Talking (as you did) of get out clauses.. Another is to blame the stewards. Unbelievable.

Where in my post did I say the stewards were to blame? What happened was caused entirely by the Widnes morons. Having watched the videos a few times the response of the stewards was shall we say lethargic.

May be the perceived “family game” is the issue then. Stewards taking a nice Sunday wage instead of being prepared for incidents like this. Yes the majority of the blame lies with the Widnes minority but these people are getting paid to protect and contain crowds, for one female steward to be surrounded by a large number of fans is a shambolic.

You do have to question why there's wasn't a larger police presence at the corner of each end at the end of the game to.

Stewards are there to assist the crowd, not stick their body on the line to take a clout from some drunken from Cronton.

Can anyone with experience or training tell us what the stewards are expected to do in this situation?

As far as I am aware they acted in accordance with instructions. I was next door to the safety office and the safety officer, police and management looked calm as the situation was dealt with.

It's basically to ensure that there is a divide between the two supporters in case the Cas fans came on as well so to basically stand in a line to create a physical barrier and let the police get on with their jobs. Obviously this took some time to organise on Sunday because of so many incidents in the South/East Stands happening at the same time. Pretty common scenario on the last day of the football season, though they're generally far more good natured than Sunday's events.

Act swiftly and decisively clamp down hard and fast - throw a few out as an example in a zero policy especially when the sets of fans are renown for causing bother - that's how they used to 'police' United and City games, unfortunately people do not tend to have the same respect for any authority -Police or Stewards- as back in the day, stewards have a rotten job their 'powers' are limited and the Police are too expensive, decisive leadership is required.

Not really helped by Hillsborough

I was at the City v Utd FA cup semi at Wembly a few years ago and the trouble was the worse I've seen for ages and their was a massive police presence, all well trained and use to dealing with trouble.Drunken louts just faced up to them eye to eye and did not give a toss.

Stewards at all stadiums and I've been to a good few are not employed to physically man handle,restrain or whatever idiots out to cause trouble,thats the police job and its only due to their being few incidents of trouble at RL games that we get away with a small police presence on match days.

At the end of last season City employed hundreds of stewards to stop fans going onto the pitch and they failed miserably,luckily they were not after trouble just wanted to get close to the players but this is irrelevant,the club still did not want fans on the pitch.

Enter the field of play illegally in Toronto at the baseball and you run the risk of getting Tasered. Police around the perimeter at all times at all games even though the vast majority are home fans. And this is in a place that's is 50 times safer than Widnes or Leigh! Suffice to say there is never the hint of trouble.

Hillsborough was a tragedy waiting to happen, and things have moved on a lot since then thats why AFTER it, all the top football stadiums were altered drastically over the years and better training was given to all parties involved in 'policing' events, too little too late unfortunately. (and please if your going to quote me have the good manners to put the whole quote in instead of paraphrasing it, it does take the proper meaning of a phrase away)

No point in shutting the door after the horse has bolted and the 'what shudders 'everyone involved with last Sundays scenes must live and learn, unfortunately it means that the 'ordinary' Joe public going to a game not intent on causing any trouble or upset will have to pay the price with more vigorous stewarding at sporting events in future.

Well it was the leading story on Granada Reports " disgusting Scenes" looks like they used the Widnes ladies footage

It does not matter if we insist that all stewards must now run a triathlon every weekend as a minimum requisite, if over 100 drunken louts decide to run amok in unison, rampaging through the stadium the situation would still have occurred.

It has been widely accepted that the stewards were extremely competent in the face of difficult circumstances.

To say they were unfit with most lacking in nous is at best ill thought out and quite frankly disrespectful.

The Watcher recalls that Hillsborough was not caused by hooligans/football violence but by very poor policing by the south Yorkshire force, subsequently made worse by the lying of officers & the attempt to cover up its failings rather than own up to them.