Regular readers may remember that last season I mentioned that West Yorkshire Police imposed a series of draconian restrictions on Hull City supporters who wished to travel to our away game at Huddersfield Town. We were told that they had specific intelligence that we posed a threat to public safety, when asked what this entailed they refused to offer any such intelligence - even attempting to ignore Freedom of Information requests that they were legally obliged to respond to.
Well, thanks to the sterling efforts of supporters groups on both sides a fair bit of information has finally emerged today.
This information - much of it emails and letters sent between officers, the clubs and other interested parties – indicates that West Yorkshire Police's actions were driven by financial motives, and they possessed no specific intelligence relating to Hull City supporters or this particular match. Indeed, there are messages recommending that certain media outlets be avoided lest they ask difficult questions on the matter, and evidence that officers were diverted from other duties to monitor social media and football forums to try and gather any information or negative comments that could be twisted to support their claims. Basically, they had nothing tangible to suggest there was ever going to be trouble.
Add in congratulatory emails sent between officers slapping each other's backs on forcing the clubs into a corner, evidence that they put heavy pressure on clubs over the wording and timing of their statements on this matter, and clear proof that they were attempting to smear law abiding members of the public to try and save face, and it doesn't look good on West Yorkshire Police at all.
However, one thing it does do is exonerate us. We've had our reputation dragged through the dirt over this, and these documents present clear proof that this was done without any good cause or reason. Hopefully this won't be the end of the matter, it would be very interesting to see what the national media makes of their disgraceful behaviour.
