Keep Off The Pitch!

As per usual, the club have issued a plea on their website and will be using the P.A. system all afternoon to ask supporters to keep off the pitch at the end of the match today.

It’s a outlawed custom now at this club, that after every final home game of the season, whether we’ve gone up or down, survived on the last day or even if the season’s petered out, mindless idiots converge on the pitch as soon as the final whistle blows.

It really winds me up. The players want to come out and show their appreciation for the support and a load of idiots in baseball caps legging it on to the grass before turning round and waving at their mates in the crowd spoil it for the rest of us.

After a couple of seasons of the same thing I remember leaving right on the final whistle of one particular final home game because I knew what was going to happen. I knew I wouldn’t get to see the players come back out. As I left the ground I heard the P.A. system begging them to leave the field before concluding that the players would not be coming back out and that they had spoiled it for everybody.

No matter how much they plead and beg, there will always be people who ignore it. You see them on 85 minutes congregating at the front of the Ponty End, ready to run on at the final whistle. It’s frustrating to say the least. What possible enjoyment is there in running on to a piece of grass, effectively chasing away your own heroes? I’ll never understand some people.

On the other hand, I don’t know why the club don’t invest a little more thought into the matter. It’s obvious that copious pleas over the P.A. and website are useless. It’s high time they started banning people from attending games.