I don’t think we will necessarily turn into a Rushden type club/atmosphere. Once this sorts itself out a bit it’ll alleviate a number of problems. With so many fans and stewards in such a small space there would obviously be much more points of contact that say if the GRE was open. You’d probably barely see or talk to a steward if we were spread out across the GRE.
I must say though. I’m slightly surprised that a few of us haven’t recognised that yesterday was an almighty box ticking exercise to show TBC that it could all be stewarded effectively in order to open up further capacity for the Bromley game though? We shouldn’t really be complaining that there’s no space (find some) or have to be moved 4 times. As excruciating and as frustrating as it is, it was just a hoop we needed to jump through and we needed to help the steward.
I didn’t see the incidents described so I’ll leave it there but essentially guys, right now, we can’t be giving the stewards an opportunity to manage a situation badly or to give TBC anything else to think about or decision to make (they’ll make a bad decision!). Did we really need someone to go in the Golf Rod ffs?
We sort of have to remember that a new stewarding group has been brought in because the previous one was deemed by TBC to not be counting people/not moving people from areas they shouldn’t have been. Obviously, they’re going to do that. We just need to suck it up for a game guys. Hopefully Nigel can feedback to them though.
One thing that has been raised is that, given the specific situation we’re in, we need some specific communication to allow us to realise what is happening and why.
As an example, the standing at the front at pitch side barriers (or not standing there now to be precise). At the AGM on Friday in aob Lawrence Looney and Neil Faulkner explained (and I think if I’m not quoting verbatim then I’m certainly paraphrasing with a large degree of confidence) that this is a new directive that for people to stand there the barriers have to be tested as crush barriers. They need strengthening to do so..
Now, football clubs are going to be checked on this when inspected but it’s not an immediate thing. However, because some absolute C**t (my phrase, not from LL or NF that one 😂) has grassed us up to the council, that has been noted by them and applied.
I queried whether the issue was the walkways by the barriers were uneven/trip hazards. It’s not. It’s the strengthening reason. This can be done but the cost factor involved isn’t appropriate right now. What is costing us more money is the reduced capacity. That is our priority to get it back up and then the strengthening can be looked at in the overall scheme of things.
That sort of information would show people clearly just why they are being asked to move away (if they couldn’t work it out themselves) and would probably help both them and the stewards going forward so maybe that’s the level of communication we need right now.