Saturday 5th March 2011 (Premier League)
Fulham 3 (Duff 37, 59, Zamora [pen] 89) Blackburn Rovers 2 (Hanley 45+1, Hoilett 65)Attendance: 25,687
On paper, this fixture seemed innocuous enough. Two mid-table teams doing battle in front of supporters who have no history of hooliganism or rowdy behaviour.
How wrong could that be! There was a fight, a group of drunken fans, a Japanese man with a beer and a Norwegian filming with a professional-looking video camera.
The game was not too bad either. Five goals, Damien Duff's first brace in the Premier League since December 1997, a disputed penalty and a red card after the final whistle.
My new placement is at P3/P4 in the Putney End, so I'm very happy with that position, though it's certainly not the easy option. Today, there were a few large parties, all of whom were from overseas.
First, there was the Northern State University's women's soccer team. It turns out that this is a college based in Aberdeen, South Dakota, who decided to include a trip to Craven Cottage in their itinerary.
Next, there was a bunch of young students from Norway, kept in check by their long-suffering teacher.
Finally, about 10 minutes into the game, a bunch of Scandinavians (I think they were from Norway) who had clearly spent quite some time in the pub for several pre-match beers. They were generally well-behaved, though there always seemed to be one of them sitting on the steps, which is not allowed. I'm pretty sure that the problem lay with a couple of Blackburn fans who had jumped in two of their seats before they turned up, thus causing the overflow.
Then, one of the other stewards alerted me to someone drinking a beer in the stand. When he tried to point out who it was, I couldn't spot the offending boozer, but if he'd have said it was the Japanese guy I'd have got him straight away. If that wasn't enough, another steward alerted me to someone smoking in the stand. Not surprisingly, it was one of the drunken Scandinavians, though he was OK about putting out the offending cigarette. That wasn't the end of it though, as one of his mates sparked up a tab, though my co-vomitary steward went and sorted it out.
Finally, it was pointed out to me that one of the Norwegians had a smart-looking video camera, complete with proper microphone and everything. As he was sat in the middle of a row, I decided to wait 10 minutes until half-time before telling him that video filming is not permitted in the stadium. And then Fulham scored.
As Duff cut in from the right to fire past Paul Robinson, most of the Putney End rose to celebrate Fulham taking the lead, while our friend with the camera proceeded to hold his video camera up high and film the celebrations. As the Control Room will have had a massive eyeful of this, I had to step in and ask him politely to stop filming, which he did immediately. At least he got 36 minutes of action and a goal to take back to Norway with him.
For the first time this season, I saw a fight in the Putney End. Midway through the second half, I noticed that some of the youngsters supporting Fulham started baiting the Blackburn fans, though it didn't seem to come to anything. However, I think it was shortly after Blackburn equalised for the second time in the 65th minute, but there was a few scuffles and punches thrown in the middle of the Blackburn section, requiring the attention of quite a few stewards, before the police ejected four or five supporters.
Fulham 3 (Duff 37, 59, Zamora [pen] 89) Blackburn Rovers 2 (Hanley 45+1, Hoilett 65)Attendance: 25,687
 |
© Stephen Taylor
|
How wrong could that be! There was a fight, a group of drunken fans, a Japanese man with a beer and a Norwegian filming with a professional-looking video camera.
The game was not too bad either. Five goals, Damien Duff's first brace in the Premier League since December 1997, a disputed penalty and a red card after the final whistle.
My new placement is at P3/P4 in the Putney End, so I'm very happy with that position, though it's certainly not the easy option. Today, there were a few large parties, all of whom were from overseas.
First, there was the Northern State University's women's soccer team. It turns out that this is a college based in Aberdeen, South Dakota, who decided to include a trip to Craven Cottage in their itinerary.
Next, there was a bunch of young students from Norway, kept in check by their long-suffering teacher.
Finally, about 10 minutes into the game, a bunch of Scandinavians (I think they were from Norway) who had clearly spent quite some time in the pub for several pre-match beers. They were generally well-behaved, though there always seemed to be one of them sitting on the steps, which is not allowed. I'm pretty sure that the problem lay with a couple of Blackburn fans who had jumped in two of their seats before they turned up, thus causing the overflow.
Then, one of the other stewards alerted me to someone drinking a beer in the stand. When he tried to point out who it was, I couldn't spot the offending boozer, but if he'd have said it was the Japanese guy I'd have got him straight away. If that wasn't enough, another steward alerted me to someone smoking in the stand. Not surprisingly, it was one of the drunken Scandinavians, though he was OK about putting out the offending cigarette. That wasn't the end of it though, as one of his mates sparked up a tab, though my co-vomitary steward went and sorted it out.
Finally, it was pointed out to me that one of the Norwegians had a smart-looking video camera, complete with proper microphone and everything. As he was sat in the middle of a row, I decided to wait 10 minutes until half-time before telling him that video filming is not permitted in the stadium. And then Fulham scored.
As Duff cut in from the right to fire past Paul Robinson, most of the Putney End rose to celebrate Fulham taking the lead, while our friend with the camera proceeded to hold his video camera up high and film the celebrations. As the Control Room will have had a massive eyeful of this, I had to step in and ask him politely to stop filming, which he did immediately. At least he got 36 minutes of action and a goal to take back to Norway with him.
For the first time this season, I saw a fight in the Putney End. Midway through the second half, I noticed that some of the youngsters supporting Fulham started baiting the Blackburn fans, though it didn't seem to come to anything. However, I think it was shortly after Blackburn equalised for the second time in the 65th minute, but there was a few scuffles and punches thrown in the middle of the Blackburn section, requiring the attention of quite a few stewards, before the police ejected four or five supporters.
No comments:
Post a Comment