More trouble at the London Stadium

Trouble at London Stadium has been widely reported in the main stream media this evening with West Ham getting the brunt of the accusations for their behaviour.

Troubles flared when Middlesborough scored on 51 minutes when many of the away supporters had not returned from the bar at half time, over one hundred fans came running back when they heard their fellow supporters cheer. Many of these supporters bought bottles of beer into the lower away stands with them.

Two Middlesborough supporters jumped onto the tarpaulin which covers the gaps and refused to come off despite pleas from stewards. There was a lot of goading between the two sets of fans before the first plastic bottle was thrown, I don’t know who threw first bottle but both sets of fans were throwing plastic beer bottles, some of them still contained beer but no tops.

You have to ask why so many beer bottles got into the stands on both sides and the stewards should have been stopping any beer bottles entered the seating area. Unfortunately other missiles included some coins and an empty mini glass alcohol bottle.

Response teams entered the away lower tier with one response steward filming West Ham fans, many Boro fans were very angry at being drenched with beer and had to be physically restrained by stewards. Police turned up about 15 minutes later but it had calmed down by then and they quickly retreated to the concourse.

All calmed down again in the second half until the end of the game, instead of keeping the away fans behind the stewards and police escorted the away fans out from the Stadium shortly after full time and instead blocked off the exit for many West Ham fans including myself from making our way back to Stratford.

From above the players car park we witnessed a number of incidents outside the stadium close to the car park which involved Boro and West Ham fans despite a heavy police escort. Dimitri Payet was waiting in a chauffeur driven Silver Mercedes to leave but couldn’t depart because of the trouble.

Police intelligence given to stewards before the game warned many of the Middlesborough away fans would drink heavily and that a significant number of high risk away supporters were likely to attend.

I am not condoning any poor behaviour from a minority of West Ham fans but please don’t tar us all with the same brush in the media. The bottle throwing and fights probably involved less than 40 fans from a West Ham crowd of 54,000 today and the vast majority fans of both sides took no part in this trouble.

The club has since released this statement. A West Ham United spokesperson said: “West Ham United will investigate incidents involving both sets of supporters outside London Stadium after today’s 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough.Metropolitan Police have confirmed that two men were arrested on suspicion of affray and the third was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer. All three currently remain in custody pending further enquires.

“This behaviour has no place in football and West Ham United, with cooperation from all London Stadium stakeholders, including the police, Stadium Landlords E20 and Stadium Operators LS185, will continue to operate a zero tolerance policy on such incidents.We must stress that the vast majority of the more than 400,000 supporters who have attended a game at the Stadium since August have behaved impeccably, and we will not let the acts of mindless individuals tarnish their reputation.”