Last year, I attended a friendly between Brazil & Ghana held at Craven Cottage and found myself caught up in a crush outside the ground. The official response from Fulham Football Club (and unofficial responses I personally received on Twitter from Sarah Brookes, Fulham's Director of Communications) prompted me to write the below open letter to her and the club. After seeing this incident mentioned in light of today's developments as an indication that lessons haven't been learned, I thought I'd repost.
My questions were never answered.
My experience
My experience of Monday night is in line with a number of blogs that I've read on the subject as well as the comments underneath yesterday's Evening Standard piece, and is entirely inconsistent with the official statements and emails emanating from Fulham FC. My two flatmates and I arrived at 7.15pm, having booked the tickets online the previous day for collection. At this point, your assertion in the public statements I've seen of people congregating and 'partying' in the streets is valid. This, however, is typical of any football match 30 minutes prior to kick off, and is entirely separate to the problems that subsequently followed. We found the ticket collection booths and joined the back of the relevant queue for us (separated into A-L and M-Z for each booth), our hearts sinking as we saw the two 'queues' stretching across the road in a disorganised fashion. At the time we began queueing, it was already busy, but there was still a semblance of order being maintained by the people forming the queues (the separate lines were still just about discernible, with space down the middle for people to exit). There were no stewards or police present at the ticket collection booths to organise this, direct people, or hold people back.
As the minutes progressed, it became clear that the lines of people were hardly moving, and with numbers of people trying to collect tickets increasing at a rate far greater than tickets were being distributed, the area of queueing was becoming more and more congested and ill-defined. Those who were arriving to pick up tickets began to join the throng from the side (for two reasons; firstly, simply a result of location – there are walls of houses/gardens opposite the ground which meant space to join the back of the queue was of a premium; secondly, there was clearly an element of people not wanting to miss the kick-off). Before we knew it, we were in the middle of a crush that was becoming more and more worrying. The three of us who were attending together quickly got separated, there were occasions when I was not standing on any solid ground, and I was being kept upright solely by virtue of the close proximity of others. I was next to a gentleman with a young son, whose head was firmly pressed between his father and the individual in front of him, and it became very evident that for those of us in the middle, there was no way of getting out.
With kick off time approaching, I was fully expecting to hear an announcement stating that kick off would be delayed. I believed this would have been the most effective way in reducing the problems, given that people's desperation not to miss any of the match was only serving to make the situation more fraught. Instead, there was no announcement (nor still any sign of police or stewards), and a few minutes later, a roar from inside the ground confirmed that the match had indeed kicked off as normal, exacerbating an already serious crowd scene outside. My arms were now contorted around people next to me, and I was becomingly increasingly agitated that any surges (as had been occurring) would have the potential to break it. According to the official statement, loudspeakers were employed to encourage people to enter the ground, but from my vantage point I heard no announcements. Conversely, the complete lack of any communication from the club was a point of contention for me and the others I found myself pressed up against.
All calls for calm and attempts to manage the crowding were coming from individuals within the crowd itself, and generally those who were in the company of young children or dependent others. On the whole, I firmly believe that it was only through the sensible attitude of those who were within the overcrowding that a more serious eventuality was avoided. Apart from a couple of minor skirmishes and arguments, the general attitude was that of “we are all in the same boat and we can't do much about it, so let's try and remain calm until action is taken.” By approximately 8.05pm, an announcement was made to the crowd that anyone with a printed receipt would now be allowed access to the ground with that alone, and no longer had to collect the tickets it detailed. This, however, once again came from a member of the public who had just picked his up, and thus confusion reigned on the veracity of this statement, given that absolutely no announcement had come from an official within the club. This did serve to ease the crowding to an extent from around the outside of the crush from what I could see, but it wasn't until 8.20pm that I was able to move of my own will from my position in the middle, after the Police finally moved in - nearly an hour after the situation reached a level of potential danger. From a personal perspective, I managed to get out with nothing more than a bruised arm and a very tight chest (lasting approximately 36 hours), but at the height of the overcrowding I was fearing far worse.
Throughout the entire experience, there was not one announcement made to the crowd from any officials, no police intervention until 8.20pm, and the only stewards I saw were trying to help a girl out who had fainted towards the front of the queue. Once in the ground (Over 35 minutes into the game), I found my way to my seat, discovering it was already occupied – again, this is consistent with other people's accounts of their night at Craven Cottage.
My questions
There are a number of questions that I believe need answering on an organisational level as to why the problems outside the ground escalated as they did. Why were no stewards present at the ticket collection booths? Even if Fulham weren't expecting the crowd numbers that eventually turned up (something that a blog commenter here would appear to dispute), why was it not communicated effectively to police and/or stewards that there was a potential safety concern occurring that required intervention? Is there a reason why kick off was not delayed? A number of recent games have seen delays/postponements due to safety concerns outside the ground rather than issues within (last years snow fall causing treacherous travel conditions are an example), so could this decision not have been taken to pacify the increasing desperation of fans not wanting to miss kick-off outside?
I would also like to know if there are any figures available detailing how many tickets had been ordered for collection from the ticket office, how many staff were employed in each ticket collection booth, as well as how many stewards were deployed on Stevenage Road on the night. My assertion on twitter that there were 6-8 (3-4 per hut) was dismissed as “absolute rubbish” by yourself, yet that is what I witnessed, and is corroborated by my flatmate who managed to get to the front of the queue as well as all the individuals who have tweeted/blogged on the subject. For all the posturing and finger-pointing of the official statements and subsequent blog/comment responses, I believe that these figures will paint a true picture of the nature of the problems that occurred outside the ground. Also, was it the responsibility of Fulham FC to pay for the policing and stewarding of Monday's match?
I was motivated to pursue this email as a result of the official statement released through the Evening Standard, as well as the comments made by the club in Paul Doyle's Guardian article. I have attended many football matches throughout my life, both home and away as a fan of Liverpool FC and as a fan of the sport itself, including other Premier League teams and games from top leagues across Europe (I have also visited Craven Cottage twice previously this year; as an away fan for Fulham vs Liverpool and the Women's UEFA Champions League Final, and had great experiences at both of these), yet I have never previously witnessed scenes like I did on Monday night. There are aspects of the press releases that I find insulting to those of us who were present for the Brazil vs Ghana fixture, and would strongly urge the club to retract these statements, withholding from further comment until a full review has been performed. Furthermore, I would like to make it clear from the outset that I will not be accepting complementary tickets to future Fulham FC games by way of recompense for the experiences of Monday night. My primary motivation for writing is for someone to accept responsibility for the events of Monday night that put myself and others in immediate danger, and to seek assurances that the safety concerns that arose will not be allowed to happen again.
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