Rocky's remarks were a bit intemperate, but he's basically in the right here. To begin with, Cork City's fans were (and yes, a majority of them, sad as it is to say) by far the most loutish, ill-behaved and juvenile bunch of tossers we've had visit us this season (but then, that's hardly a surprise to anyone who frequents this board.) Even the knacker kids at Inchicore behave in a more mature fashion. Rovers, for all their repuation as trouble-makers, didn't cause a single problem when we played them.
I think the blame (amongst those in the ground with actively functioning brains, that is) lies primarily with the stewards. I'm not sure who's responsible for stewarding at DCFC games, but if it's Shels, then their failure to provide an appropriate response doesn't surprise me in the least.
Barry Ryan had missiles thrown at him from the New Stand during our last match with Shels and received no protection from the match officials or stewards. In the circumstances, there was absolutely no justification for their failure to remove Cork City fans, many of them evidently under the influence of alcohol, all of them hurling foul-mouthed abuse (grounds for expulsion in any stadium in the country; an over-reaction? My mate was almost thrown out last night for PUTTING HIS FEET ON THE SEAT IN FRONT OF HIM), from the area immediately behind Barry's goal, around two feet from the player himself. This was a clear security risk and should have been addressed immediately (incidentally, I wish the wounded innocents who were at the game would get their story straight; some say Barry found their abuse hillarious, others say he threatened them physically.)
As I left the ground, I was accosted, harrassed and manhandled by a bunch of the grunting Neanderthals who'd been behind the goal, and were hanging around shouting abuse at the DC players as they warmed down (no excuse for that, even the "supporting my team" bullsh*t doesn't cover that kind of gratuitous thuggishness) and looking for trouble. They were very, very lucky that it was me (in a reflective mood) they picked on, because anyone with a less even temperament would have punched their f*cking lights out.
BTW, the match report was written by a journalist who works for a national newspaper and has witnessed crowd behaviour at stadia all over the world. Rocky has been in the LoI for years and has taken all kinds of abuse from fans for years (although he still shouldn't have waded into the crowd, the stewards should have handled that. Had I seen him go in, I would have followed in order to calm him down/back him up.) Scumbags? Maybe not, in the sense that they weren't violent (except, arguably, towards me.) Mouthy pr*cks with a mental age of ten? Definitely.
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