The Piccadilly report

As one supporter is found not guilty of public order offences after the FA Cup Quarter Final trip to Old Trafford, we have obtained a copy of British Transport Police’s report into the chaotic scenes at Manchester’s Piccadilly station that evening.

KUMB.com's Gordon Thrower – who was there – picks over the bones of the report, which highlights some spectacularly incompetent planning on the part of certain parts of the rail network….

As the fixture list arrives it is annoying to note that yet again we are denied a nice bank holiday weekend away at Bournemouth, a trip up to Manchester being the order of the day. Thinking back to our last visit to that part of the world, a report on the appalling scenes that took place at the station that evening has now arrived at kumb towers. The report was prepared by British Transport Police in response to a complaint made into the crowd control – such as it was – at Manchester Piccadilly after the FA Cup Quarter Final visit to Old Trafford.

As it happens the complaint was misplaced. The body responsible for crowd control at that station is Network Rail and BTP simply turned up at NR’s request to try and sort things out when it became clear that things were getting out of hand. However, rather than leave it there, having received the complaint BTP did actually go through with an investigation. So what actually did go wrong?


What Happened



To put it briefly, once the match had finished at Old Trafford thousands of people travelling home by rail turned up at Piccadilly station where, because access to the relevant platforms was restricted by the station authorities, people were unable to board their booked trains. People were arriving at the station faster than could leave by train due to the restricted access to the platforms. Passengers were bumped onto later trains with a result that trains to London that evening were dangerously overloaded. The 19:35 for example carried 1,100 passengers on a train designed to seat 650.


What went wrong?

On the railway side of things nobody really emerges with any credit. NR obviously needed to have some indication of the number of likely travellers. A BTP contact told us that, on average, it is usual for planning to be based on 10% of spectators arriving at Old Trafford by public transport. Given our increased Cup allocation, that would have meant a basic estimate of, say, 900 supporters heading home that night via Piccadilly.

Just to be safe, NR contacted the train company for a clearer indication of numbers. Virgin Trains cheerfully told NR that they weren’t expecting any more passengers than usual .Quite what this forecast was based on is not totally clear. However, it seems likely that the forecast concentrated on travellers making a day trip up for the match. If that is the case, they ignored/forgot/were not aware of one very important fact: that large numbers of supporters (myself included) had travelled up on the Friday and Saturday prior to the match in order to make a weekend of it. And all those supporters wanted to get home on the Sunday evening.


Planning

Whether or not NR would have done anything different had they been aware of the numbers travelling is not known. What we do know is that they implemented a pre-set plan that was based on dealing with a completely different set of circumstances. That plan proved to be inadequate.

Back in October 2015 Manchester hosted two rugby matches. In the Union World Cup the England XV took on Uruguay in the afternoon in a “dead rubber” group match. Later that evening Old Trafford played host to the Rugby League Super League Grand Final between Wigan and Leeds. The travel profile was pretty easy to work out. The main custom for travel towards London was the Union match which was over several hours before the League match kicked off.

Supporters travelling by train for the Super League match from Wigan would have used trains direct from stations close to Old Trafford – both Salford stations have direct services to Wigan. Leeds supporters would have used both Piccadilly and Victoria stations. Also, it being a Saturday, many would have stayed for the weekend, much as we did.

In other words the anticipated numbers of people using the railways at any one time that night were probably lower than for our match and journeys from the rugby supporters would have been spread over a longer period of time and a larger geographical area.

So why anyone thought it would work for our Quarter Final is anyone’s guess.


Crowd 'Control'



So what was the masterplan that NR relied on? Well it helps to know a bit about the layout at Piccadilly station. In the main part of the station access to the platforms 1-8 is via set of 4 glass doors. In theory, once through the door access is available to any of platforms 1-8.

On the night in question, London trains were departing from platforms 6&7 – either side of the same platform. Access to that platform was restricted to the one glass door serving that platform and barriers had been put up on the other side of the door to prevent access from other doors and platforms.

In front of the doors NR had erected barriers forming a sort of cattle-pen zig zag funnel in front of the doors. This, and the fact that passengers were forced to use just the one door to access the platform slowed down the flow of passengers onto the trains to a trickle: for every four or five people actually getting access to the platform there were probably 20 or more arriving on the concourse. Which is fine, as long as you have an infinite amount of time and space to play with,.At Manchester Piccadilly, they haven’t.


What Happened Next?

Basically a predictable and avoidable shambles. The concourse filled up. People booked on earlier trains were stuck behind people booked on later trains. Those at the back were not aware of the existence of the cattle pen so that those nearest the pen were getting crushed against it. NB: An interesting thing to come out of the BTP report is that whilst the Office Of The Rail Regulator (or “Fat Controller” as we used to call him) has plenty to say on the subject of overcrowded trains, BTP could find no guidance on overcrowding at stations. Which is odd.

Back at Piccadilly, NR sort of panicked. According to BTP some 3-3,500 passengers had arrived to travel rather than the 900 or so Network Rail had planned for. It being a Sunday evening NR didn’t have the staff to cope so they called in BTP. It being a Sunday evening, BTP were also a bit short on numbers so they called in help from local forces, including Greater Manchester, Merseyside and South Yorkshire.

In order to speed up boarding BTP asked Virgin Trains to cancel all reservations and to “declassify” the last few trains, meaning it was a free-for-all. I’m not sure exactly when that decision was taken or how that was communicated to passengers. If the 19:35 train, for example, was declassified nobody told me. When I arrived on board a foreign tourist was sat in my place and, despite the fact that I would be as much use in a fight as a Spurs player in an England shirt, they vacated my seat at the merest wave of my ticket – presumably intimidated by the large numbers of “hard-looking” football supporters in the carriage.

Unsurprisingly, thanks to the declassification, tempers got a bit frayed with passengers on later trains at least finding seats that they thought they had reserved were occupied and one of the London-bound services extended its booked stop at Stockport whilst scuffles calmed down.

Back at the station complaints on the ground were ignored – the general attitude to football supporters from rail companies and police alike seems to have been one of contempt. My own suggestion that some of the other doors to the platforms be opened to improve flow from the concourse to the platforms was greeted with the sort of reaction that suggested that I would be wise not to pursue the idea if I actually wanted to get home that night.

Others were not so lucky. One, who on seeing a kid getting crushed against a barrier, protested with a verbal force and dexterity perhaps more traditional of the tabloids’ stereotypical football supporter than I had earlier employed and found himself arrested by Greater Manchester Police. After a night in the cells, he was charged with a ludicrous public order offence “Causing harm distress or harassment to a member of the public”. Thankfully the charge was thrown out when it finally got to court, though the chap involved was forced to wait until a hearing at the end of June to find out.

Arguably, the actions of Network Rail that day caused infinitely more “harm, distress or harassment” to members of the public than a few choice words of Anglo Saxon could ever do. The fact that the arrest was made in the first place not for the first time raises concerns over attitudes to football supporters in general. Would that arrest have taken place the previous October, for example, had the crush involved those Rugby Union supporters? I’d be willing to bet that it wouldn’t have.

Some of the reporting in the mainstream press was also predictably slanted: ”Violence Erupts” was the description by one newspaper (you can guess which one) of a scene which, given the circumstances, was remarkably well-behaved. This appears to be a general malaise amongst the UK press when reporting about football supporters – just look at some of the stuff from Euro16 where the treatment of mostly innocent England supporters by some genuinely frightening Russian psychopaths (who probably thought that the execrable “Green Street” was a documentary) was portrayed in a manner as to suggest that the victims had it coming to them because, well “they are English Football Supporters aren’t they”.


So what next?

Well at least some good came out of the complaint. Network Rail have decided that for, Cup matches anyway, they will start from the assumption that 50% of supporters will arrive by rail and will change their crowd management plans so that the station copes better with the numbers involved. Apparently a new plan was instigated for the Europa League match against Liverpool which took place a few days later which seemed to go ok – though again comparisons with our match aren’t necessarily totally valid given the geographies involved.

As for attitudes to supporters though, I fear old habits die hard in some quarters. Treating supporters with contempt has had lethal consequences in the past and it was pure good luck hat there were no serious injuries this time around. However, even when things got bad nobody seemed in any way inclined to consider listening to those affected.

For the record we did contact Network Rail to invite comment on the report but at the time of writing we’ve had neither acknowledgement nor response from them. However, we do believe in the right of reply – we’re good like that around here. So, needless to say, if anyone from NR does want to chip in with a comment they should contact either the editor or myself – contact details are available elsewhere on the site and you should also have the address from which I originally contacted you.

As mentioned, our next visit to Manchester will be another Sunday trip (thanks to tv) to see us take on City. It’s bank holiday weekend so numbers up for a night or two out will probably be quite high so we’ll be able to see the new plans for ourselves.

Will I go? Probably. Will I go by train? Hmmm let me get back to you on that one...

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