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…

Here is a post from Peter Lloyd, Manifesto Club member and football supporter, on the new phenomenon of ‘bubble matches’ – a ban on fans’ independent travel which amounts to a gross intrusion on freedom of movement… I am a close follower of football and a regular attendee at professional football matches. I have experienced being body searched as an “away” fan at a number of grounds including Brighton and Birmingham, the latter just a few weeks ago. This is an intrusive, excessive, disproportionate and unjustified interference with ordinary people going to a football match. Incidents which could be considered dangerous at…

Guest post from Dr Stuart Waiton, Lecturer at the University of Abertay Dundee and co-founder of Take a Liberty (Scotland) ‘No one should be subjected to intolerance, prejudice or violence in 21st Century Scotland’. So reads the Scottish Executive website discussing Banning Orders, introduced in 2006, orders that can ban abusive or bigoted fans from attending any football game anywhere in the world for up to ten years. Ironically, as the authoritarian discussion about how to rid Scotland of sectarianism rumbles on it appears that the Scottish Government are illustrating their own far more worrying form of intolerance, prejudice and violence. Tolerance,…