Rob Gough, complained to South Wales Police over policing i

A Cardiff City fan complained about the way the police handled fans in Sloper Road after the derby with Bristol City. Read the police's response.

Rob Gough, complained to South Wales Police over policing in Sloper Road after the derby against Bristol City last November.

A fan for 70 years, he was troubled by the way police handled the situation which he felt was excessive and not proportionate.

Below is the response from South Wales Police to his complaint.

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Why say time and then make it longer when they knew how many would travel by train ages before game? They were more concerned with their reputation than how city fans were going to get to trains or cars ? Why not do it other way round and keep bristol fans in I'm sure BR would accommodate SWP request for train to be available for their fans after all had months to plan as plod stated in response.

What reputation Al.. dancing with oil protesters or wearing Rainbow underpants?

What reputation Al.. dancing with oil protesters or wearing Rainbow underpants?

Reputation for being useless at handling a crowd of more than 2 people!

First of all, fair play to them for giving a detailed response to fans who complained. Would be easy for them to put out a one-line reply.

Having said that, I disagree with their defence of the restrictions they felt they had to impose on Sloper Road.

They say both Cardiff City and Bristol City rejected their wish for there to be an RV for away fans, I’m glad they did. Fans don’t need to be treated like that when the chance of serious trouble is very low. It’s bad enough we still have Swansea as a bubble fixture.

I also disagree that this game is “high risk” for disorder. Maybe in years gone by, but not now. I saw plenty of Bristol fans in town before the game, there seemed to be limited disorder there. You will always get a few isolated incidents but that shouldn’t mean there should be lengthy delays for the majority of supporters, especially home supporters.

They had this game at 3pm on a Saturday. If they were that concerned, they could have moved it to a lunchtime kick off like the Bristol police have for our away game there. They chose not to, so the question has to be ask why not if this game was so “high risk”?

My final point would be that I’ve been away with City and at certain grounds we’ve been kept in the away end for a certain amount of time after the game has finished while the home fans left the area. Why was that not done instead?


So I’ll say credit to them for their response, but I can’t agree with what they’ve said.