Quote: The All New Chester Wire "It's a certain sort of "fan".
I get annoyed when the so-called boozed up teenagers get blamed when more often than not it's a bunch of head the balls reliving their youth (or pretenning they were some sort of hooligan in the 70s). Complete idiots.'"
I've experienced this recently at both the Wigan and St Helens matches.
To see 'grown' men behaving in the fashion they do is both terribly embarrassing and, frankly, rather worrying. The tip of the pathetic iceberg was a fat bloke in a Barry Grant (1980's soap character for all the youngsters out there) tracksuit with his arms outstretched screaming "come on then" in a Monty Pythonesque general direction from the safety of 30 metres.
Yes, every club may have a similar element, it's a social thing not a rugby thing, I shouldn't be such a mard@rse, etc, etc, but all of those trivial generalisations shouldn't be used as a cliched excuse to what's becoming an ever-increasing problem.
There's no way my wife and step-daughter would ever go in the South Stand again after their experience and that in itself should be a clear signal of how poorly some spectators (I use the word loosely as I bet most can't remember the scorers at the final hooter as they're too busy keeping count of how much ale they've managed to drink/throw) behave.
Is the Halliwell Jones covered by CCTV? If so, why isn't anything being done about it to pick out and ban the clowns?
One final note about the Catalans incident. I watched from the other side of the stadium but to the gentleman who was pointing out one of the culprits to a steward I salute you.
Does anyone else worry about what it will be like should we lose at Wembley?