Trickster

Just to clarify, I'm not looking to defend the County fans that were involved. The point I'm making is this: The Cheadle End holds over 5000 and for the sake of arguement lets say it was half full. That's 2500. If only 1% of that respond having been provoked (I'm talking about the goading and calling it on rather than celebrating your goal) then that's more than enough for the 10 or so Oldham fans to be heavily out-numbered. If you were to provoke a big group of people like that in any other situation I think it's far to assume that more than 1 in 100 will respond, so why expect any less at a football ground? My view is that the Oldham fans involved must surely have been aware of the risk they were taking so I have no sympathy at all. If you deliberately provoke people to that extent in any situation then there will usually be consequences, if you're not prepared to accept those consequences then don't do it. I'm not in favour of violence at football (or anywhere else) and as I said in my previous post I'm not proud of the reaction from those County fans at the front of the CE. The reason for my posts on the subject is that a lot of Oldham fans believe SCFC are fully to blame here and it's simply not true. Yes Oldham should have had a bigger allocation, yes the stewarding could have been better. But don't think for one second that the "victims" were sitting quietly and keeping themselves to themselves before being set upon by an angry mob, they provoked it so they should take responsibility for their actions. There is blame on both sides.

The police may have been able to react more quickly had they not been occupied by Oldham fans playing up outside the ground having been removed from the Main Stand. Whilst I'm not particularly proud of the reaction, those Latics fans brought it on themselves. They invited the whole of the Cheadle End to "have a go" so surely they can't be too upset if a few take them up on their offer. If you're not prepared to take a beating then don't cheer an away goal in the home end and then goad the home fans to that extent, simple really. I'd fully expect the same to happen to me if I did that at the vast majority of grounds in England including Boundary Park. Personally I've got no problem with away fans sitting in the home end if the away end is sold out but ideally they should show some respect and also have some common sense. I'm sure there were plenty of Oldham fans elsewhere in the home end that managed it and were able to watch the game without any problems. I don't think you can blame a small allocation (regardless of whether the police or SCFC made that decision) for the way that particular group of Oldham fans behaved after you scored. I'm not suggesting that County are blameless in this but there seem to be a few on this board that think that the Oldham fans involved were innocent victims, frankly that couldn't be further from the truth. Te behaviour of Oldham fans in at least one Edgeley pub that I know of also left a lot to be desired so you have no moral high ground on this one in my view.