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Heavy police presence for Chelsea game – details

pay-policing-outside-west-hamThe Metropolitan police will deploy more officers outside the stadium for the West Ham v Chelsea game EFL cup game than were used for the mach against Millwall in 2009.

ClaretandHugh’s associate editor, Sean Whetstone attended a Met police football unit meeting in Lambeth on last night (Thurs) alongside Amanda Jacks from the Football Supporters’ Federation, two members of the Chelsea supporters’ Trust, and West Ham’s Supporters Advisory Board (SAB) members  and West Ham’s Supporters Liaison Officer (SLO).

police2The high risk category C match will have significant  resources deployed to prevent any breach of the peace or unsocial behaviour.

The police will be under overall control of a gold commander but there will be a silver commander and four bronze commanders deployed for this London derby.

Each bronze commander will have four Police Support Units (PSU) under their command with a total of several hundred police officers deployed outside the stadium within the park and anywhere fans gather in numbers.

Mounted police, police dogs and the police helicopter will also be available for this match.

awayAlthough three police officers will be deployed in the London Stadium control room, the police do not intend and have not been asked to locate  officers within the London stadium in any significant numbers.

We were told that the Airwave radio issues would not prevent them from entering the stadium if called upon but it was made very clear that away fan segregation within the stadium was a job for the stadium operators and the stewards rather the police.

The police commander admitted during the meeting that they have the right  to turn down requests to provide officers in a stadium if they do not believe it is necessary.

police3However they explained that they were working closely with operators London Stadium 185 and stewards and would provide a proportionate police service.

The police confirmed London Stadium had 1,070 stewards deployed at the Middlesborough game last weekend and that number could increase for the Chelsea cup game.

Chelsea away fans will not be held back by default after the game and the police say they would prefer not to create away fan escorts which sometimes causes more problems than it solves.

The police reiterated that the London stadium has an excellent HD CCTV system in place across the whole stadium and the Olympic park area. They say they could easily read the text on a newspaper held by a supporter in their seat and warned anyone involved in incidents would be identified and dealt with appropriately.

 

About Sean Whetstone

I am Season Ticket Holder in West stand lower at the London Stadium and before that, I used to stand in the Sir Trevor Brooking Lower Row R seat 159 in the Boleyn Ground and in the Eighties I stood on the terraces of the old South Bank. I am a presenter on the West Ham Podcast called MooreThanJustaPodcast.co.uk. A Blogger on WestHamTillIdie.com a member of the West Ham Supporters Advisory Board (SAB), Founder of a Youtube channel called Mr West Ham Football at http://www.youtube.com/MrWestHamFootball, I am also the associate editor here at Claret and Hugh. Life Long singer of bubbles! Come on you Irons! Follow me at @Westhamfootball on twitter

One comment on “Heavy police presence for Chelsea game – details

  1. LS185 could have 50000 stewards deployed and it wouldn’t change anything all they do is stand and watch, a vocal deterrent won’t be effective against fans determined to fight. I blame Scudamore and the FAPL for all of this, they should finance policing inside and outside of Stadiums for all PL games and a fund should also be set aside for cup games by whomever is responsible for each cup, these fees can be paid retrospectively at the end of each season. The money is less than peanuts compared to what they are paying the clubs. These Police are putting themselves in harms way, although I am critical of the Stewards lack of intervention, if I was a steward that had no affinity to West Ham and was being paid next to nothing why should I be expected to risk personal harm to resolve physical interventions ? For me that is the difference between UP and the OS, when the stewards are also fans they can a) relate to other fans, b) not want hooligans to bring the name of the club and other fans into disrepute so have a vested interest to root out the hooligans. This stadium wasn’t built for football and the sooner LS185 realise that and address the stewarding issue, preferably by putting whoever was head of stewarding at UP in charge and getting more West Ham supporters stewarding the better. Probably like most of you, I doubt this will ever happen because in the corporate world the stewards are just numbers on a payroll…

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