Guiseley AFC

Stephen Westwood

11 hours ago

I would like to share my experience I had with my 11-year old son and family friends with children at the FA Cup match against Fleetwood.

A minority of home supporters spoiled a wonderful game of football and their actions resulted in me and my 11 year old son, along with a number of friends and their children, having to miss a large portion of the first half due to us having to move to avoid a crowd disturbance in the Railway End Terrace.

Given this was one of the biggest games at Guiseley for a few years, I was surprised there wasn’t crowd segregation in operation at the game. This resulted in the freedom of movement of both home and away supporters and ultimately led to the crowd disturbance we experienced. In addition to the lack of crowd segregation, the inappropriate chanting by a section of the home support was also a contributing factor to the crowd disturbance.

I am not against a little friendly banter between supporters, but the chanting, primarily directed at Chad Evans and Joey Barton, crossed a line and was not something I wanted my 11-year-old son, or any other child, to hear. In my view, the stewards and police should have done more sooner and nipped this in the bud with a clear message that there would be zero tolerance to inappropriate chanting and the perpetrators would be immediately ejected from the ground.

This is not the first time I have experienced crowd disturbance at Guiseley game and I am worried this is becoming a norm rather than an exception. In my view, the club needs to do more to embed a family friendly culture at the club. Is there a code of conduct that supporters are expected to follow? ... See MoreSee Less