Auckland FC and Wellington Phoenix fans Photo: PHOTOSPORT
With nearly two decades of experience in the A-League, Wellington Phoenix supporters warned newcomers Auckland FC what could happen if travelling fans were not adequately separated during matches - but they say the Auckland club was not listening.
Auckland FC fans and Western Sydney Wanderers fans clashed at Mt Smart Stadium on Saturday during the round 25 match that ended in a 1-all draw.
A travelling Wanderers fan was hospitalised and underwent surgery for facial injuries sustained in an assault.
Auckland FC chief executive Nick Becker said across the 11 previous home games there had been "no incidents anywhere like this".
"In fact, nothing that I know of, this is the first time it's happened, so probably the stadium and all of us were taken a little bit unawares, but now we'll certainly be reviewing that."
However, the Wellington Phoenix active supporter group, Yellow Fever, said Becker's comments were "baffling".
The Phoenix had played Auckland FC in Auckland twice this season and Yellow Fever organiser Paige Barnes said the group had "faced multiple issues relating to crowd behaviour towards away supporters".
"Issues that seem to stem from systematic issues in the way Auckland FC and Mt Smart run their matchdays. It happened in both derby games we played there, and has seemingly culminated in the incidents from the weekend.
"It is incredibly disappointing that the negligence from Auckland FC has caused a supporter to be hospitalised, something that could have been entirely avoided if the club had listened to feedback from organisations like ours."
Barnes believed "there's a lack of understanding about football from them and what an away bay requires".
Auckland FC main supporter group The Port and Yellow Fever were ticketed to be side-by-side at the first derby in Auckland in December.
"That would never happen anywhere else in the league or the world, and that's what caused issues around the supporters entering the various bays.
"There are a lot of examples around the league where clubs will take a lot of supporters to their version of a derby, and there has historically been issues at those games, but the clubs have learned from that and put procedures in place to mitigate those, and we saw none of that happen.
"It was disappointing the second time we went up that the feedback around what we thought could be done based on what the other clubs in Australia had done wasn't listened to and exacerbated some of those issues."
Barnes said feedback had been passed from Yellow Fever to the Wellington Phoenix events operations manager and then on to Auckland FC. Travelling Yellow Fever members also filled out feedback forms sent out by Auckland Stadiums after the game and "were quite blunt with what we felt had occurred".
Fans arrive before the A-League - Wellington Phoenix v Auckland FC at Sky Stadium, Wellington. Photo: Masanori Udagawa/Photosport
Barnes was surprised Becker had not been told of the issues experienced by fans at the derby games.
"One of our supporters was punched by an Auckland supporter wearing Auckland gear for no reason other than the fact that they were wearing Wellington gear," during the first away derby Barnes said. An incident she said was reported to Auckland FC and the stadium.
Wellington supporters were not blameless in what had happened at Auckland FC games, Barnes said.
"The lack of policing of our away bays, allowing local fans in Auckland kit to enter and sit inside the bays, not only caused tensions, but caused multiple travelling supporters to be removed from the stadium after reacting to taunts from the Aucklanders in the bay.
"I think there was a lack of understanding about what crowds are like. It's football. I'm not saying that crowds are violent, because they're not. We haven't had an incident of violence in a long time here in Wellington, but it's a different way of supporting your team to the way that it would support rugby or cricket, for example."
Barnes said with Auckland doing really well in the league this year, the supporters are getting right behind their team and expressing that in different ways.
"I think that an active support zone can rile up those among society who want to cause problems.
"I think that Yellow Fever have done quite a good job at stamping those people out, but I think that the Auckland supporters could do a bit more of that, not just condemning it after it's happened, but actively working to promote a friendly environment in those zones.
"It's never nice seeing stories in the media about somebody who has had to be hospitalised while enjoying supporting their team, I hope that it's not going to change overall perceptions of our sport in the country.
"I know Australia have a lot of issues with that, and that has flow on effects to the way that it gets policed by the local state police and things like that. So I hope that we don't have those flow on effects, because that will be a real shame after what [Yellow Fever] managed to foster over the last 17 18 years."
Becker said Auckland FC fans had met the expectations the club had set out this season.
"We as a club have our values and and this [5 April incident] is just a big outlier and something that we're all extremely disappointed about.
"We'll definitely make sure that it doesn't happen again in the future... we want to make sure that our behaviours and the behaviours of our fans make Auckland proud as well, and so this is why we're so disappointed that kind of one individual has let us all down," Becker said.
Interactions between Yellow Fever and fans from clubs in Australia had been cordial, according to Barnes.
"It costs us a lot of money to go to away games, and on the flip side, it costs Australians a lot of money to come here. So, we're really happy when people come over and make the trip, and that's been the case from day one.
"I've made a lot of friends with Australian supporters that I'll have for life now through football, and that's been there from day one.
"I think that there was never a vibe of anti-social behaviour in the Yellow Fever, or if there was it got stabbed out pretty quickly, which I think has led to the way that we can have bears with the same wanderer supporters that were in Auckland after our game here that's been embedded in the culture."
