20 man brawl at Goodwood.

Heard police are only on site for the Glorious Meeting, racecourse security were there but dressed in plain clothes.

Goodwood General manager Alex Eade said: “I was right there where the incident happened and there were many security guards but they wear suits, so they look like customers. That’s something we’re looking to review.

“Of the six people who received medical attention, two were members of my staff – one was a security guard and one was a member of the catering team – so to suggest that we didn’t do anything to stop it is completely false.

Not sure who’s genius idea it was to have security guards dressed in suits but that has to be the first thing to change – surely you must have them in yellow or orange fluorescent waistcoats with security written on the front & back in bold black lettering.

At least that way the public can clearly tell who they are and not actually mistake them for members of the general public involved in the fighting. Maybe this wouldn’t have escalated quite as badly if those involved had seen them around rather than assuming they were trying to get their own shots in.

That’s p!ss poor having Security not in proper clobber

Goodwood is overrated imo
I went to Goodwood the year Toronado won the Sussex…
I asked if they had a shop to buy my son a jumper or a jacket as he was feeling cold
Yes, they did but it was in the area of those who pay for the highest priced tickets and they wouldn’t let us past the gate.
Fancy not opening the shop to all customers, if they were on the apprentice they’d be fired on that one

I’ve seen the video of the man getting kicked in the head and it was a shocker. Apparently that was outside the course after the original brawl inside so I’m not sure if a bunch were thrown out or made their way out to continue the festivities.
Liquid courage and powdered invincibility. All for the craic. No regrets, GBH and ABH is the new banter.

As the fighting was going on around you can hear someone jubilantly announce in the background “haha he’s out mate, he got banged” as if this action had no consequence. He might just have witnessed the death of a young man but he doesn’t care, it’s Saturday, time to paaaarrrtttyyy.

as i understand, anyone so inclined is free to make representations at any time to the Licensing Team at Chichester District Council, contact details here:

http://www.chichester.gov.uk/article/25491/Alcohol-licensing-advice-and-guidance

the stated objectives of the licensing legislation are:

The prevention of crime and disorder;
Public safety;
The prevention of public nuisance; and
The protection of children from harm.

“I’ve heard it was a fight between southampton and Pompey fans.”

So racing gets a bad name due to football hooligans? Typical.

Having security in “plain clothes” is common at most large events, including most football stadia.

They are better trained than the more general security staff, many of whom are casual staff and who do not have an SIA licence.

The “men in black” are the most experienced (usually ex-police and military) and are the ones generally used for ejections and, in my experience, are very good at it, as well as defusing situations as well. On more than one occasion I’ve been glad to know they’ve been watching my back when I’ve had to deal with something at a football match.

Although in plain clothes they can easily be identified because they’re normally wearing earpieces and, if they have time, they will put on their SIA armbands before going in to sort out a situation or they will be accompanied by a security supervisor who will be in hi-viz. They also identify themselves before taking any action. Plus they tend to look like brick outhouses and not the sort of person any sane person would want to argue with.

As regards the police not taking any action, generally they won’t take action if the fight is taking place inside the venue or the stadium, unless the event has been deemed to be high risk and the event organiser has paid for them to be there. Police involvement comes into play after the event has been dealt with.

I’ve been involved in the organisation of a couple of hundred league and cup football matches and can only think of four of those games where police have specifically been bought into the stadium to deal with any potential incidents and, even then, they would only get involved if club security lost control of the situation and I’ve only seen that happen once. (That’s based mainly on League One, Championship and FA Cup matches)

If someone is ejected from a stadium as a result of a suspected arrestable offence then security will arrange for the police to meet them at a stadium exit and the individual will be handed over to the police and arrested.

CCTV will be reviewed by the club / course and police at the time or afterwards for evidence gathering. There is usually a police presence in the control room, certainly for any “high risk” events and if not in the control room there will be a liaison officer who can be there within minutes.

I don’t think most people realise just how much CCTV coverage there is at sporting venues. Certainly at football league grounds about the only areas without CCTV coverage would be the cubicles in the toilets.

I can’t speak for smaller racecourses but at the large Grade One courses CCTV coverage is probably as near to 100% as you can get it …. taking into account the toilet privacy issue again.

The other thing to note is the CCTV at sporting venues is not the grainy image you see in Crimewatch. The first time I was in a control room for a football match I was shown a shot from a camera at one end of the stadium where they zoomed the camera onto someone in the back row at the opposite end of the stadium and the image was HD crystal clear.

The point being just because nothing appears to happen when a fight is taking place don’t assume nothing is done about it.

It’s sometimes safer to let a fight run its course and deal with it later than to go in and potentially make it worse.

The usual approach in football stadia (and I think it also applies at racecourses as well) is, if possible, let the fight peter out of its own accord and deal with those involved later. I recall one incident where there was trouble at a football match and the ringleader was quickly identified but it was deemed too risky to deal with him whilst he was surrounded by his friends. Eventually, due to the amount of booze he had consumed, he had to go to the loo and as he came out of the loo he was quietly and quickly surrounded by half a dozen men in black and “ushered” out of the ground into the hands of the police without anyone nearby even realising what was going on. Watching his reaction on the CCTV I don’t think he actually realised, until he was halfway down the stairs, what was happening to him.

More violence at Ascot today by the looks of it…

https://twitter.com/okaysdmn/status/995358989922832384