‘Heavy handed’ police have been slammed for their treatment towards Blackpool fans at Wigan Athletic on Saturday afternoon.
Twitter user @Brett33D uploaded a video, and said: “Wigan (a) Waiting on the train station, I’ve watched this back a few times. Still can’t figure out why the police went off on one? #UTMP proper bizarre policing.
“It came from nowhere. It wasn’t even connected to some young Wigan lads giving it a bit. It was the police heavy handed vs Blackpool fans. Don’t even know what started it and I was there.”
The game itself saw Scott Smith’s first goal in senior football prove to be enough to send Wigan into the top half of League One thanks to a 1-0 victory over their playoff chasing opponents.
Wigan took the lead after 26 minutes when Jones once again delivered a cross from the left, and this time the 23 year-old right wing-back emerged to get the ball over the line.
Matt Pennington went right through the back of Stephen Humphrys, only to escape with a yellow card, leaving Wigan boss Shaun Maloney so angered that he ended up getting shown a yellow card by referee James Linington.
Blackpool brought on on Kyle Joseph in search of an equaliser, and the Wigan Academy graduate came very close to finding a leveller when he nodded a deep cross just wide of the far post.
Wigan: Tickle, Smith, Hughes, Kerr, Chambers, Adeeko, Smith (Shaw 78′), Godo (Kelman 78′), Aasgaard (Magennis 82′), Jones (Goode 82′), Humphrys (Sessegnon 70′)
Subs: Sessegnon, Amos, Shaw, Smith, Kelman, Magennis, Goode
Blackpool: Grimshaw, Pennington (Carey 83′), Ekpiteta, Casey, Gabriel, Dembele (Joseph 69′), Norburn (Virtue 83′), Byers, Coulson, Rhodes (Lavery 23′), Beesley (CJ Hamilton 69′)
Subs: O’Donnell, Connolly, Joseph, Carey, Virtue, Lavery, CJ Hamilton
“It was a fine line today, it was always going to be like that if you look at their recent games they have been low-scoring games,” Blackpool boss Neil Critchley said, per the club website.
“The first goal has been decisive and they got it. It was a great cross but from our point of view it is a really poor goal that we conceded. Second half we were by far the dominant team, we pinned them back and it’s not easy to play against.
“Overall for the 90 minutes I felt we deserved a point in the game. They had a chance from a corner with a header and the goal, that was it in the first half, we didn’t do enough but there was nothing in the game.
“When you’ve got to break down the opposition you’ve got to perhaps cross from deeper, it’s hard to get in behind them because they defend the penalty box well so we have to get bodies in there. We weren’t able to do that in the first half and get good enough possession further up the pitch, but the game changed in our favour with momentum and territory.
“We had two or three really good opportunities and we just had to take them, we had a couple of near misses and they defended the six-yard box really well.”
Elsewhere, Jordan Rhodes was forced off the pitch after 23 minutes following a collision with a Wigan defender, the Head Coach gave the latest update on his injury with the international break ahead before Pool return to action.
“It was an unfortunate incident,” Critchley added on Rhodes forced off the pitch after 23 minutes following a collision with a Wigan defender.
“We seem to be picking up an injury per game at the moment, obviously he wanted to carry on but he couldn’t. It’s his knee so we’ll have to cross our fingers that we have some good news.”
Wigan’s Shaun Maloney said via Latics TV: “It was a huge three points. This was a big game for us.
“We have spoken all season about trying to stay in this league, so it was a big game for us. All credit has to go to the players, I thought they were brilliant.
“The first half was a really good performance with the ball. That’s as high of a level that we can play at the moment and the players were very good. In the second half, all credit to the players they had to work very hard to defend the lead.
“I really liked it, Blackpool are very good at pressing you. If you get that wrong, you can give up big chances and that was the challenge to the players; they had to play under big pressure today, and they did.
“It’s a brilliant day for him [Scott Smith]. I asked him to play a really different position today and he had to defend in a wide area, but I had to try and use him as a midfielder when we had it. I thought he (Scott Smith) and Stephen Humphrys were very good down that right side,” he continued.
“Scotty is everything you want as a manager. He trains the way that he plays, every day he’s on it, and he deserves everything he gets.
“He was down in Torquay and wasn’t playing when I came in. With the work that he’s put in, he deserved a moment like today. I can’t speak highly enough of Scotty.”
Twitter users reacted with ‘heavy handed’ police slammed for the treatment towards Blackpool fans at Wigan…
@oafc19: ACAB
@Wppsreborn: Never in 20 odd years of watching Wigan play Blackpool regularly have I seen trouble. We played Horwich a few weeks back and despite battles all over, GMP were nowhere to be seen. Presuming today was over compensating for that night
@JoshBuckley90: They’re useless mate, on the opposite side of the bridge when we played Bolton a few weeks ago and it kicked off. All rushed across the bridge knocking kids and old people over. Same thing every time we play a local team
@TheWhittards: It was clear from arrival that their plan was to create problems. Why else were they aggressively displaying their riot gear on a family day out at the football.
@bobjstinger: @gmpolice always looking to bully and attack someone
@Rob6smith: Biggest firm in the North West mate, absolute jokers are the GMP.
@lee931: The policing was OTT all day, the fact the riot police were on have was inciting violence for no reason whatsoever. The stewards were absolutely pathetic
@WAFCtabs: They’re terrible. They cause more trouble than they actually stop.
@tprowl: Drawing batons on kids
@3PiersAndATower: Thugs preparing for fans – yes that’s the police and it needs investigating, I may phone the new hotline!!!!!!!!!! 😡🧡🍊
@Shinpad11: Yet another catastrophic display from @gmpolice Latics been playing here for 20+ yrs and they still continue to display levels of incompetence on a massive scale. This is our tax money & our police force. Value, integrity & accountability is nowhere to be seen. #wafc #BlackpoolFC
@dreddy2: Not for the first time @gmpolice time you sorted this utter policing shambles out.
@68marsh: Gmp bullies
@rolyatnomis: Couldn’t believe the amount of police there today. Felt like more than our home game vs Bolton. Seems they wanted a piece of action after missing it all when we played them the other week..
@SamgDavis: Exact same as last year, still waiting for them to replace my glasses
@Byronthomason_: Care to comment @gmpolice
@lorenjayne22: Glad I didn’t take kids home that way. Jesus 🤦🏻♀️ shocking that haha
@pfloyd8989: Dead weird that they do this here, but when they have the freaks gluing themselves to the road they make them cups of tea.
@danp91: Never seen any trouble between Wigan and Blackpool, apart from a couple of mouthy kids today being kept apart by a bush. Think @gmpolice are trying to make up for the complete fuck up against Bolton. Still no idea why there is never any police at the bridge
@TomGale91: Football police are the biggest gang of cunts on the planet
@laurennnn0607: You can sum up many of the police as bullied at school and now on a power trip
@SteveUnofficial: And this is why I can’t take my autistic son to local away games. If he’d got caught up in this he would have panicked and god knows what would have happened. @gmpolice care to explain why your officer was repeatedly hitting someone they had pinned to the ground?
@XavierBCampbell: An absolute disgrace to their profession – pretty sure they wouldn’t be doing ANY of this if they didn’t have batons 😬 Some of my mates were at this game (in the away end) and they got pushed around by these day glo twats for literally minding their own business. Shocking.
@TicsAsh: GMP THUGS. FUCK THEM. #wafc #ACAB
@AnnieEaves: Must say I find those punches from the police, at the very beginning of this video, disturbing. They had the numbers, they had the fan on the ground, and still there’s what appears to be a punch towards the back of the head… and for what?
@theliammayo: They were absolutely itching for it all day today them. Was well over-policed. Were fucking with people at every opportunity 👍🏻
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