This week’s reports of Sunday-only East Anglian derbies got me thinking. I view football as entertainment, and along with other forms of entertainment – theatre, cricket, gigs, rugby - is best enjoyed after (or with) a couple of pints. As my username may suggest, it has certainly made recent seasons more bearable!

Over the past decades I must have attended hundreds of matches under the influence, however, I would also like to think I have managed to do so without causing distress to any fellow fans, maybe even amusement with the odd stupid comment.

I certainly have never been involved in any problems, indeed, I can report that the only times I can remember facing any provocation it has been from the other kind of boys in blue. The last time I looked it’s only a panto whipped up by Archant to sell a few papers!

'Sundays only' is a sad comment on the state of policing in East Anglia. Blaming the actions of the few on the sale of alcohol in licenced premises is ignoring the pleasures of the vast majority of those of us who manage to combine a visit to both a hostelry and Portman (or Carrot) Road without incident, it seems a lazy and cowardly statement.

The derbies I have attended over the recent years seem to be horrendously over-policed, with scenes that remind me of the miners' strike, or kettling at the recent London demos, complete with helicopters, horses, dogs and riot vans.

This seems to have the effect of fuelling the ‘tribal’ feeling in some, and encourages a certain amount of bravado from the excitable among us who may not feel quite so brave without a ‘wall’ of sturdy rozzers separating them from the folk who, after all, only live some 40 miles up (or down) the road.

It annoys me that I have to sneak through a cordon of riot police just to enjoy a couple of pints of excellent CHB and some 'binner' banter with the regulars at the Coach and Horses, I mean, when did either of us become Millwall, Cardiff, Leeds?

It’s shocking that Suffolk and Norfolk plod haven't been able to deal with this without wrecking an East Anglian institution. They should be ashamed.

Sunday lunchtime traditional, as was claimed? My arse. Let us tax and ratepayers, both Blue and Yellow, have our derby back where we want it - Boxing day, Easter, Saturday afternoons, midweek evenings. If there is a problem, deal with it and the individuals causing it, stop hiding behind mass ranks of unsmiling, riot-suited woodentops.

Rant over - I just want our game back... and our club.

BluedanW added 22:17 - Dec 16 So true. funny how the metropolitan police can cope with many London derby games including including millwall versus west ham and south Wales police can allow 3pm Saturday kick offs with swansea and Cardiff. even in Glasgow the old firm derbies with their fans with sectarian differences the old bill don't take the easy way out. The suffolk police are a joke with their refusal of allowing away fans near the north stand, i believe if that change was made the atmosphere would be 100% better, which would encourage a larger crowd match days.

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Back_The_Boss added 10:58 - Dec 17 Liked that!
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WeWereZombies added 17:32 - Dec 18 I remember being at an evening 2-0 thrashing of the Nodge back in the seventies and, I guess because all the other stands were full by the time we got to the game, we were standing in the old East Stand. The second goal went in and a Nodge supporter revealed himself by gently punching the person next to him. So the American serviceman whose wife or girlfriend had just been hit obviously spent the rest of the match explaining why you shouldn't go around just hitting people (you know, in that way of making the blindingly obvious even more tiresomely blindingly obvious that semi-educated Americans have) whilst everyone else around tut-tutted (in that condescending way that us East Anglians have of metaphorically pushing a drowning man under), I think the offender might have preferred immediate arrest and a night in the cells. And at the that wonderful evening in the mid-nineties when Taricco scored long range in another 2-0 we got stuck in World of Punch for half an hour as they cleared the Cobbold - I think I would have preferred immediate arrest and a night in the cells.

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