Rotarian Mike Edgar

The scourge of thuggery involving rival soccer fans at matches throughout the country, is less acute now than it has been in past decades, a former Merseyside Police security specialist asserted in a talk to members at Faenol Fawr. Introduced by secretary Gordon Marshall, guest speaker Mike Edgar, of Formby, himself a Rotarian, said that whilst violence surrounding matches was an age old problem, in his opinion, it was not as prevalent as it used to be. Having had considerable first hand experience of inflammable situations during his time in the role of a security consultant, he believed the meticulous planning and hi-tech surveillance ahead of potentially volatile encounters, had contributed to much more effective controls and containment in general. He recalled being appointed to help provide security for a European League Cup match between Liverpool and a Russian team near the border with Georgia, where his opposite numbers were a Soviet General and a KGB Colonel. Although the great distant involved had reduced the number of travelling Liverpool fans to just 48, the host club still deployed a staggering 5,000-strong force of police and militia to ensure that the match was kept firmly under control. One of his more memorable recollections of that assignment, was of the considerable quantities of full-strength vodka provided and consumed by the hospitable Soviet hosts, together with the alarming rarity of finding local passengers on board the primitive plane from Moscow to the match venue, cooking food in their seats behind him! The warm thanks of the club for such an entertaining and enlightening talk on this little-known but absorbing aspect of international sporting security was given by past President Tony Thomas and endorsed by President Mike Parry.