Security at Stadia

By Peter Houghton, Director of Operations at Football Safety Officers Association.

With the spectre of Protect Duty starting to loom large on the back of the Manchester Arena inquiry, we can be forgiven for thinking that our roles have moved considerably from the days of protecting ourselves against the destruction caused by fire and the problems generally caused by crowd disorder, to a fear of the unknown. To an enemy that is so difficult for us to plan against.

I start to write this on the 37th anniversary of the fire that ravaged Valley Parade in Bradford on 11th May 1985 in which 56 Bradford City fans never came home. I also write against the background of 2 further events which took place over the last couple of weeks, both of which presented us with a stark reminder as to how come safety officers arrived in this consistently challenging industry.

First of all, there was the terrible incident on Mount Meron in Israel, where a huge number of local people were enjoying a religious celebration, before finding themselves channelled into a narrow passage resulting in 45 deaths and 150 casualties. This had some similarities to the Love Parade disaster in Duisburg in 2010.

Secondly, on 2nd May, there was a problem at Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium, when a “peaceful protest” turned a little sour as some individuals gained access to the stadium itself and generated enough issues for their match against fierce rivals, Liverpool, to be postponed. Our colleagues at the nation’s biggest club football stadium will have been forced to carry out a tough and thorough investigation as to how their “behind closed doors” operation was compromised.

Although there had been talk around the fans of the 6 clubs originally destined for the European Super League about protests, I don’t think anything on a scale that involved effectively breaking into a stadium and one already secured to combat the covid protocols could have been anticipated. There is no real “previous” on this type of occurrence in the football industry.

This meant that the much-awaited clash of the North West Titans, Manchester United and Liverpool was forcibly postponed and rescheduled for 13th May, causing United to play 3 matches in 5 days, two of which were at home and, therefore, a rapid review of all things safety and security was paramount.

In addition, it gave all the other clubs associated with the European Super League a sneak preview of what might happen at their stadium and an advance opportunity to review their own safety and security operations.

As the drones circled above and around Old Trafford ahead of their match against Leicester City on Tuesday 11th May, we could see immediately the results of the planning their safety team considered they needed to put in place as a deterrent to fans repeating the earlier experience. Fencelines had been built along the Sir Matt Busby Way end of the stadium to deny access to the Munich Tunnel and what proved to be a vulnerable point of entry ahead of the Liverpool match. There was a greater presence of police officers and safety and security staff designed to protect the stadium building itself

That my colleagues at Old Trafford ordered an immediate review of procedures, gathered the facts about the incident, sought additional safety and security advice wouldn’t have arrived as a surprise, because, after all, that is what safety officers and their teams do more or less on a match-by-match basis. While I accept it is not often on such a grand scale, every week our matches throw us a different challenge and every week safety officers devise ways and means of improving the fan experience without compromising their security plans. Safety officers are a very resilient and robust species with a can-do attitude to their work, using their strengths and experience to ensure that football matches go ahead as planned. United had more or less only 10 days to implement solutions to the challenge the fan protest had introduced and the positive results were visible for all to see during the television coverage.

This time the match went ahead and passed without incident.

However, following on from that, we could see that when the United v Liverpool re-match took place there were once again large numbers of protesters approaching the forecourts of Old Trafford, but this time there was a large police and security presence along a fenceline denying them access to the stadium fabric. It looked as though they sang their songs and set off pyros and fireworks, but most of the supporters left the stadium ahead of the match so they could go and watch it somewhere.

There was an incident close to the Liverpool FC chosen hotel where a decoy team coach had to be used as their branded vehicle was blocked off in a street amid rumours that its tyres had been deflated.

All of this was taken in hand and the match finally passed off without further incident.

This now leads us on to the final home match of Manchester United’s season which was due to take place on Tuesday 18 May at 1800hrs. This time the dynamics had changed a little as in line with the Government’s roadmap out of lockdown United were allowed to have 10000 spectators on-site and inside the stadium for their last home match of the season. The key concerns revolved around safety and security inside the stadium especially the protection of the field of play.

Although supporters paraded the green and gold retro scarves and jerseys there were no unexpected reported incidents which lends itself to the fact that protests outside a stadium are pretty much free-to-attend, where some of the attendees are not necessarily fans of a club, but just mischievous individuals attaching themselves to a protest.

Once inside a stadium, it’s a different story. A club effectively knows precisely who is attending and everything they need to know to identify them. CCTV images will back almost everything up and it, therefore, makes the penalty process much simpler to administer. Not many fans of a football club would wish to have their season card revoked and their attendance at their stadium disallowed.

So, there was a learning from the original incident. There were the usual meetings and strategy discussions with the Safety Advisory Group, Security Personnel and Greater Manchester Police. A strategic plan was put in place And, it worked. A huge positive from the Safety Team and the general feedback received by the FSOA from different agencies was again hugely positive.

The final 2 rounds of matches of the 2020-21 season mainly formed part of the science-testing as football tries to emerge from behind-closed-doors and back into the real world. The learning and reporting have all been positive. There were a number of challenges presented to our Safety Officers, some of which they had never encountered before, but in the main, supporters observed social distancing, although at times and at some grounds this was difficult on the concourses at half-time.

The general feeling was that supporters were glad to be back and the levels of compliance were almost unrecognisable as the fans themselves played their part in ensuring that the roadmap heads in a positive direction. Add to that the results of the Wembley matches where there were no reported new cases of Covid, football is in an excellent place to move forward to full capacities at the earliest opportunity, which will be of great pleasure to the competition providers…and indeed Football Safety Officers!