Supporters representatives of both West Ham and Chelsea will meet with the Football Unit for the Metropolitan police on Thursday evening ahead of the EFL Cup game on 26th October.
ClaretandHugh Associate editor, Sean Whetstone will be present as a guest of the Football Supporters Federation (FSF) who arranged the meeting to raise fan issues ahead of the London Derby which many fear could end up in violence or similar trouble seen after the Bournemouth and Middlesbrough games at the London Stadium.
ClaretandHugh recently joined the Football Supporters Federation as associate members and will attempt to fairly represent the views of nearly 48,000 supporters registered on our website.
We understand the club will also be sending a supporter representative from the Supporters Advisory Board and similar invites have gone out to Chelsea counterparts.
If you have any points or concerns ahead of the evening cup game which you think should be on the agenda or discussed please leave a comment below or email me in confidence at mrwesthamfootbal@gmail.com or claretandhugh@gmail.com
The 5pm meeting in London for Chelsea and West Ham fans hosted by Met Police will be followed by a wider policing football in London meeting at 6pm attended by fan representatives of all London clubs.
The biggest concern is violence pre during and post match. Would be nice if we had a pleasant surprise and it all went smoothly but with the present stewarding inside the stadium and there unwillingness to make a physical intervention when required, add to that the open nature of the stadium fan segregation will be the challenge especially at half time. At the Boro match I was searched but not thoroughly and if I had a blade or something worse the search would have missed it, that has to be looked at, fans should be thoroughly searched even if that delays entrances in some cases. So in short I hope they have a comprehensive security solution that involves sufficient medical staff in case of large violent outbreaks, other than that try to ensure people take their correct seats so that troublemakers can be more easily identified, obviously that’s not easy but if it could be achieved it would be a step in the right direction.