Football Coordination Unit

[Big Man]

Everyone is no doubt aware of the Football Coordination Unit that was formed in a blaze of publicity at the start of the season - its there job rid Scottish football of the sectarian element. Basically, these are the boys who attend (in addition to the standard police presence) all home matches involving the old firm teams and film in amongst the fans with their new secret cameras:

 

 

 

Well, i got to see some footage from one of these things today - the quality of the picture and the level of detail they can pick up is quite scary. Four Dunfermline fans were arrested today over so called ''racial chants'' as a result of footage that was obtained at the game like this, and then later picked over and analysed for offenders:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-15895454

 

So, given that you don't have to be a hun or a tim to get lifted for sectarian related offences, and given that banter and chanting on the terraces which at one point in time may have gone unnoticed is now being recorded and picked over in minute detail let me pose the following question:

 

Lets say hypothetically next time your in the Weeg for an away game, there's a poli walking in amongst the away stand, your belting out some mildly inoffensive chant like ''You mickey tim bastards'' or ''You Hun cunts'' for example, he doesn't notice you/ doesn't do anything about it, you travel home happy as larry, and then 8/9 days later the footage is passed to Grampian police and your arrested - would you be happy to concede you had done something wrong? Or is this just another example of the nanny state gone mad?

 

Discuss.

[dazzy_deff]

I got lifted at Ibrox and charged for making a racist comment to my mate, copper walked past heard me and lifted me. Got his mate to agree with his story so it stuck in court, even though his mate was nowhere near it. In your role as a solicitor, do you think that it was wrong I was lifted/charged/convicted cos a cop lugged into a private conversation between me and a mate?

[RUL]

The pars fans were chanting "you're in the wrong fkn country"

[spamspamspam]

No I wouldn't be happy and I'd fight it all the way to the euro courts if I had to. If RUL is right and the 4 were lifted for signing you're in the wrong fucking country then we're all fucking racist according to this new law.

 

Bitched about this plenty on here before... The way things are now in this country when it comes to what you are allowed or not allowed to say or think is far beyond any reasonable point, signing you're in the wrong fucking country to rangers fans, a club that prides itself on its Britishness, a club that tries to get into the engish leagues almost every year and getting done for it being a prime example. What is racist about that?

 

I'm no fan of racism nor am I a fan of any sort of discrimination but I am a fan of freedom of speech and expression. We are now living in a time that is as restrictive in thought as communist Russia was 20 years ago but obviously in a different way. So much for democracy and it's freedoms.

[RUL]

Only heard from a friend of a friend, guess it may be tues when we find out! Boys were tracked down today and arrested this morning

[zander]

Only heard from a friend of a friend, guess it may be tues when we find out! Boys were tracked down today and arrested this morning

 

Was that the game with Celtic? Allegedly some Dunfermline boys had a Union Jack with them ok nothing illegal with that but you have got to think they've been up to some other shit like famine song etc.

 

 

My views on it fucking ridiculous, Sectarianism doesn't bother me one bit, but can just tell things like this will catch a lot of Dons out including myself.

[NorthernLights24]

Was that the game with Celtic? Allegedly some Dunfermline boys had a Union Jack with them ok nothing illegal with that but you have got to think they've been up to some other shit like famine song etc.

 

 

My views on it fucking ridiculous, Sectarianism doesn't bother me one bit, but can just tell things like this will catch a lot of Dons out including myself.

 

I can see why so many people are against this new bill. I can see many fans suddenly finding themselves being regarded as criminals.

 

I'm sure most people on here have sung the "wrong fucking country" chant. My own personal interpretation of that song is its basically telling the Old Firm fans that we don't want all the Irish nonsense they sing about in this country. However now it would seem I'm just a big racist if I sing it

[Stoney]

Im just thankfull these las wernt in play when I was a regular, jesus

[leftside]

Only heard from a friend of a friend, guess it may be tues when we find out! Boys were tracked down today and arrested this morning

 

40,000 vermin doing whatever they do, and 4 fifers get lifted.

This is right up Grampian Police's street, who have been terrifed of OF fans since the mid 70's.

Our local hereos will love this - next time the vermin are in Abz I expect some arrests in our end for this type of nonsense.

[a don in oz]

Arrested for calling someone a tim/hun bastard? That would be totally out of order. As stupid as arresting a hun for calling us a sheep shagging bastard. Arrested for singing pro-IRA songs? That's different. Secetarianism and other -isms have been well muddied by the hun and tim bastards as a way to try and minimise how fucking awful they actually are. So now others will get arrested for calling them tim or hun bastards.... but their numbers will ensure they can still sing their bullshit songs with relative impunity. Name calling is fitba banter! Without it, it'd be sterile as all hell. Next we won't be able to have a healthy chorus referring to the ref as a horses arse because of it being offensive conduct in a public place or some shit... while the tims sing happy songs about the IRA in the background.

[Monkey]

I'm sure I read somewhere that Dunfermline police had some sort of unit especially for EEP and targeting fans during match days.

They have already lifted and prosecuted a load of fans including Rangers, Hearts and Hibs as well as home fans.

I'm sure the Fifers will be itching for Celtic to visit to return the favour towards the Celtic fans.

[zander]

I can see why so many people are against this new bill. I can see many fans suddenly finding themselves being regarded as criminals.

 

I'm sure most people on here have sung the "wrong fucking country" chant. My own personal interpretation of that song is its basically telling the Old Firm fans that we don't want all the Irish nonsense they sing about in this country. However now it would seem I'm just a big racist if I sing it

 

I have and will continue to do so I just can't see why it is illegal, singing it to other Scottish or British people. I'm worried that such things as personal abuse such as "you fat hun cunt" etc will now get picked up on.

 

Arrested for calling someone a tim/hun bastard? That would be totally out of order. As stupid as arresting a hun for calling us a sheep shagging bastard. Arrested for singing pro-IRA songs? That's different. Secetarianism and other -isms have been well muddied by the hun and tim bastards as a way to try and minimise how fucking awful they actually are. So now others will get arrested for calling them tim or hun bastards.... but their numbers will ensure they can still sing their bullshit songs with relative impunity. Name calling is fitba banter! Without it, it'd be sterile as all hell. Next we won't be able to have a healthy chorus referring to the ref as a horses arse because of it being offensive conduct in a public place or some shit... while the tims sing happy songs about the IRA in the background.

 

Its absolute ridiculous and your right how far does this thing stop at is any sort of offensive banter allowed? Think that's one thing that's great about our game is some of the shouts/songs from the side you just don't get that in any other country take that out and you have no atmosphere at games. This is quite simply an action by the police in response to "fans not criminals" banners at Glasgow's dungeons and they now are trying to level the score to appease them, and the worst thing is with our fans reputation over the years we will get it hit the hardest.

[Big Man]

I got lifted at Ibrox and charged for making a racist comment to my mate, copper walked past heard me and lifted me. Got his mate to agree with his story so it stuck in court, even though his mate was nowhere near it. In your role as a solicitor, do you think that it was wrong I was lifted/charged/convicted cos a cop lugged into a private conversation between me and a mate?

 

Im commenting without knowing the exact details of what went on, but im afraid that sounds about right.

 

What you would consider to be a private conversation and what constitutes a private conversation in legal terms are very different. For your conduct to be considered private you would have to demonstrate that there was no reasonable chance of it being discovered or your conversation overheard - somebody obviously did overhear you.

 

As for the policeman backing up his mate, you see that all the time - two poli providing the corroboration necessary for a conviction.

 

I take it you plead guilty or accepted a fiscal fine then?

[Big Man]

Was alerted to an interesting piece by a pal of mine today. Supposedly at the Huns game a few weeks ago, the football coordination unit tracked and did a surprise stop on several Hun supporters buses as they left the outskirts of Glasgow. One Hun supporter was less than pleased and filed a freedom of information request with Strathclyde poli asking about their operation, this was the response he got:

 

As part of the Joint Action Group report on football which was published on 11 July 2011, recommendation A2 reads "There should be a co-ordinated approach to Police enforcement in relation to alcohol and drunkenness on supporters’ buses to robustly enforce legislation which will reduce the impact of alcohol within the stadium." Scottish Police Forces will take an intelligent and coordinated approach to support this recommendation.

 

Although this was the first operation this season in the Strathclyde force area, there have been other operations which have targeted all of the major clubs in Scotland. There have been operations in Edinburgh where buses associated with Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen, Hearts and Hibernian have been searched. Alcohol has been recovered in each operation.

 

To stop and search a person or vehicle for the purposes of this legislation, a Constable will need reasonable grounds to suspect that an offence relating to this section is or has been committed. We have quite a lot of information which leads us to suspect that alcohol is being carried on buses. Every week fans attempt to enter matches whilst drunk having travelled on buses and debris which supports our suspicions is found in and around coach parks, etc, etc. These reasonable grounds are unfortunately confirmed when we manage to recover alcohol from buses during operations. Once we reach the stage that we are confident no supporters buses have alcohol on board, we would reconsider the need for this type of operation.

 

As regards this operation, 24 buses were stopped, 6 of which had alcohol onboard. 21 persons will be the subject of reports to the Procurator Fiscal. 73 litres of alcohol was seized.

 

Those buses which had no alcohol on board were not detained unnecessarily and I felt that there was a positive response from fans on the buses at the time.

 

For clarity, those persons in possession of alcohol commit an offence and where alcohol is found on the bus, the person who hires the bus and the driver of the bus also commit an offence.

 

The aim of this type of event is to reduce the impact of alcohol at football as, I am sure you will agree, people's inhibitions are reduced when under the influence of alcohol which can lead to behaviour that deviates from their normal behaviour. To support this, if you could help reinforce the message that NO alcohol should be taken onto supporters buses that would be appreciated.

 

I can assure you that we do not disproportionately target any club or fans but we will mount these operations whenever we have information that fans are ignoring this law. "

[V for Vendetta]

The pars fans were chanting "you're in the wrong fkn country"

 

If thats true seem crazy to me that a hard line is taken with them. What racism is actually been perpetrated there?

 

 

40,000 vermin doing whatever they do, and 4 fifers get lifted.

This is right up Grampian Police's street, who have been terrifed of OF fans since the mid 70's.

Our local hereos will love this - next time the vermin are in Abz I expect some arrests in our end for this type of nonsense.

 

While I'm broadly in support of the authorities and police targetting racist and sectarian behaviour my biggest fear is just this ^

 

We all know the police already fail to use the powers they already have when large numbers if offenders are grouped together and yet they are quick to jump on a few individuals here or there for far less offensive behaviour.

 

I fear this will simply continue and as the morons foloowing Rangers and Celtic who have created this disgusting situation always gather in such large numbers the police will simply stand back and watch. Then when they need to get their stats for convictions of these sort of offences up, guess who they will target? Fans of all the smaller teams. Ironically teams who might only a handfull of fans doing anything that can be construed as breaking these laws. While the fans who were the cause of so much violence and hatred in this country are allowed to continue unmolested.

 

I've said this for years and I'll say it again. Large groups of Rangers and Celtic fans go to games and sing thes sectarian songs, fly their flags etc etc and what they see is that the police stand back and watch them, ie they see the police take no action against them, THEN they see the police lift a few Dunfermline, Hibs or Aberdeen fans at a ground. While that continues these "fans" will continue to believe that they act in an acceptable way - why not? the police don't try to stop them do they? They feel quite safe and quite justified spilling out all this Ulster/IRA nonsense because they remain almost completely and utterly unchallenged.

 

I fear any new police focus and any new laws coming in will not be used to tackle these people any more than the existing police action and existing laws.

[dazzy_deff]

Im commenting without knowing the exact details of what went on, but im afraid that sounds about right.

 

What you would consider to be a private conversation and what constitutes a private conversation in legal terms are very different. For your conduct to be considered private you would have to demonstrate that there was no reasonable chance of it being discovered or your conversation overheard - somebody obviously did overhear you.

 

As for the policeman backing up his mate, you see that all the time - two poli providing the corroboration necessary for a conviction.

 

I take it you plead guilty or accepted a fiscal fine then?

Yip got remanded till the Monday then was up in court Monday afternoon. Duty solicitor said I should argue it and I had a case but after being in court before and it dragging on for the best part of 18 months I couldnt be arsed with trailing back n forth to Glasgow for intermediate diets, trials that get adjourned 5 or 6 times before it happens and such like and fitting it in with my work rota. Took it on the chin and got a 200 quid fine. Still think its wrong they can pick up on something in a private conversation. The person getting the "abuse" wouldnt hear me in a million years,