Alex Patterson
Following the news that New South Wales Police have proposed a number of restrictions on Western Sydney Wanderers' fans, I looks at why they are seen as excessive and quite ridiculous in my opinion.
The Red and Black Bloc supporter group which forms a significant part of the club's active supporter base has be passionately supporting the Wanderers since their inception int the A-League three years ago.
Similar if not larger and a lot louder than Melbourne Victory's and Sydney FC's active supporters - who are seen as the league's front runners.
Some of the proposed restrictions are to stop pre-match marches, remove banners and prevent fans from swearing, standing on seats, jumping or moving side by side.
To start with, the last restriction is completely unnecessary and I fail to see how that can be classified as violent behaviour.
You might as well do the same thing with Manchester City who jump up and down whenever they score a goal at home and its actually quite brilliant to witness.
In a more general context, jumping is what football fans do to celebrate, its been part of the game since it began and trying and stop it from happening is beyond ridiculous.
Nearly all of these restrictions are incredibly difficult to implement, are you going to throw out an entire supporter group whenever they jump up and down to celebrate a goal?
Pre-match marches are generally common in matches around the globe and adds to the experience of going to the football as a fan.
I've been to few as a Melbourne Victory supporter marches and believe me, they're not as bad as people are making it out to be.
If these conditions are breached then the game is potentially going to be delayed and we don't want it to come to that. There needs to be a better way to monitor bad crowd behaviour than imposing a bunch of rules which will inevitably be broken.
Don't ruin the game of football based on a small minority of people who decide to take it too far. I'm sure most Wanderers fans are respectful fans who just want to enjoy the game and show a bit of support for their club.
The A-League's crowd behaviour is fantastic compared to some leagues across Europe, so we need to stop exaggerating and prepare to enjoy the upcoming season.
