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There have been a number of criticisms in recent years of the attitudes and actions of the Plainmoor stewards, and now the club is inviting tenders for a new stewarding contract: http://www.torquayunited.com/news/artic ... 29955.aspx

This raises a few questions: will the club simply go for the cheapest tender? Or will it also take into consideration the various track records of those bidding? Will the club take into account the bad experiences of innocent supporters suffering at the hands of bad stewards? Why doesn't the club employ its own stewards and volunteers, which it did successfully for many years with little trouble and few problems?

With the new regulations on companies supplying event staff it will go to the company that can comply with all the legislation and at the lowest cost. The club would be better off developing their own list of qualified staff for stewarding and just hire in a response team. At Reading and Southampton we have response teams in each stand but the numbers needed at Plainmoor would be much smaller.They could save 25% off the costs of giving it all out to another company.

Southampton Gull wrote: ↑15 Jun 2017, 00:02 With the new regulations on companies supplying event staff it will go to the company that can comply with all the legislation and at the lowest cost. The club would be better off developing their own list of qualified staff for stewarding and just hire in a response team. At Reading and Southampton we have response teams in each stand but the numbers needed at Plainmoor would be much smaller.They could save 25% off the costs of giving it all out to another company.

Awe come on Dave. we all know and you do that all we have to do is
get you to just stand there and anyone looking for trouble will be wetting themselves. Possibly with laughter but you never know. Go on you know you wanna do it!

I have always felt we spend an insane amount of money on stewarding when we get such low attendances mainly under 2,000 per game.
Some years ago Andrew Candy explained to me why we have to have minimum numbers of stewards but I can remember the days when we had none with much bigger gates 10,000 plus.

I believe stewarding is a complete waste of money because most of them do not know what to do anyway as was evidenced when we played Bristol Rovers a few years ago in the last home game of the season.

I think Southamptons idea is an excellent one anything to save money on stewarding which I readily admit is a hobby horse of mine.

When we had gates of 10k you had the old bill who had to be paid for. Clubs went to stewarding because it was cheaper than the fuzz.

Plainmoor78 wrote: ↑15 Jun 2017, 09:30 When we had gates of 10k you had the old bill who had to be paid for. Clubs went to stewarding because it was cheaper than the fuzz.

No you had Old Bill who didn't have to be paid for!

You can't compare now with then or any other time for that matter as this is the here and now; post Bradford and post Hillsborough. Licenses have to be obtained and standards adhered to.....no choices, no room to manoeuvre.

All stewards have to now be working towards an NVQ or already have it if they want to work in spectator safety. I've worked in response for years but even though I run response teams now I've also had to do it. The club could easily achieve funding to get an authorised training body in to get interested fans through the necessary qualifications. Then you'd see less conflict situations which I've regularly witnessed at Plainmoor between fans and stewards. I think on the whole the response teams I've seen at Plainmoor have been pretty good apart from one or two individuals but there are local guys I've had working for me at festivals who are already qualified and on the doorstep. I think the club would be silly not to look at their options rather than for example go with Rob Stanley's company again.

Hopefully whoever takes over the contract will be able to carry on or improve the stewarding at Plainmoor.

There are a few courses going on throughout the close season, such as CCTV and SIA courses which is being offered to stewards, all the stewards are NVQ qualified (As Dave has said).

Also in the Football League (Maybe in the National League, but not sure) you have to have a 1 steward for every 50 fans in attendance so a crowd of 2,000 would need at least 40 stewards, plus a crowd doctor and CCTV person and stadium manager.