On Monday 24 February, we met with Darren Royle, the Club’s CEO, and with Robert Smith, Greater Manchester Police’s dedicated football officer for Oldham, as part of our regular monthly engagement with the Club. These are our notes from the meeting.
This month’s conversation covered:
Policing
Little Wembley
Supporter director role
Ticket prices for next season
Ask the Ref event
Policing
This part of our conversation was with Rob from Greater Manchester Police who joined us at the start of the meeting after we contacted him after the Rochdale away game. We've made this part of our meeting notes available to non-members too.
Rob told us that a couple of Oldham fans wrote into Rochdale complaining about the number of stewards in front of them, making it difficult to watch the game. He told us there had been a lot of learning after last year’s fixture at Rochdale. It was a lot better this year with no one on the pitch. Rob explained that the reason for the number of stewards and police was to mitigate the risk of people on the pitch. The football pitch is the players’ workplace, so the clubs have a duty to protect them.
Rob also made wider comments on poor behaviour by Oldham fans. In particular, at the Fylde away game where there is video evidence of abuse of the linesman which is being investigated. There were also fans on the pitch again which has knock-on effects for other games – it reduces allocations e.g. Solihull and the Club can get fined. Even where the Club isn’t fined, it has to contribute to significantly increased police deployments. For example, there will be 120 police officers at the Rochdale game with mounted and dog units too. Rob also pointed to poor behaviour at home games too, in particular, from section of the Rochdale Road End throwing things onto the pitch.
Rob encouraged OASF and fans in general to contact him about any concerns. He is happy to work on an anonymous basis to tackle poor fan behaviour.
Chris emailed Rob about the violence against Oldham fans after the Rochdale game. Our allocation for the Rochdale game was cut this year and we agree behaviour in the ground was better. However, there were several videos online of Oldham fans being attacked after the game. We accept our own fanbase has issues but we need action on the others too. Rob confirmed that there are two active investigations ongoing about those incidents after the game. We also mentioned our concerns about reprisals at the next Rochdale game which he acknowledged and referenced the large police deployment.