendance 3,500. Condition on the terraces? You could have held a rave party and invited another 1,500 people before you'd notice it was a bit crowded. The last time Holker St. was really full was the FA Trophy Semi-Final against Enfield in 1988. 6,000. Okay, so there was a grandstand then, but it only held 1,200.

And will this over the top restriction on crowds stop another Hillsborough? No. Why? The poor, innocent supporters who were crushed couldn't go anywhere because they were penned in by the safety fencing. This has now been dismantled at every ground in the country.

And why was the fencing put there? Because the authorities got their knickers in a twist about a couple of highly publicised pitch invasions at the end of the 1970's. So, no fences, no Hillsborough.

But they can't do that, can they? Any club in the land, from Manchester United to Holker Old Boys, that expects a big crowd will find an arbitrary limit placed on it which is about 30% less than the ground could comfortably handle, thereby reducing the largest pay day of the year for a non-League club.

So the football authorities having imperiled the safety of spectators in the first place by insisting that fences are erected, then jeopardize the future of the clubs which the spectators go to watch by reducing their income.

You couldn't make it up, could you?

Issue 026 - May 1996

• The Fiery Furness asks WHO DO YOU REALLY SUPPORT?

Yes, that's right. Which team do you support? I mean really, really support? I only ask because I'm a bit concerned about the antics of some spectators at Holker St. when the half-time scores are read out. Those youngsters who shout and cheer like lunatics when they hear Manchester United's score. So what's that all about, then? Are these lads closet supporters or what?

I've got nothing against people wearing shirts defaced with slogans such as Sharp Viewcam provided they go to Old Trafford when they're wearing them. But the one thing that really gets on my tits is people who suddenly start supporting a team just because of some recent league or cup success, and then just as suddenly lose interest as soon as their chosen side hits a bad patch. Just ask yourself where the hordes of Blackburn Rovers supporters have gone. The season before last they were all over the place, like an infestation of blue and white striped ants. Now, thankfully, they appear to have crawled back into the same hole from which they originally emerged.

Likewise, I wonder how many of today's Manchester United 'supporters' were Liverpool followers in the 1980's. Some of them are old and sad enough to have been Leeds United fans in the 1970's, too. It's like a fashion trend. Go to Ibiza for your holiday wearing a Manchester United shirt and you're sure to he treated as one of the crowd. If you go on your Mediterranean fortnight with a replica shirt depicting your local team, you're more likely to be treated as a leper, or a figure of fun, abused and laughed at by drunken plebs on 18-30 holidays (if it's like the prat I saw in Majorca wearing his Barnsley, Better Than Brazil shirt, then he deserves it. Ed.).

It doesn't help when most sports shops, including those in Barrow, stock replica Manchester United shirts. Kids badger their parents to break the bank balance and buy them a shirt because all their mates have one. It's cool to be seen wearing a Manchester United shirt. Strange though. I've never seen a sports shop in Manchester which stocks Barrow AFC shirts. Shame on the Barrow player who warmed up for the match at Boston last February in a Manchester United shirt. I won't reveal his identity this time, but if it happens again, his anonymity cannot be guaranteed.

Unsurprisingly, TV and radio foster this idea of the rights of the big clubs. Before last season's FA Cup tie between Portsmouth and Chelsea, the Radio 5 Live commentator made a crass remark about wanting Chelsea to win, 'otherwise there'd be no big clubs left in the cup.' Yes, it was a sad moment for all those London based media types when the big clubs crashed out of both senior cup competitions at an early stage last season. Lets hope the same thing happens again this season. The way the media cooed over the achievements of Middlesborough whilst hardly giving a single word of praise towards Chesterfield and Wrexham, who, don't forget, entered the competition two rounds earlier, was enough to make you want to throw up.

I'm not suggesting that the sad characters who parade around in Manchester United strips, without actually making any attempt to get to one of their matches, deserve to be locked up and have the key thrown away. There's nothing criminal about them, despite their weird perceptions about what a football fan really does. These people are simply ill. They should be dealt with as if they were farm animals. Humanely.

Issue 031 - September 1997

The FIERY FURNESS
The Fiery Furness is an occasional contributor to our pages, lighting them up with the incandescant flame of his righteous wrath and anger. Saves on the heating bills anyway...
• on CROWD CONTROL There's not many things that get my back up. But one of them is the namby pamby attitude of the authorities to anything which is safety related. Take football matches. At any game the authorities get together to decide how many people it is safe to let into a ground. They didn't always do this. Many years ago it was up to the club, in discussion with the police, to decide how many spectators to admit. But not any more. Because of a couple of tragedies in the 1980's the government wet their knickers and decided to make it law that every ground in the country should be licensed. That meant every football club had to apply for a Safety Certificate from their local authority. If you had an old wooden stand, or not enough fire extinguishers or narrow gangways, etc., you could only get a Safety Certificate if you didn't use that part of the ground until it was replaced with something else that allowed people to leave quickly in the event of a fire. So clubs like Wrexham are, to this day, playing in front of empty wooden grandstands while they try to find enough money to knock them down and build a better stand. Okay. Fair enough. The Bradford fire was started in an old wooden grandstand so maybe these are sensible precautions. But then there was Hillsborough. Remember? Scenes straight from hell as Liverpool supporters were crushed against the safety fencing while hundreds of fans tried to push onto an already packed terrace. As the dead and dying were laid onto the grass, who could be criticised for saying that this could never be allowed to happen again? So restrictive attendance limits were imposed wherever a large crowd was expected. And these limits are stupid. Barrow v Nuneaton and Barrow v Wigan. Crowd limit 3,500. Actual attendance 3,500. Condition on the terraces? You could have held a rave party and invited another 1,500 people before you'd notice it was a bit crowded. The last time Holker St. was really full was the FA Trophy Semi-Final against Enfield in 1988. 6,000. Okay, so there was a grandstand then, but it only held 1,200. And will this over the top restriction on crowds stop another Hillsborough? No. Why? The poor, innocent supporters who were crushed couldn't go anywhere because they were penned in by the safety fencing. This has now been dismantled at every ground in the country. And why was the fencing put there? Because the authorities got their knickers in a twist about a couple of highly publicised pitch invasions at the end of the 1970's. So, no fences, no Hillsborough. But they can't do that, can they? Any club in the land, from Manchester United to Holker Old Boys, that expects a big crowd will find an arbitrary limit placed on it which is about 30% less than the ground could comfortably handle, thereby reducing the largest pay day of the year for a non-League club. So the football authorities having imperiled the safety of spectators in the first place by insisting that fences are erected, then jeopardize the future of the clubs which the spectators go to watch by reducing their income. You couldn't make it up, could you? Issue 026 - May 1996
• The Fiery Furness asks WHO DO YOU REALLY SUPPORT? Yes, that's right. Which team do you support? I mean really, really support? I only ask because I'm a bit concerned about the antics of some spectators at Holker St. when the half-time scores are read out. Those youngsters who shout and cheer like lunatics when they hear Manchester United's score. So what's that all about, then? Are these lads closet supporters or what? I've got nothing against people wearing shirts defaced with slogans such as Sharp Viewcam provided they go to Old Trafford when they're wearing them. But the one thing that really gets on my tits is people who suddenly start supporting a team just because of some recent league or cup success, and then just as suddenly lose interest as soon as their chosen side hits a bad patch. Just ask yourself where the hordes of Blackburn Rovers supporters have gone. The season before last they were all over the place, like an infestation of blue and white striped ants. Now, thankfully, they appear to have crawled back into the same hole from which they originally emerged. Likewise, I wonder how many of today's Manchester United 'supporters' were Liverpool followers in the 1980's. Some of them are old and sad enough to have been Leeds United fans in the 1970's, too. It's like a fashion trend. Go to Ibiza for your holiday wearing a Manchester United shirt and you're sure to he treated as one of the crowd. If you go on your Mediterranean fortnight with a replica shirt depicting your local team, you're more likely to be treated as a leper, or a figure of fun, abused and laughed at by drunken plebs on 18-30 holidays (if it's like the prat I saw in Majorca wearing his Barnsley, Better Than Brazil shirt, then he deserves it. Ed.). It doesn't help when most sports shops, including those in Barrow, stock replica Manchester United shirts. Kids badger their parents to break the bank balance and buy them a shirt because all their mates have one. It's cool to be seen wearing a Manchester United shirt. Strange though. I've never seen a sports shop in Manchester which stocks Barrow AFC shirts. Shame on the Barrow player who warmed up for the match at Boston last February in a Manchester United shirt. I won't reveal his identity this time, but if it happens again, his anonymity cannot be guaranteed. Unsurprisingly, TV and radio foster this idea of the rights of the big clubs. Before last season's FA Cup tie between Portsmouth and Chelsea, the Radio 5 Live commentator made a crass remark about wanting Chelsea to win, 'otherwise there'd be no big clubs left in the cup.' Yes, it was a sad moment for all those London based media types when the big clubs crashed out of both senior cup competitions at an early stage last season. Lets hope the same thing happens again this season. The way the media cooed over the achievements of Middlesborough whilst hardly giving a single word of praise towards Chesterfield and Wrexham, who, don't forget, entered the competition two rounds earlier, was enough to make you want to throw up. I'm not suggesting that the sad characters who parade around in Manchester United strips, without actually making any attempt to get to one of their matches, deserve to be locked up and have the key thrown away. There's nothing criminal about them, despite their weird perceptions about what a football fan really does. These people are simply ill. They should be dealt with as if they were farm animals. Humanely. Issue 031 - September 1997