Topic of the day: coin throwing and crowd problems
Rio Ferdinand was lucky not to lose an eye, but he was unlucky that of all the coins, lighters, plastic bottles and whatever else the moronic football 'fan' can lay his or her hands on, one actually hit him. Earlier on in the game Wayne Rooney was pelted with items while caught in the heinous act of taking a corner, and recent racist and anti-Semitic chanting indicates a problem with football crowds that no doubt speaks of our wider society.
What can be done? Netting has been proposed to stop objects hitting players, but how tight will the netting need to be to stop coins? Will the objects rebound and hit innocent supporters? Did the nets at the Camp Nou stop a pig's head? And what will netting do to stop abuse emanating from the crowd?
The answer is to punish the majority to eradicate the minority. It's always a minority (every bad thing in life is always perpetrated by a minority despite the impression you might get from the media. Your average person is a decent, law abiding person) but this can no longer be an excuse. As the Football Ramble's Luke Moore says, when a rugby team at his school wrecked a minibus, all the sports teams were suspended. Something similar needs to happen in football.
Take the Serbia -England U21 game. Again, another mindless minority - albeit an uncomfortably large minority - spoiling it for the rest. The West Ham - Spurs game, more morons. Investigations have been launched, action already taken, but will all the culprits be caught? The Swansea 'fan' who shouted racist abuse towards Norwich's Sebastien Bassong was apprehended quickly and it is great credit to Swansea and the authorities that the villain was caught and done so speedily, but that was the exception. A large proportion of those who drag football down are not caught.
Finally, let's look at the coin throwing incident at the Etihad on sunday. There is CCTV, which was was being tracked live and can be checked after the event, but the likelihood is that there culprit, and those who through objects at Rooney earlier, will not be caught, and if so they will get a slap on the wrists, a banning order for a couple of seasons at most, and probably sneak in for City's next game.
When Police or stewards move into the crowd they receive abuse and a 'them and us' attitude. However, if the fan(s) they were looking for were affecting their fellow fans rather than just trying to antagonise the opposition, supporters may be more willing to point out the miscreants.
So how about you make the fans stay behind? Tell all the City fans they can't leave for twenty minutes, then those in the relevant blocks have to stay behind an hour until the Police have picked out the people they want. Now suddenly its not the image of this corporate conglomerate that the bad apples are tarnishing, but the day of all their fellow fans. Now you can't go home until that dickhead has been caught, and the next time you see someone throw something or start a racist chant you do something because that guy is going to directly affect your day. It is not the police that fan has to worry about but the hundreds of fans in his block, the thousands in the stadium, and if he goes to games regularly then it will become a very uncomfortable experience for him.
Away fans are often kept behind after European games (for their own safety rather than for punishment) and if it means people miss trains or get home late then so be it. It will just mean they are more likely to act by their volition to root out the trouble makers at our grounds.
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