nicely handled

[EFM The Firm, The Voice]

Right time for the offical reply:<p>How many time do we have to go on about what EFM are, we are a bunch of drunken pisstakers, always have been, always will be, we have been taking our brand of highly comical songs and excessive drinking and general mayhem behaviour to grounds for a couple of seasons, total number of violent incidents - one, Aldershot at home, set upon by them! For a better view check out the homepage on the EFM website which I will link to.<p>We actually look forward to coming to your ground, it is our favorite away game of the season (although if Bognor come up next year that may change) not out of any kind of respect for Canvey but because it's a long drunken journey with basically a load of supporters who are very easy to wind up and frankley are an embarresement to thier club as they are so quite (Aldershot are very easy to wind up and get a lot of army chants directed at them - but at least they get behind the club)<p>Problems I see, you seem to have a real lack of imagination and wit, we were churning out a stack of stereotypical essex and seaside chants as well as various random stuff (do they know it's xmas) and all we got was "Yeah mate 2-1/3-1" and "Watford !?!?!?!". If you can't beat us join us.

Violence and intimidation - Last game and this game you have a stack of supporters who seem to delight in standing behind our goal, now if we wanted to intimidate you we'd stand behind yours, truct me it's a lot more intimidating for us to have a group of rival supporters standing at our end, them supporters also took great delight in taunting us when you went 2-1 up (as they did at 5-0 last time) without any violent (I mean surely a hardcore hooligan group like ourselves would take offence to such treatment) We also walked freely with your supporters during half time and in the bar without incident (to point out the incident in the trophy game regarding stuff falling off a shelve, we banged the ceiling chanting not realising that your clubhouse was made by IKEA and it prompley sent shidders to the shelf hence the falling down).<p>If we are so bad then why did your OWN PLAYERS clap us at full time as did Jeff King despite all the chants we levelled at him (glad he has a sense of humour) and why did one of your own stewards say we were a good bunch of lads.<p>The police presence was a over-reaction as was the calling of them last time.<p>After the last game our so called firm were socialising freeley with a load of your supporters in the pub across the road (the one with the meat wagon in it this time) again hardly the Chelsea Headhunters.<p>A few tips for next season:

Don't be so arragant, your not a big club, you're a successful club, I have seen plenty of clubs with small attendances win the Ryman (Hayes, Kingstonian) but they increase a lot in the championship season, your crowd was pathetic, you have to ask yourself why so many people wanted Burnley to beat you, call it jelousey and I would of loved to of had your last couple of seasons but you will crash and burn very soon.

Stand at you own end and join in, we are from hertfordshire, we can be sheep ****gers. commuters anything you want, when we sing "candy floss" at you then sing back "we got loads of choc ices". It's not hard and if we can stand there while a group of your supporters stand in our face rammimng the result down our neck and not resort to violence then we certainly won't worry about comical chants at our expence!

Lets go through the aticle on the EFM website:<p>This coming Saturday 23rd Febuary, St.Albans City play away to FA trophy holders, FA Cup giantkillers and uneducated simpletons Canvey Island. PAYING YOU A COMPLIMENT ON YOUR ACHEIVEMNTS AND A CHEEKY LITTLE INSULT, I'M SURE YOU'VE HEARD WORSE AND CAN'T REALLY BE TOO OFFENDED

This is traditionally a very drunken abusive away trip for the firm and would apppreicate any memebers of the team to join. We have no game on Sunday so the old I'm getting my head down early for the big match excuse won't wash. YOU KNOW IT'S A DRUNKEN ABSUSIVE TRIP, THERE IS NO MENTION OF VOILENCE, JUST ALL THE DRUNKEN STUFF MENTIONED ABOVE

Highlights of the last trip to Canvey included excessive drink and drug taking, Gaffer having some champers for breakfast and trying his best with a essex girl on the bus, Costello getting into various scrapes in the ground, Ben, Alan and co being questioned by the bill after a cone throwing incident. Sniifer trying his hardesr to get on the BBC claiming to be a Canvey fan, Canvey calling the police to eject us all from the ground and refusing to open the bar at full time, seconding a load of Lincoln supporters into EFM, meeting a 6 year old terrorist who silly stringed Jesus and injured Tom, Carl trying to pull another essex girl on the train, being told oarf by the train guard for the firms excess noise. All p*ssing into the thames estuary, carl standing in the middle of the road and stopping traffic. Lots of thick essexmen to take the p*ss out of. We lost 5-1 but didn't care WELL THE ONLY REFENCE TO VIOLENCE HERE IS A SCRAPE, CAUSED BY YOUR SUPPORTERS AT OUR END AND YOUR HEAVY HANDED STEWARDS, THAT I'M SURE WE COVERED LAST TIME. THROWING A CONE IN THE AIR, CHATTING UP SOME GIRLS AND HAVING A LAUGH WITH SOME 6 YEARS OLD'D HARDLY A CRIME, TRYING TO GET ON THE BBC (WITH YOUR FANS STANDING AROUND LAUGING AND JOINING IN) AS FAR AS I CAN SEE ONLY JAYWALKING WAS A CRIME COMMITED AND POSSIBLY URINATING IN A PUBLIC PLACE (PS THE DRUGS WERE PRO PLUS)

All are welcome, we plan to depart City around midday and I'm sure you'll all get calls over the next couple of days. People confirmed Pete, Tom, Alan, Jesus, Ben, Thorns, Carl, Ian. Possibles Gaffer, Barks, Penders, Dave Ash, Dave Kendall, Dave Morley, Wilkes, some more of Ben + co's school mates, Waford Branch. Will be asked the likes of Chadders and Al Hag, Definatly Not - Jimmy for no real reason just that he promised he wouldn't and feels like he can't go back on his word, Costello spending the day with his girlfriend hoping we all have heart attacks!

there is a chance we may film this game for comedy value. Bring your flares and insults and most of all BOOZE!!!!!!!!!! JUST A LOAD OF PEOPLE, I BELIVE SOME CANVEY FANS SAW THE FLARE AGAINST HENDON IT'S HARDLY A WEAPON, THEY WERE ACTUALLY ASKING WHERE TO GET ONE! INSULTS - WELL DO I REALLY NEED TO SAY IT AGAIN AND BOOZE!!!<p>Now I hope you lot sort out your attitude and attendances as you are fast becoming the most hated team in non-leauge

And save your police budget for some real hooligans (maybe a Yeovil replay or Aldershot)<p>as mentioned before we will happiley play you at a friendly football match if you fancy it:

EFM website and leave a message and a contact address on the guestbook, and while your there check out the humour of EFM and enjoy the rest of your season!

[Guest]

Correct me if I am wrong but didn't the police have to be called out at the last home game against St. Albans when a few of the 'idiots' decided it would be more fun to start trouble inside the ground.<p>Actions like knocking items off shelves in the bar, threatening innocent Canvey fans with physical violence, and generaly giving a bad name to SACFC, tend to attract the Police in greater numbers at a future clash.<p>Discussion boards are read by all sorts of people, I can assure you that the police have people dedicated to reading football forums, at almost every level.<p>If something had of kicked off, and the police had not have been there, and an injury or worse occurred - would we not then be saying 'Why wasn't the police there just in case!'<p>It seems that we cannot win.<p>When you have so called 'supporters' coming onto an opponents board, linking to a page, that contains threats of violence, and boasting at previous acts of criminal behaviour, what do you expect the club / police to do?<p>Really you need to sort out these idiots who give SACFC a bad name, one that your directors would rather distance themselves from.<p>PC999

[GHA EFM]

What about your stewards then? Why have stewards if you have the police? Why have the police if you have stewards? And why have 3/4 police vans, instead of 1?

[Guest]

The pity is that once again a majority was spoilt by a few. Me personally I found the 10 or so strong St. Albans FIRM about as intimidating as my little sister. <img src="graemlins/newlaugh.gif" border="0" alt="[newlaugh]" /> There was a rather strong police presence at the match (about as strong as I have ever seen it for just a league match) surely this just goes to show that posting things about violence (intended ore not) on team messaging boards is a pretty damn stupid thing to do.<p>As far as comments go about the lack of stewards, we don’t normally need heavy handed ones, we don’t normally need team segregation, we don’t normally need a large police presence and we don’t normally have messages of intended violence posted on our board.<p>Im pretty sure that I speak for most Canvey fans when I say that we far from discourage load behaviour to cheer on a team; it can only create a better atmosphere to watch an entertaining game of football. The trouble only comes when we have a select few who deliberately act in a way that is stereo typical of a football hooligan because they think it is COOL. The real people in the world realise that getting drunk to the point of incoherence and hassling people on a train station is far from good behaviour and more like a bunch of school kids with their first beer.<p>Have fun, have a drink, but don’t act like such damn twáts!<p>p.s. what the hell was that coat about. Just because the only thing st. Albans has going for it, is some old roman pots there is no need to let yourself go and dress like a 1970’s pimp!

<img src="graemlins/djimages/icons/smile.gif" border="0" alt="[djsmile]" />

[Hillsy]

I must agree with Pumkins assesment of the game. A few of us have also thought that for one reason or another JK seems to be lacking a bit of his pace (I am not fauting his work rate though). Can I also say that personaly I have not seen gregors so up for games as he has for last couple.<p>Tily also looked very hungry and we all know how good he is, Look at our scoring chart and that tells you everything about the class of the man.<p>All in all a great game and another well deserved 3 points all though the last few minutes were as hairy as that St Albams supporters Jacket.

[Guest]

have to admit that the presence of so many OB was truly baffling...

If I'd paid my rates in Essex I'd be a trifle concerned LOL<p>without a doubt you deserved the win,

that was never in any doubt, though had to have a chuckle at a few of yours after the final whistle...

[CANV EFM]

i saw a couple of vans on the way in but only one pretty friendly looking officer inside the ground.. there was some trouble last time which was mentioned on the various message boards so there you go.. if a steward got heavy handed there would be all hell to pay so the police were there.. such is life in todays world of legal action..

[Guest]

Okay okay okay okay... time to clear up a few loose ends:<p>1. The whole "EFM" concept is one big joke. Everybody knows that (at least, I thought they did). As other City supporters have pointed out, feel free to check out their website if you require further clarification of this. I would have thought that any interpretation of messages left on various websites over the last few weeks were self-mocking. <p>2. For the record, I think Canvey are best team in the league this season (hurts to say it, but there you go). <p>3. Football supporters mock each other. Fact of life. It seems more extreme in the Ryman league when you don't that often get more than two dozen away supporters, but it's only what happens week in week out in every senior league in Britain.<p>4. Canvey is a small club that has done very well. Getting from a county league to the Conference in such a short space of time deserves applause. But if you think City are bad... how on earth are you going to cope next season against Doncaster, Hayes, Dover, Boston and other clubs with genuine recorded hooligan problems? If Canvey have difficulty coping with a dozen or so sixth formers from the home counties, I wonder what'll happen when Doncaster bring their 200 or so skinheads down for their big weekend in Essex. <p>5. I won't comment on last Saturday's match, because I didn't go. My experience of the first match at Park Lane wasn't one I'd care to repeat in a hurry. <p>It seems to me that four meat wagons for eight people is a slight over-reaction. Better stewarding may well be the answer, but training stewards costs money.<p>Good luck for the rest of the season - the offer for the friendly match still holds, by the way.

[Alan W (GNFC)]

I have to say that those people from St Albans posting on this board are naive to say the least - I didnt read the original message, but reading the posting above, with its comments, would have made me concerned.<p>No wonder there was such a police presence on Saturday.<p>What is even more worrying is that these people seem totally unable to appreciate why there attitude and postings have caused a problem - wake up lads, there have been too many violent incidents at football matches in years gone by for anyone to ignore your postings. If you want to travel to away games & get drunk, and have a bit of fun along the way - great - but dont take it too far ( & dont brag about it, even in jest, as things can easily be miconstrued)<p>I have to say that there were over 2100 at our game with Canvey earlier this year, hardly a sighting of a police officer was made and there was never any hint of crowd trouble, despite the high profile nature of the game. Indeed, some fans even had a bit of fun, when the floodlights failed, and it was all accepted in the good humour in which it was meant - so EFM, you can have fun, without creating fears over crowd safety, etc, etc.

[EFM The Firm, The Voice]

just a couple of small points before i go to bed (Trev, you're up far too late)<p>1. How did we intimidate anyone? we stayed at our end and sang, we shut up when we were in a mixed area, if anyone was looking to intimidate it was the Canvey supporters who stood at our end.<p>2. As we have a quote feature on this board, can someone actually find a threat of violence or something to that effect and post it as i'm finding it very hard to actually find one.<p>PS as for all the comments about my coat, i'm afraid you can't buy it in next, river island, top shop or any sports shop kind of ruling out everywhere that you people shop.

And trust me i am very much a 2000's pimp!

[Guest]

So "The police have people dedicated to reading message boards at every level".<p>If you are reading this P.C.9999, what's the salary, and how do I apply when I'm older [please]?<p>Oh. One more small thing. How do I get The Saints crest thing above my posting rather than that stupid smiley face that Mr Webbo gave me?<p>[ 26 February 2002: This message was edited by: Samantha (aged 9) ]</p>

[CANV EFM]

as i was saying.. we should have been 5-1 up when they scored totally against the run of play........ <img src="graemlins/images/icons/cool.gif" border="0" alt="" />

[Rob_the_Saint]

The End.

[Guest]

The 'two foot high midgets' were in fact ball boys. as everyone knows stewards have to be at least three foot high.<p>Seriously, stewards are all volunteers and are there to assist and marshall supporters round the ground and encourage them to behave in a responsible manner and keep to the basic rules of good behaviour. They are not there to get involved in fights with unruly 'supporters' or to police the ground, that's why the police were there. I do think, however, that Saturday's police presence was a little 'overkill'.

[EFM The Firm, The Voice]

gertcha!