Page 141 - Once a copper 10 03 2020

their collective weight against the doors. Already, we witnessed the gates
being pushed to the extent that the chain was under near breaking strain.

A senior officer turned up to see for himself the weak link in the chain of the
ground security. He had called for police horses who would back up to the
gates to wedge them shut until stronger chain could be fixed. However, the
mounted officers would be some minutes away and we had to hold the
gates closed until they arrived. His orders were clear. We must ‘stand firm and
hold the line’ which meant that no-one was to be allowed to force the gates
open. In hindsight, my question was naïve “Sir, how are two of us expected to
hold back all the mob on the other side of this gate?”. The order I was hoping
not to hear came, “Draw your peg and do whatever you have to do to keep
them in”. An angry mob of thousands were on their way to the ground and if
we failed to keep the line, to keep the gate shut, if they got to us, they would
swarm into the ground like ferocious ants.

The violence of pressure charged against the gates widening the gap
enough to allow members of the angry mob to try and force their way
through. One after another they tried for force the gate open. I had never
witnessed anger such as that on the faces of these hooligans. Their intentions
were clear, in their spitting, swearing and furious threats, that if they got
through, they would carry it through and seriously injure if not kill us. I had to
keep telling myself that I would have to use whatever force was necessary to
stop them getting out. Instinctively, my colleague on the other side of the
gate and I drew our pegs (truncheons) simultaneously. Whatever human
body parts forced their way through the gap, one of us would hit with our
peg hard enough to send each hooligan reeling backward into the crowd.
They kept coming like lemmings blindly following the crowd, determined and
desperate in their intent to smash open the gates, and us two with it.

How many did we hit? Honestly? I lost count, 20, 30? All I know is I was totally
satisfied we acted to prevent an even bigger disaster and to save ourselves
from serious if not fatal consequences.
What seemed like an eternity was probably no longer than a few minutes
before the wonderful horses arrived and used their weight and physics,
backing up to the gates pushing them secure again. Never was I so grateful
to be rescued by an animal.

Then, something horrific happened that would absolutely justify our earlier use
of force. One of the horses let out an ear-splitting, heart-breaking scream and
I realised one of the hooligans had forced his arm through what was left of
the gap and slashed at the rear of the horse with a blade of some sort. I was
to curse the turnstile searching teams for this until I learned later that they had
simply been overwhelmed by numbers as we almost had. Page141