Fans and bans - what is being done to clean up Turf Moor?

Last updated : 12 March 2002 By Tony Scholes

This was down to the booing and general lack of support at home games but surely the club should be looking at far more serious matters involving so-called Burnley supporters than those being a bit negative. I refer to those that are not just letting the club down but are going some way to giving the club a bad name.

It is not as though the club are helping matters either with a lack of positive and public action where necessary and also not even knowing their own club rules.

Do you remember back in September when two Burnley supporters were convicted of racist chanting at our game at Bradford City? They were both punished by the courts with exclusion orders from all football grounds and we waited for Burnley Football Club to issue their life ban.

It didn't happen, in fact some time later they even claimed they knew nothing about it even though it had been well publicised in the national and local media as well as Clarets Mad asking them what action was to be taken.

More recently when asked again about it by Clarets Mad they said, "At the present time our ‘banning policy' does not cover incidents/arrests at away grounds therefore we are not in a position to progress this issue without a change of club policy."

I was under the impression that supporters had in the past been banned after incidents away from home but even if not what does it take to change a policy?

On Saturday there was apparently some trouble in Victoria Station in Manchester as Burnley fans returned from Stockport. Burnley Football Club's Chief Executive Andrew Watson said, "As always we reiterate the club's policy for several years now that anyone convicted of a football relates offence will receive a life ban from Turf Moor. We apologise for any inconvenience caused by the alleged offences."

So it looks as though the policy does include railway stations but not away grounds. However we have enough problems at the Turf with one area of the ground in particular, the lower tier of the Harry Potts Longside.

There have been a number of incidents in recent weeks within this area with missile throwing and racist chanting. We now believe it was the racist chanting that so upset Jason Roberts during the West Brom game and we also know that this has been reported to the club by a home supporter.

In the previous game Sheffield Wednesday's Marlon Broomes had objects thrown at him as he was carried off on a stretcher and against Norwich a coin appeared to hit the assistant referee and the stewards were spoken to by referee Jones.

These are all very serious incidents and nothing has heard from the club on any of the matters. This week Spurs reacted quickly and publicly to a similar incident in the FA Cup tie against Chelsea.

Today Clarets Mad have asked the club's Chief Executive for some answers regarding the club's policy on life bans and on what action has been taken to try and resolve the constant problems in the Harry Potts Longside. We sincerely hope the wall of silence does not continue as these problems are in urgent need of resolving.