Hull KR have addressed the matter of supporter unrest that occurred in the game against St Helens with the club highlighting what is being done to prevent further incidents.
The East Stand at Craven Park is one of Super League’s most iconic and well-renowned with the supporters helping carry the club to victory on many occasions with their support, something that is a major factor in Hull KR losing just once at home this season.
However, ugly scenes were seen after the victory over St Helens back in Round 10 following KR’s impressive 40-20 win over St Helens. Footage of the incidents made it onto social media and meant widespread criticism was aimed at fans from both clubs.
The footage appeared to show St Helens fans advancing towards Hull KR fans with stewards having to separate the supporters, although it was unclear what has sparked the incident initially.
St Helens responded by issuing banning orders to fans that they identified whilst it was confirmed to Serious About Rugby League that the RFL would be investigating the incidents.
Hull KR have now released the minutes from their most recent supporters meeting in which crowd trouble was among the first things on the agenda.
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“St Helens was terrible” – Hull KR supporter meeting discusses crowd trouble
Credit: Imago Images
Hull KR have been a club to be punished for crowd behaviour in the past with that having actually affected them already this season. At the opening game of the year when they faced Hull FC at the MKM Stadium, the Robins had restricted ticket numbers on account of behaviour seen in the reverse fixture last year.
At the club’s recent supporter meeting, the issue of fan trouble and crowd issues was brought up by the club’s Council Chair and East Stand Representative who explained her worries and concerns, even claiming issues now seem to happen at “most games”.
The Minutes read: “Throwing of bottles / beers – general safety of fans within the stand has a growing cause of concern. This started as one off on big occasions / moments within the game, but now seems to be most games. St Helens was terrible, but an improvement was noticed at Leigh.”
Hull KR brought in their security team’s Chief Operating Officer to address the concerns with Chris Richardson explaining that it was a minority of the 5,000 fans that were causing issues.
To remedy that, he added: “More stewards and response teams have been placed in the back of the stand to help with this and new signage will be up for the Huddersfield game.
“Education of behavior is paramount to discouraging this however when stewards do try this it
can fall on deaf ears due to alcohol induced supporters becoming confrontational and not
willing to be educated.”
The club have also introduced a matchday text service where fans can report incidents, something that Richardson claimed had led to “good intel” and was an “extremely helpful tool”.
Melissa
June 29, 2024 at 6:34 am
None of this happened with fans of the east stand
The east stand fans are unable to get to the part of the stands where this occured. This happened in the family stands, the north stand. Arguably it can be said that the opposing fans started this whole debacle. Granted in the past, a small amount of KR fans would start shit with the other fans but this time however it seemed as though this was in retaliation for bottles being thrown at the families, spitting, swearing, threatebing behaviour displayed towards them. Why the east stand has been mentioned at all is beyond me.