Crowd trouble may cost Yorkshire (12 Aug 1996)

12 August 1996

Crowd trouble at Headingley could cost Yorkshire dear

Our Cricket Correspondent

Officials of the Test and County Cricket Board indicated that they would wait for Yorkshire`s official report on the crowd trouble that marred Friday`s play during the second Test between England and Pakistan at Headingley, before deciding on what action needs to be taken.

Headingley`s Western Terrace has, in recent years, been notorious for incidents of crowd trouble. Before the start of this Test, the Yorkshire management had in fact removed every third row of seats in the area, in order to give security forces easier access.

On Friday, 80 people were ejected by the police. Another 100 were ejected on Saturday, and 10 arrests were made for public order offences.

Yorkshire`s cricket president Sir Lawrence Byford admitted that more such incidents could end with the county losing its Test match status. "I am on the executive committee of the TCCB and I will be making a full report to them.``

Sir Byford has, in the past, indicated that cricket administrators might, like their football counterparts, have to erect fences around stadia to quell trouble.

Neither the county president, nor senior officials, had any doubt that the trouble was racially motivated. Pakistan and England have a history of confrontation on the cricket field, and the fans of the two-countries have continued the confrontation outside the field of play - so much so that the term `Paki` now qualifies as a form of abuse.

"The answer," a county official indicated, "could be the closure of the Western Terrace - it is a slum."

It is this area, incidentally, that is patronised by the local Pakistani population. And its characterisation as a `slum` is not likely to have gone down well with this particular segment of the county`s populace.

Yorkshire officials are already worried over the fact that the second Test has been, in terms of attendance, an almost complete disaster. The stands are mostly untenanted, and though county officials blamed a lack of spectator interest in Pakistan as the reason, it is obvious that the prospect of racial trouble has had a hand in keeping the saner elements out of the ground.

Source :: Rediff On The NeT (https://www.rediff.co.in)