As I said before, the No Irish line originated on the Welsh MB and clearly was an exaggerated interpretation. However, within this discussion there remains the issue of how ordinary football supporters are perceived and how those perceptions feed through to how they are treated.
As wide-eyed supporters of EPL find to their surprise when they go to the mainland for their EPL spectacle, football policing in England can be incredibly intimidating and heavy-handed, because of the legacy there of large-scale mob violence around matches.
There was very little prospect of that here. Every Bohs ticket sold had names and photo ID recorded precisely to avoid trouble. Advance notice of the known idiots likely to cause trouble was sent to Welsh police, who could have stopped them at Holyhead.
More generally, the club, far from ignoring the problem with a tiny proportion of headcases who call themselves Bohs fans, have adopted an
extremely forthright policy towards them, but it cannot be held responsible for wider societal problems and for incidents that occur miles from matches.
I was going to go Rhyl, but I cried off when I heard of police plans, not to close bars, but to herd Bohs fans from the train station to the stadium. My kids, who have been going to Bohs matches for years and have never seen violence, or a hint of it, other than from Pats supporters outside Richmond Park, and a seemingly permanently over-excited garda riot squad, did not deserve to experience that just because they want to watch their team play football.
Play the hoolie-hype game if you want to Dodge, but don't be surprised if you are similarly thinking twice about travelling to support your club some time in the future.
Quote
Originally Posted by SkStu
Bookmarks