West Ham and their fans will once again be under scrutiny against Saints for behaviour problems in the stadium.

All the recent headlines about West Ham's move to the former Olympic Stadium now called the London Stadium have been about crowd problems, concerning both trouble with visiting supporters and even fighting between home fans.

The issue is unlikely to be completely resolved before Saints visit on Sunday, but now the relevant people seem to be doing something about it.

The first issue is about whose problem it is, the deal that saw West Ham move to the London Stadium has been the subject of much media speculation about the legitimacy of the deal and certainly when it was revealed that the Hammers would pay a mere £2.5 million a year for the stadium eyebrows were raised.

Especially when you consider that for that amount West Ham get everything thrown in including the security on match days which is now not their problem so to speak, a situation that is not the case at every other club in England.

That means that the West Ham board have sat back and let the London Stadium owners deal with it, they and their managing agents have no experience of English Premier League matches have found themselves totally out of their depth in planning and dealing with football crowds in this country.

That has meant several key points have not been addressed properly.

The first is segregation, inside the stadium there is only a small waist high barrier segregating rival fans and that has not been well stewarded, not only in the number of stewards but their experience in the situations that have so far occurred with rival fans easily trading blows.

Apparently on the concourses it is just as bad with the stadium having no barriers keeping fans apart and stewards letting rival fans mix together.

Outside again there has been no system to filter rival fans away from each other and clashes have occurred there.

But perhaps the problem that is most worrying is that there is no police presence inside the stadium, The London Stadium are responsible for this and they have seemed unwilling to pay for policing inside the ground, football clubs here have to pay for policing inside the stadium but not outside it.

That has meant that instead of police officers dealing with crowd disorder in recent games, it has been left to stewards who are either poorly trained in public disorder situations, or as has been claimed have simply walked away from fighting, in some respects I can understand this, they are used to dealing with Athletics crowds etc, they are not being paid enough to get hurt in a fight.

If that is not bad enough the Police themselves do not want to police the stadium till there is a radio system in place that will enable the police commanders to communicate with their officers in the stadium, a ludicrous situation for what is one of the biggest stadiums in this country.

That means until this is sorted the Police will not be in the stadium for West Ham games including our game tomorrow.

The big question will be who pays for it ? West Ham will say they have a contract and it is the Stadium's problem, that is probably correct but are the stadium owners willing to stump up the cost and this is where the deal that West Ham got, the subject of so many accusations that they got it on the cheap will come home to roost.

Quite simply the money isn't there to put in an expensive system, not and still being able to run and maintain the stadium, West Ham got a very cheap deal, but someone has to pay for it ultimately and at the moment it is the fans in the stadium whose safety is being compromised due to cost cutting.

So although stewarding will be beefed up for our visit on Sunday, ultimately the only other measure put in place will be West Ham's plea's to their own supporters to behave and those of us of a certain age all know how well that used to work back in the 1980's.

Perhaps I am being a little over the top in my worries here, although in fairness not having been myself I can only base this article on the many stories both in the press and on supporters social media sites, there is an issue so Saints fans should be aware of it.

Watford supporters have spoken of how there is a menacing atmosphere around the stadium and they did not feel comfortable wearing their colours around the area, Saints fans should perhaps use a little caution if they are intending wearing colours.

The problem here is that West Ham like many clubs going to larger capacity stadium have seen many supporters from the past return as well as a new breed, certainly in football stadia today there is an unwritten code of conduct largely adhered too, but when you get an influx of people coming to games who haven't attended regularly before, they are an unknown quantity.

So Saints fans should be careful on Sunday, there are a generation of supporters who did not grow up watching football in the 70's & 80's when a completely different football world existed on matchday behaviour, they do not know how to avoid or spot potential problems till they occur.

This behaviour has re surfaced at the London Stadium so be aware and be safe.

Photo: Action Images

highfield49 added 11:53 - Sep 24 Having spent a few minutes online reviewing the appropriate legislation it appears as though wetspams owners have passed the buck to the stadiums owners and neither stadium safety nor policing regulations can prevent them so doing.There appears to me to be a failure of the owners to both recognise the seriousness of the problem and act before visiting and home supporters get badly injured. If the immediate solution is to install communications equipment within the stadium enabling the police to operate in safety then it should be done now and argue over who picks up the bill later.

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dirk_doone added 18:36 - Sep 25 No need to worry about segregation today. There were only Saints fans there at the end.
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