Widnes v Cas

[Mike]

Nothing happened to the clubs after the Hull semi. And that was much worse.

[southernpie]

Nothing happened to the clubs after the Hull semi. And that was much worse.

And that is exactly what I mean, the more "incidents" that go "unpunished" the more likely it is to happen again somewhere else

[Wiganer Ted]

I think Widnes will get clobbered this time.
On the back chat show Rod Studd made the point that Widnes fans had been involved in crowd trouble three times prior to this in the past twelve months.
He mentioned games at Wakefield, HullFC and Wire, now plus this making four.
The club and the GM Police have to identify the culprits, prosecute them and if found guilty very hefty fines, say £1000+. That will stop them doing it again and disuade anyone else from thinking of doing the same.

[markill]

Nothing happened to the clubs after the Hull semi. And that was much worse.

Didn't Hull get a fine?

[Owd Codger]

Why should any Rugby League club be banned from the Challenge Cup Competition because of trouble caused by thugs who are not genuine supporters of a club, but more than likely are football supporters.

From what I saw on Sunday, most were!

What difference does it make who they were, the clubs sold the tickets and the majority of the troublemakers were wearing Widnes colours. This "football supporters" excuse that you seem to use quite frequently is IMO just that an excuse. IMO ANYONE that behaves violently at a RL match should be dealt with harshly.

Exactly, it's not the club or players fault that fans whether 'real' fans or not act like idiots!!

Which is why I said it was going too far IMO

Regardless of whether they are 'real' fans or not, sanctions need to be made. Similar arguments (ie not real fans)were made in the 70's when the football hooliganism raised it's ugly head and look where that ended up. I experienced London as a horrible place to be with gangs wearing the colours of one club (who were playing away elsewhere in the country eg Millwall playing at Manchester) appearing at the ground of a local rival (eg Chelsea)who were playing at home just for a mass fight.

Now I am not saying we are anywhere near that stage yet but if the perpetrators feel there is no deterrent it could soon escalate. We have also seen how the "sheep mentality" of crowds under the influence of drink can behave and "decent" kids can get pulled in.

Someone with more legal knowledge than me might be able to confirm, but I think we have more than enough laws available about drunken behaviour and vandalism etc to lock these idiots up, there is surely enough video evidence to identify culprits. Combined with life bans from the clubs this situation could be nipped in the bud.

It will all depend on whether the RFL and the clubs want to bury their heads in the sand or take firm action. [/quot

What were you watching, the majority of the troublemakers were NOT wearing any shirts, scarfs etc of the Widnes club and anyone could see that most were just drunken thugs who like I have said and experienced on visits to Widnes on past occasions were more than likely football supporters from not only around Widnes, but also Runcorn, Garston and Speke.

Over the years when Semi Finals were held at Central Park, I witnessed many incidents involving the same kind of supporters. On one occasion at a Semi Final between Castleford and Warrington, there was fighting between supporters of Leeds United and Manchester football supporters who attended the game.

And why should anybody not want to take action when thugs like them not only ruin it for our genuine supporters but make the odd incident like what happened last Sunday, headline news in the media because of it being a rare incident of that level.

Finally, I am willing to bet that most of those involved will be at a football match this weekend with the start of the football season.

[menpond]

Do you know to what level both sides are funded? I vaguely thought Widnes were semi pro,and Cas fully funded to the max allowable level?