Football Fans Not Criminals

Football Fans Not Criminals

New policing bill: Criminalising traditional fan behaviour?

(A guest post by Amanda Jacks, caseworker at the Football Supporters’ Association). A few years ago, a group of supporters got in touch. Could I help arrange a celebratory walk from their local pub to the stadium to mark their historic promotion? Of course I would, it’ll be a piece of cake. How wrong was I! Suffice to say I had to seek legal advice from a specialist solicitor and assist the supporters in a fair bit of negotiation with the local police (who seemed determined to make this as difficult as possible) to ensure their plans came to fruition. Among the…

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The misuse of dispersal powers against football fans

(Guest blog post by Peter Lloyd). The police have been in trouble before for blocking ‘away’ football fans who are simply going to a match to support their team. In 2010 Greater Manchester Police paid £200,000 to around 80 Stoke City supporters who were incorrectly prevented from going to a game in Manchester and falsely imprisoned by containment, and then escorted out of the city and back to Stoke. Rules were supposedly changed to prevent this happening again but it looks like the problem has not gone away. Three years ago Wrexham fans successfully sued Humberside Police in a similar case. So furious…

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The End of ‘Bubble Matches’ – Possibly

We may have witnessed the last ‘Bubble’ match in British football, and if so, not before time. There was just one in 2017, the 23 August derby between Blackburn Rovers and Burnley. The Manifesto Club has had a campaign to end this iniquitous system of policing football fans for five years since our initial report in April 2012, ‘Criminalising Football Fans: The Case Against Bubble Matches’. Football fans travelling to away matches under bubble conditions have had severe restrictions placed upon their method of travel, and the time they would have to go to the football ground and leave it. Fans could…

Football Fans Not Criminals • Take action!

Football Fans Not Criminals

The Manifesto Club is supporting a new campaign, Football Fans Not Criminals, highlighting the ways in which ordinary law-abiding football fans are being treated like criminals. For merely attending a match and supporting their team, fans are subject to a series of special controls and restrictions which do not apply to supporters of other sports. There are 11 laws which apply only to football fans, creating offences which would not be an offence in a rugby or cricket stadium. It is an offence to carry alcohol into a football stadium, to drink in view of the pitch, to sell or give away tickets,…

Football Fans Not Criminals

The latest on travel-restricting ‘bubble’ matches

A guest post by Peter Lloyd: There has been some welcome reduction in the number of football matches subject to the draconian restrictions on freedom of movement that make them ‘bubble’ matches, as their discriminatory approach and blatant unfairness have become better known and objected to by clubs and fans alike. But already this season supporters of Burnley, Bristol City and Wrexham have been forced to travel on official coaches and severely restricted if they wanted to watch their team play at Blackburn, Cardiff and Chester respectively. Match kick-off times have been moved, pat-down searches carried out, roads closed and fans filmed by…

Briefings • Football Fans Not Criminals

Defending freedom for football supporters

On 30 October, the Manifesto Club partnered the FSF and the Battle of Ideas to host a meeting about the regulation of football fans. Here is a post by Peter Lloyd, author of the Manifesto Club’s report ‘Criminalising Football Fans – The case Against ‘Bubble Matches’, summarising some conclusions from the meeting. In the wake of the 30 October debate, we should seek: A recognition that football is overwhelmingly a force for good with generally well behaved fans, and with grounds and surrounding areas extremely safe compared to other urban environments; A change from seeing all football fans primarily as a problem…

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Wrexham fans fight back against ‘bubble matches’

A guest post by Peter Lloyd, author of the Manifesto Club report on ‘bubble matches’. The football ‘bubble match’ phenomenon may be fading, thanks to increased opposition from supporters and with some major clubs, notably Newcastle United, Sunderland and Hull City, siding with their supporters to overturn the imposition of bubble conditions. This has been reinforced through greater awareness of bubble matches in the mainstream press. ‘Bubble matches’ take freedom of movement and freedom of choice away from law-abiding citizens who are football supporters, travelling to some away matches. The fans are forced to travel on designated coaches from a designated starting…

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‘Yid Army’ charges should never have been brought

It is good news that charges have been dropped against three Tottenham fans for using the word ‘Yid’. But why was such a case brought in the first place? It was last September that the FA put out a statement warning Spurs fans that their ‘Yid Army’ chants are likely ‘to be considered offensive by the reasonable observer. Use of the term in a public setting could amount to a criminal offence and leave fans liable to prosecution’. Tottenham fans had also been told to ‘drop the Y-word from their songbook’ by lobby groups such as the Community Security Trust and the…

Briefings • Football Fans Not Criminals

57 travel-restricting ‘bubble’ football matches

In the Manifesto Club report, Criminalising Football Fans, Peter Lloyd documented the heavy-handed use of travel restrictions for football fans, known as ‘bubble matches’. At these matches away-fans are banned from travelling by car or public transport, and can only travel by licensed coaches from specified pick-up points. This is a major inconvenience, and gross interference on the freedom of movement of the majority of law-abiding fans. In April 2012, Peter Lloyd found that there had been 48 ‘bubble’ matches. He now reports there have been seven ‘bubble’ matches since the publication of the report, and two matches are scheduled in the…

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Portsmouth v Southampton – Another ‘bubble’ football match

A follow up post from Manifesto Club member, Peter Lloyd, on the phenomenon of ‘bubble football matches’ (where away fans are banned from travelling to a match under their own steam, and must instead take approved coaches at defined pickup places and times)… If you are a Portsmouth Football Club supporter you will probably be aware that you will only be able to see your team play on 7th April at local rivals Southampton if you travel by designated coach from a designated pick up point at a designated time to a designated drop off point. That’s because the fixture is a…