Northern Ireland v Switzerland 08SEPT

PARTNERSHIP WITH POLICE WORKS WELL

WORDS : GARY McALLISTER (AONISC)

we were kept safe, with escort transport from the Polish-German border to the match and back again for the many fans who opted to stay in Berlin. In more recent times, with the evolution of our Northern Ireland Fan Embassy, we speak to the PSNI in advance of both home and away fixtures. It allows us to share information and to discuss things like traffic management and coach parking for home games. When we’re travelling away the police will help us to establish contact with the local police in Rimini, Frankfurt or wherever the match happens to be. We’ ll quite often have sat in a meeting with officers during our ‘site visit’, which usually takes place a couple of months ahead of the fixture. If the PSNI are also across they’ ll act as a conduit between the fans and local officers, and this often helps to prevent any miscommunication for misunderstanding. The relationship between the PSNI and the AONISC works so well that it’s held up as a model of good practice by others. We’ve shared our story with a room full of police liaison officers from throughout England and in the future this may go further into Europe to provide a template for other countries, where relationships are either poor or non-existent .

One of the most important relationships in which the Amalgamation (AONISC) engages is our partnership with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. This first began when Northern Ireland were drawn alongside England and Wales in our qualifying group for the 2006 World Cup. As the police in both of those countries are extremely active around their planning and management of football fixtures, they contacted their counterparts in Northern Ireland to request details about the numbers in which the Green and White Army were expected to travel . Our travel secretary at the time, Jim Rainey, spoke regularly with the various police liaison officers involved and was able to ensure that all the relevant information was passed on to Northern Ireland fans in advance of our away fixtures. The line of communication with the Greater Manchester police was invaluable, helping with the organisation of a ‘fan walk’ to Old Trafford and with supporters’ buses being escorted safely to and from the stadium. We’ve had a few police motorcycle escorts down the years – it definitely beats sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic! Our next major engagement with PSNI came in 2009 around the matches against Poland both in Belfast and Chorzow. It was anticipated that Polish Ultra fans would come to Belfast looking for trouble, and so it proved. It was an unusual and unwelcome experience around a match as a minority of visiting fans fought with police and caused disorder. This caused much apprehension among our fans travelling to the away fixture. The communication between the local police and their Polish counterparts was first class and ensured that

FOLLOW US AT @WGMac

TheAmalgamation www.aonisc.co.uk

IRISHFA.COM

53