Stewards Forum

[EASTENDER MARKY]

Let us stand at the back..or are we impairing the view for a fcukin pigeon at the gap at the top of the stand!

Will you be going to the Forum to get your point put accross ?

[SWLR]

A suggestion is to talk to the Tangos - a bit of communication works wonders.

I got a bit of banter going with the two next to me last night, so when I did get carried away at one point, one of them had a quiet 'calm down', I felt embarrassed and sat down and no need for him to call in the mob from the back of the stand.

[handbags_harris]

SWLR, exactly. Rapport is required, not officiousness.

[RG30]

SWLR, exactly. Rapport is required, not officiousness.

Agreed, had a good laugh with the main steward in the away end few mins into the 2nd half.

FWIW, I doubt I'll attend the stewards forum. Not because I don't care but where I sit in the North Stand, we never have any issues with stewards in regards to standing.

[Royalshow]

SWLR, exactly. Rapport is required, not officiousness.

Agreed, had a good laugh with the main steward in the away end few mins into the 2nd half.

FWIW, I doubt I'll attend the stewards forum. Not because I don't care but where I sit in the North Stand, we never have any issues with stewards in regards to standing.

Yeah we do.The lads at the back are always getting told to sit down even though they are the back row

[cmonurz]

F*ck me rs, are you stupid or something?

[STAR Liaison]

SWLR, exactly. Rapport is required, not officiousness.

I hope to have the notes of the meeting on the STAR website shortly.

Thank you HH for making the effort to come to the stewards forum I think you will agree that point came across from all in the room, not just from those in hoops with an interesting and constructive dialogue for over an hour.

My impression was that those at the top do understand the problems and show a will to solve them and were certainly willing to appreciate the points made as well as giving us an insight into some of the problems they face.

It would have been better if there had been more than STAR board members and HH there as then maybe you could have put across more information to them about how fans feel but as this is the fourth I have been involved in and the numbers attending all four can be counted on the fingers of both hands I have no expectation of much constructive input from Reading fans now.

Read the notes and think about coming to the next if there is anything there you disagree with.

[TFF]

It would have been better if there had been more than STAR board members and HH there as then maybe you could have put across more information to them about how fans feel but as this is the fourth I have been involved in and the numbers attending all four can be counted on the fingers of both hands I have no expectation of much constructive input from Reading fans now.

I trust this will put an end to all the moaning from the all mouth no trousers brigade. Well done hh for having the bottle to actually attend - I hope you had a useful dialogue..

I would, of course, have attended if I had any issues with the behaviour of the stewards in the west stand, which I don't.

[RG30]

Was the Stewards forum publicised on the official RFC website? Did any representatives from the FLA come to the meeting, or were they even invited for that matter?

[handbags_harris]

To be quite frank it's worth attending these types of things because, as ever, there're two sides to every story. This was my first stewards forum and it was interesting to see a different point of view.

I think the main point to be made is that the club's hands are pretty much tied as to how they they ensure crowd safety, however there are a number of "initiatives", if you will, that the club decide to take on to ensure the stewarding is as high a standard as possible. One of these is to ensure that ALL stewards take a Level 2 NVQ in some sort of sporting crowd safety. This qualification is designed specifically for sporting events.

What also came out in the meeting was the complete understanding that Clive Doyle had with regards to the inconsistency of stewarding. In his defence, it's nigh on impossible to get complete consistency when you have most of your stewards leaving because they don't like the job (and to be fair if I were one of them I'd hate the job because of the amount of stick they receive, as witnessed and taken heed of by myself at the top of Y25 in the 2nd half of the weekend's game). Colin is very aware that there is a consistency problem and is actively trying to address the problem. The problem lies with the club relying on agency stewards as they don't have enough of their own. It was mooted that the regular club-employed stewards should be put in more "high risk" areas, and a rapport should be built with the fans in those areas. As I stated earlier in the thread, the stewards should take a proactive approach in talking to fans, not ordering the fans around.

In all I felt I put my own points across well, and they were answered in a calm considered manner. Now if more people were to attend these things they'd understand why the club take the approach they do. It's all well and good being an anonymous keyboard warrior, but if you're not man enough to back up your complaints then absolutely nothing will change and you'll have to be content with the same approach, the same problems, and the same posts, moans and groans on HNA.

[Jerry St Clair]

It would have been better if there had been more than STAR board members and HH there as then maybe you could have put across more information to them about how fans feel but as this is the fourth I have been involved in and the numbers attending all four can be counted on the fingers of both hands I have no expectation of much constructive input from Reading fans now.

Read the notes and think about coming to the next if there is anything there you disagree with.

As I said previously on this thread, I would have loved to attend but had a previous engagement on the ski slopes of La Plagne Any other game this season, I would have been able to come. Sod's law.

I will certainly attend the next one, if I am able to.

[MartinRdg]

The main issues I have with stewards is the way they speak to supporters - you feel like you are being treated as a criminal or as something they stepped in when they came in.

Also, they seem to have no sense. They block people's view for a long period of time and block the exits when you come to leave - they could monitor the crowd by standing on the other (non-stairs) side of the exit rather than blocking people as they are trying to leave.

[readingbedding]

I was there.

Some interesting points either side.
More dicussions like this would sort out a whole load of misunderstandings.

[STAR Liaison]

I was there.

Some interesting points either side.
More dicussions like this would sort out a whole load of misunderstandings.

But it does need two sides to have a discussion and we really do need more people to make an effort to come along. Even if you have no problems there may be points you can make that could lead to changes that make life even better