Ticket Arrangements - Luton

I can get you a couple in the Jamie Hand Stand

 

Do you support Go Ahead Eagles by any chance?

 

No I support Utrecht. I have visited GAE a couple of times tho.

 

Interesting. Am aware of a connection between the fans of Luton & GAE is all.

 

A friend has just been to town and visited Lloyd/Moons to ask about arrangements for Sunday.

Lloyds is open from 09:00 serving alcohol from 10:00, Watford fans only.

Moons is open from 08:00 service alcohol from 10:00, Watford AND Luton fans allowed in.

Lol.

 

Meet you all at @Lloyd's at 9am sharp.

 

The staff should at least insist on customers presenting a football banning order before they are allowed to be served.

 

Haha that’s hilarious.

 

You're all very welcome. I'll get Mrs Lloyd to rustle up some bacon butties

 

What could possibly go wrong?

 

Watford High Street on Sunday morning:

 

May the gods protect us all.

 

It'll be utter carnage. Whoever has organised the planning for Sunday clearly hasn't experienced one of these games before.

 

That's the problem when 16 years go by without a fan-attended local derby. All the coppers, council officials and even pub managers who have first hand knowledge of it will have moved on. Probably mostly retired from the first two by now.

 

When we last played them at home with a crowd in 2006, all the pubs were closed on police advice in Watford, St Albans, Rickmansworth, Bushey and couple of other places. Somewhere I have a poster I nicked off a pub door explaining the closure. There was little trouble as the police were so on top of it, plus they had half the Vic Road end and the other half was empty.

If previous years meetings are anything to go by, the corner between away fans and Elton John stand will be way more full than usual and there will be a host of characters in there. Hopefully that will detract the away fans attentions from the Family Stand.

 

Also, in 2006 memory of the 2002 debacle was fresher.

 

That is utter lunacy.

 

Knowing whatever the successors to the MuGS call themselves, the fact there’ll be ‘interesting faces’ in the corner of the SEJ will be a very good reason to focus on the Family Stand.

 

...and smashed to small pieces by 10.30. Might be a good thing.

 

That must be the most stupid decision ever made

 

And is a complete idiot

 

Really, you think it'll take half an hour?

 

It’s 2022. Maybe things have changed, maybe everyone will be well behaved and it will all go off without a hitch…

 

Good lord, their forum reeks of dial-up. Imagine the state of the goblins who run that thing.

 

You sure it isn't the other way around mate? With Lloyd's being up for sale, it'll make a cheap clean out job.

 

I’m sure the pub may have SAID they will be allowing both sets of fans in. The reality is far more likely that the police will come visiting a few times beforehand this week and make sure the tenants are in no doubt about who is allowed in.

The problem is always going to be that it’s a town centre pub that’s far away from the ground - you can’t impose the ‘show your home tickets’ policy that far out so they will only really be able to pick out L*ton fans wearing colours.

I’m not really sure how else you could police it, short of shutting the pubs.

 

You'd think - however I do wonder how seriously the police are taking the risk of trouble.

 

There’s a piece on the WO website with comments from the police - they are saying the right things. Let’s see what they actually enforce.

 

Don't see why not. I've had it on plenty of away games with door staff at town centre pubs either asking for proof you're a home fan or at least checking ID to see you're not from Watford. Seen it once at a Spoons in Manchester city centre and that was literally a couple of miles from the Etihad!

I imagine they're taking it very seriously. The problem though will be experience - it's been ages since Herts Police have had to do much around a Watford match other than amble around outside - and whether they're getting decent intel or not. I've got a major feeling Monday will be a day of 'lessons will be learned' type articles in the Wobby...