Head Steward & Safety Officer Meeting

Can we just clarify this, is the suggestion anyone swearing is likely to be hauled out of the ground? Because i think that's excessive.

I think all reasonably minded people agree the 'C' word song has to stopped. In any way necessary. It's not witty, it's just an excuse for a bunch of kids to shout abuse for the sake of it. It's embarassing for anyone stood close enough who might be associated with it quite frankly.

But i wouldn't want the experience of going to the football to be sanitised completely. We all get frustrated sometimes, and even the most mild-mannered of people can be heard to swear occasionally.

There is a definite distinction for me between 'planned' foul and abusive language (such as the song, which needs to be remedied), and an off-the-cuff expletive borne of frustration. I'd hate to think the two get confused...

Fonda I'm sure Steve will be happy to clarify the situation and what will be deemed unacceptable and therefore require action from the stewards.

In the talks I have had with Steve it was agreed that swearing happens at football matches and as you will know It is only the c word song that I have complained about and asked what could be done about it. We always hear the same thing that swearing is a part of football, no it has just become common for people to swear at football.

I really can't see the man who invented the game sitting down and saying, well we will have eleven players on each team etc and then fill the stadium with people swearing their heads off.

Before this all gets to an anti steward thing I do think we need to really consider the situation we now have in the ground with the current stewards. One thing I forgot to say in my first post on this thread, was the young steward who asked Jon and Phil plus the others to move, did so in a very polite manor and was not heavy handed in anyway and its important to remember that fact.

Before we had stewards, we had the police and I suffered a few times at their hands at the ground, me a young dad taking two children under ten with me, some events are recorded on this forum. Bateson moved to doing it in house,saving money was the name of the game, but while we may not have been the first club to have no police in our ground, there was not many other clubs doing it. I was proud to tell people we did not need police at our ground, our fans were well behaved and we only needed to have our own stewards.

The stewards were all local and many we knew as friends, I was always greeted by one who I grew up with in Newton Abbot and the ground was a happy place to be. You will always get the odd one who once he has a jacket on, will be some over the top jobs worth, or try and push his weight about, but then they were few and far between.

As we know Bateson claimed there was a problem getting enough people to be stewards at the ground and so brought in a private company from Plymouth. Most of the stewards when they first tool over, were bouncers from night clubs and many were Plymouth fans. We all know the very heavy handed treated me suffered at their hands and how often they took advantage to wade into our fans and get rough.

Things are so much better now, we are getting more and more local stewards in the ground, many are fans just like us and would prefer not to have to take any action, but they do have a job to do and at the end of the day, its up to the fans in the ground to make the stewards job easy, by following any rules that have been laid down.

Lets not get into a them and us situation that we had when it was just the Plymouth stewards, no one was thrown out last night for swearing, I know one was for throwing something at the linesman.

A point for Steve to consider here is, fans are unhappy that they have their bottle tops taken off, we understand its the rules, maybe stewards need to follow the same rules, let them be seem as being no different as regards ground rules.

ali how he never got booked for that I'll never know, mind you if he could cross the ball as well as he kicked that corner flag, we might score more goals. The flag went half way up in the grandstand and if it had have hurt anyone then you can bet a claim would be being sent into the club.

poppinsgull, sadly for some now shouting out abuse to players during a game is all they seem able to do, it helps no one and can only effect the player even more and how he is playing.

I can't see that anything can be done by the stewards, but we can sure let these people know how we feel and polity tell them to shut up and try supporting the players out on the pitch.

Steve throw me out? well if I'm a bad boy and deserve it I will go quietly and if he did boy would I be swearing all the way home.

I had wondered why more hadn't been made of this on previous posts/match reports.

I want to put this question to the qualified referees on the forum;
A player kicks a corner flag into the crowd (regardless of whether he intended to or not). It really was traveling like a javelin as it entered the stand about 15 rows back. Really lucky no one was injured, or worse.

What action should the ref have taken ??

Straight Red Card ?? or quiet word in his ear ??

For me it had to be RED.

I don't want to labour the point on how bad the ref was, i have missed the boat on that one.

Key decisions i felt he got wrong;

After 10 minutes Benyon put through, by Wroe's only decent pass of the night, found himself clear with only keeper to beat. Was a couple of yards onside when the ball was kicked.

Penalty; Harsh is an understatement.

Benyons 'goal'; A yard onside and the ball was laid back to him.

3 'corner' decisions given as goal kicks.

His control over the game was abysmal. He made far to many mistakes. You cant blame the FGR keeper for wasting time, he was allowed to get away with.

An early poster suggested he couldn't have been the reason for the draw, I BEG TO DIFFER. It wasn't the only reason, but it was the most significant reason. At the end of the day no matter how well or poorly we played, those decisions were down right WRONG. Had he not made those mistakes we would have won.