The most significant of these conditions was that all Hull fans
buying a ticket for the match would at the same time be obliged to
purchase official coach travel from Hull. All travel to the match for
Hull fans would have to start and finish in Hull. A fan living in
West Yorkshire, or London, or wherever, would be obliged to make his
way to Hull first in order to go to Huddersfield. The reaction of
fans was furious, with one fifteen year old Hull fan living in
Manchester attempting to force a judicial review. As a compromise
police eventually agreed that fans that didn't wish to travel from
Hull could make their own way to a rendezvous at a motorway service
station near the Huddersfield stadium and use police-escorted buses.
Many Hull fans stayed away, while others protested outside the ground
before the match.
RedsAway,
a website about away matches for Manchester United fans, used the
Freedom of Information Act to request copies of all police
correspondence relating to the match. The emails
reveal a police decision making process that was haphazard and rested
on little evidential basis. West Yorkshire Police seemingly gave no
consideration to the rights of thousands of fans to enjoy going to a
football match in a manner of their own choosing, instead making
their policing decisions solely on the basis of perceived
(exaggerated) risk, and on the extra cost to the public purse of
letting Hull fans travel the way they pleased.
In
the face of criticism when the restrictions were originally
announced, police tried to deflect the anger, saying that policing
plans were the result of negotiation and agreement between all
parties. But the emails reveal that the police went into meetings
prepared to concede very little ground. As the clubs were under
pressure from the Football League to ensure the game went ahead and
was televised, they were in a weak negotiating position – something
of which the police were aware. “The club were clearly under a lot
of pressure from the FA [sic] to get the game on and I have made it
clear there will be no further negotiation from ourselves,” Chief
Superintendent Tim Kingsman wrote on 5th
February. In reply he received a laddish pat on the back from the
Assistant Chief Constable: “Gents. Well played, keep me in the loop
re: developments.”
Police were unprepared for the scale and volume of fans' anger. They
have become so used to pushing people around that it never occurred
to them that fans would object to having their movements determined
and supervised for around seven hours in order that they could watch
a game of football lasting ninety minutes – in a fixture which
hadn't seen any trouble for over a decade. When Hull City objected,
Kingsman said he was happy to attend a meeting to explain his
rationale, but only in the context where it was understood that there
was “no further room for compromise.”
Ahead of follow up meetings with the clubs, Superintendent Ged
McManus asked a junior officer to trawl through police databases to
find some intelligence with which to retrospectively justify the
purported high risk of the fixture. Research was also done through
'open source' channels, i.e. the internet. A police officer, paid by
taxpayers whose money the WYP were so anxious to protect, was paid to
read internet forums, Twitter and Facebook, and to trawl through
Youtube videos trying to find evidence of Hull fans behaving badly.
Pressure grew, particularly after a BBC interview following which the
police's PR division whinged in an email that McManus had been
“ambushed,” by being forced to answer tough questions. One fan
emailed to ask, pertinently, “on what legal basis you can prevent me travelling
lawfully in my legal vehicle to a place of my choosing?” Police
were gradually realising what a stupid decision they had made. At
least, some of them were: Deputy Chief Constable Jawaid Akhtar
praised a Yorkshire Post editorial because it laid the blame on fans
for bringing the restrictions on themselves.
A police solicitor had a clearer idea of the reality, a reality which might be further exposed once the Police and Crime Commissioner's investigation into the decision has run its course. “We have an
area of weakness,” he or she wrote, “which is the Leeds v Derby
game where we have agreed to kick off at 5.30pm on Bank Holiday
Monday with no restrictions... Leeds have a far worse record for disorder than either Hull or Huddersfield and there is evidence of recent disorder between Leeds and Derby... There is a risk that a Court would find
that we have acted irrationally.”
