Segregation. That's what it needs.....

Agreed. It's like the nightclub door policy of the late 1990s. Well presented chap in jeans, ''not tonight''. Scruffy looking hooligan in trousers, ''in you come''.

I think segregation just leads to a football mentality. We are a rugby club and as a sport pride ourselves on our long history of fans of both sides standing together. I think the initial installation of segregation was for all the right reasons however it just lead to a concentration of the less desirable supporters of our club banding together where previously they were only pockets around the ground.
With our emphasis on the north stand this has just resulted in the trouble makers from other clubs seeing it as the area that they cause the maximum annoyance.

This ^

It's an interesting phenomenon that one; what kind of mindset does it take, to make you deliberately stand in the middle of the most concentrated group of home fans, then spend the whole game deliberately winding them up, or getting yourself wound? I can never work out of it's some kind of masochistic desire to get ted, or something else. Either way - there's always one.

Alpha males. They may as just well urinate on the floor to mark their territory.

Its also worth considering that a large number of fans like watching the game from behind the try line, and at BV that can only be done from one end of the ground.
Trouble causers as we have seen at BV before will cause trouble from anywhere in the ground not just the north stand.
Personally I'm against segregation, but i am also against my enjoyment of the game being spoiled by a fekless oik.
I also think that BV benefits from a mass of home supporters making a bit of a racket from under the roof of the north stand.
So all in all its a difficult one...when you can't even agree with yourself.

I would rather see the north stand revert to home supporters only. The rest of the ground could then still be completely unsegregated, similar to the headingley south stand.

I have already seen a fair few occasions this season where things have looked like bubbling over into trouble. As has been said earlier the north stand now attracts the more (usually young lads) boisterous element of the away support.

I am afraid I think it is only a matter of time before we have an incident .

The redevelopment of BV can’t come soon enough (notwithstanding NM still being an option according to MC). A nice full length touch line covered Western terrace for the home support, a new grand stand if funding permits with hospitality boxes and two smaller seated stands at either end. It should certainly reduce some of the unpleasant confrontations that have started creeping into the stadium.

I'm with you Caveman...we stand in the lower part of the North Stand to the right hand side and when we walked in last week we were surprised to see how many Whino's fans were in the North stand. As someone has already said, we wouldn't be allowed to go in the South stand at Sheddingley (even if we did want to), so IMHO the stewards should be directing all away fans to enter via the Western turnstiles and then remain on the Western terrace. It came as no surprise to see some of the Whino's fans being escorted from the North Stand when tempers inevitably did start to boil over. It is only a matter of time before it kicks off in there, and then there will be some serious questions asked.

For me, it's not about safety, or "trouble", or hooliganism, it's about being able to generate an atmosphere where we can lift our team and actually feel at home.

We used to get more atmosphere at away games, simply because we ended up together.

Having well supported team's fans in the Northstand with us, just hands away some of our potential advantage.

The non-segregation was the main reason I decided to go in the Fox's Members bar...not nearly as much fan as tyhe Northstand in full voice.

Must admit I much preferred it as segregated.

well said.

but fans can stand together behind the sticks at headingley, where we would not want to go in south stand anyway. equally at odsal fans mix no problem.

Drunken abusive behaviour needs reporting at the time to the stewards whether in person or via a text alert system. They can then have the opportunity to deal with it and expel those from the ground.