Viva Brighton October 2015 Issue #32

football
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The Albion: behind the scenes
Darren Balkham - Dedicated Football Officer
All the policing of football
matches in Sussex and Surrey
comes through me. But
Brighton & Hove Albion is
my biggest commitment, and
I deal with every home and
away match.
I use the word ‘we’ when I
refer to the Albion. I support
Man United, but I’m a
Brighton bobby, and I work
so closely with the club, I
consider it a team effort.
I’ve been doing this job for
19 years, and in that time
we’ve moved from the ‘village’
of Withdean to the ‘city’
of the Amex, with the average
attendance rising from 7,000 to 26,000.
There are five different categories of match:
‘police free’, ‘spotter only’, and Category A, B and
C. ‘C’ is a high-risk game. Most games are ‘spotter
only’ which means we’ll have four officers on duty
that day, including two from the away team’s area.
We can call more if we need them, but we’ve only
had to do that once in five years.
We have a community-based approach. We’re
policing a habit. People have a routine when they
go to a match. They’ll leave home, go to the same
pub, and then go on to the stadium at the same time
every game. Then they’ll do the same in reverse
afterwards. If you don’t know the habit, you can’t
police it.
Before the match we’ll wander round the
Queens Road/West Street corridor, where most
of the fans congregate before matches. We’ll liaise
with landlords, and speak with fans. It’s all about
tone setting. It’s natural for
fans to do a bit of drinking
and singing before a game,
but it can become inappropriate
and if the landlord
can’t handle it himself – he
usually can – he will call us
for assistance. Often then it’s
about talking to the friends
of the lariest person, asking
them to calm him down.
Or: “Why don’t you make
your next drink a coffee,”
that sort of thing. If you start
upsetting fans, then you have
a problem.
Most away fans come in
twos – father and son and so
on – so if we can help them by taking photos of both
of them with the stadium behind, we will. That’s
what community policing is all about, and it sets the
right mood.
There are two main reasons why people
complain about policing: either if we are too
heavy-handed, or if we don’t keep people informed
of what’s happening.
I find that, even if fans don’t necessarily agree
with one of our policies, as long as it has been
explained to them, they accept it. Here’s an example:
we decided it was best to hold back the Crystal Palace
fans for 20 minutes after the game, the last time
they played. It wasn’t popular, but the fan groups
were told about it beforehand, so everyone knew
what to expect and it meant that everyone could
get straight on the train without waiting. It worked,
there was no trouble, and everyone was happy.
As told to Alex Leith
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