Watching the Detectives

Whilst Imraan, the players, the officials, us fans and of course the police are all licking our lips at the prospect of hosting Leeds United in the next round of the FA Cup, I fear that the police are the ones with potentially the most to gain. How so, you ask?

A little while ago we asked the following questions of Northamptonshire Police -

"Can you confirm the numbers & costs of officers designated during the 2008-2009 season at Northampton Town, Northampton Saints, Rushden & Diamonds and Kettering Town?"

Of course, with the "Freedom of Information Act" in place (at least until after the next election anyway), the police kind of have to respond to such frivolous requests, even if it does take months!

The Saints were thrown in just to see what costs "friendly" rugby incurred for having crowds well in excess of 10,000. It surprised us a little to discover that Northamptonshire Police supplied NO officers to cover a single Saints game. We all know that rugby has this happy-clappy reputation. All chums together. Squeezing balls in the scrum and all that. Thousands of baying beer-monsters, and not a hint of trouble. But still, in a society where a meeting of a few dozen people can be considered a threat to public order and cannot happen without police permission, or paid police involvement, this seems a strange statistic.

But what of the Poppies?

Well, would it surprise you to learn that far more PC's attended our fixtures last season than Cobblers and Diamonds COMBINED?

We also played host to more Police Sergeants than the Cobblers and Diamonds COMBINED!

Or of the 10 Chief Inspectors who attended games in the County last season, fully EIGHT of them made their way to Rockingham Road?

This is even more incredible in light of the fact that ours and Diamonds gates were pretty similar last season, and whilst we were charged in excess of £28,000 for the privilege of watching real coppers (no PCSO's mind) catch up with their text messages and stuff their faces with burgers, the cost to the Diamonds for their policing was a big fat ZERO. Perhaps they have more stewards? Or maybe their chairman is a Freemason? Who knows, but not finding tens of thousands per annum for the police benevolent fund must be helpful when working to a budget!

And how can it possibly be right that the Poppies with average gates last season around the 1700 mark ended up with almost twice as many PC's at our home games than the Cobblers who averaged over 5000 during 2008-2009? And this is in a league that included home games against both Millwall and Leeds!

Why are we getting such a raw deal from the local plod? Do they see Imraan, and his reported wealth as a rich, soft touch? Again, no one but the Police themselves will know for sure. And with Leeds United coming here in a few weeks time it looks like we'll have to pray for a sell-out, massive TV coverage and extra merchandise sales just to keep the Boys in Blue happy, who are, no doubt, reserving the expensive helicopter, horses, dogs, and tear gas as this is being typed.