Guest post from a Watford fan at the game on Saturday
Walking up to the ground it was nice to see so many families heading to the ground. West Ham have been given a fantastic opportunity to bring in many more fans than they could before and there is a great possibility of encouraging families and new generations to become West Ham fans.
During the first half from a Watford fan point of view, it was a horrible first 30 minutes and I personally was amazed it wasn’t 4-0 to West Ham as it quite easily could have been.
Strangely, about 15 minutes into the game, a fan in a West Ham away shirt walked straight through the middle of the Watford section completely unopposed by any of the stewards. Then when the second goal went in, a West Ham fan jumped the dividing barrier into the Watford section. He proceded to run across to the other side of the section just so he could celebrate with the West Ham fans there.
The West Ham fans then started goading the Watford fans with comments like “you’re going down” and the typical stuff you would expect opposing fans to say to each other.
Watfords turn around was unexpected and amazing at the same time. It was when the 4th goal went in that the trouble started. A couple of West Ham fans started to climb the bar that separates the sections. My brother pointed this out to a steward and was told to calm down and sit down.
Only a couple of fans came over initially and a few punches were thrown. When it was obvious that Watford fans weren’t going to back down, it encouraged more fans to jump over. My brother got knocked down and has injured his back due to this.
The stewards were slow to react and some even refused to go up to sort out the trouble.
From an outsiders perspective (and perhaps not the full facts) I think one of the biggest problems is that the new stewards aren’t West ham fans and don’t know the club. From what I understand, most of the old stewards have gone. Those are the stewards who know the fans and know how to handle them in times of trouble and to replace them with “event staff” is ludicrous in my opinion.
I think persuading some of the old stewards to come back would be a step in the right direction to try and resolve the issue. I also don’t think it helps that the stadium wasn’t built with football in mind and adequate security improvements have not been made to the ground.
I genuinely hope that the security and safety issues can be resolved and promptly. I think if the club stepped in then it definitely can be. I don’t think the current system could handle fans from Tottenham or Chelsea.
West Ham is a great club and from this Watford fan anyway, I hope the club can keep improving on the pitch and let the football do the talking rather than the fighting in the stands.
He speaks a lot of sense, perhaps you can feed this onto the Dave’s Sean if you haven’t already ?
Fair play to him.He was there in the middle of it all.The stewards from OCS or whoever it is are useless.A bunch of Cabbage Patch dolls would do a better job than those f*ckwits.
Rads that’s doing a disservice to cabbage patch dolls 🙂 There more like an annoying jumped up individual who creates a profile to annoy people on a forum then can’t manage the fallout of there words or actions!!
Lol stop bullying Sh1t n Flush in his absence.Poor little lad.He is busy making a new account so he can come back & tell us all again he has never used the site before 🙂
Keep an eye out for new users called Frey and Bentos, Pot and Noodle or Cometh the fish and Chip moments eh 🙂
Lol yeah he will be back,he is sad enough to return.Barbies Salon will return.
Bloody quiet without Johnboy I know that,poor geezer getting the hook 🙁
Yeah miss his daily dose of madness plus he ain’t turned up at the salon for the last 3 days so I’ve been doing 12 hour days 🙂
We forgot to write OT.We could he in trouble 🙂
Can you imagine us getting drawn against Millwall in a cup game at the Olympic??
If we were drawn against Millwall I really don’t see what difference having stewards who were west Ham fans would make at all. The only difference would be police in the stadium. Having been to the Bridge and Ethiad already this season it was clear the stewards I came across barely knew the ground and were event stewards, as are ours.
When you think about it?? We** ( AND I use this word loosely )** are are our own enemy’?? Go to the match ** enjoy the football ** Thats what you came to see in the first place ??**control your emotions** job done..it’s that simple..no trouble !! End of.