“YOU’VE NO EVIDENCE that I set off a flare at Rovers.”
“You made it your Facebook profile picture.”
I had this exchange with a fan I banned for setting off a flare. It’s one area of enforcement that I never felt particularly comfortable with. The truth is I never had much of a problem with flares until I started paying fines associated with them.
Even a decade ago after I saw a steward badly burn his hand picking up a flare in Dalymount my incorrect gut reaction was to criticise how he’d handled the flare rather than ask why he had to handle it at all.
I struggle to shake the sense that there are few more evocative sights in sport than a packed football terrace illuminated by flares.
As safety of people within grounds became a responsibility I had to face the fact that flares can burn at 1600 degrees Celsius; 16 times hotter than boiling water. Flares can literally melt flesh from your bones.
Smoke bombs are designed to be used only on open ground and are dangerous for people with breathing difficulties. Also, flares and smoke can cause panic in a crowd.
Of course, I’d always known this but I still associate the red glow of a flare with important goals on great nights.
Education of the dangers isn’t a deterrent when drink is involved and pyrotechnic displays in other countries are held up as evidence of fans’ passion. Fining clubs for fans’ actions is even less of a deterrent than education.
It’s not like clubs aren’t trying to eliminate pyrotechnics. I’ve had repeated conversations with the FAI over the years as keeping flares and smoke bombs out of grounds gets more complicated. There was a time when you’d check backpacks, rolls of flags and drums and catch most items.
However, in recent years as flares have gotten smaller they’re being passed – alongside naggins – to minors, who typically will not be physically searched.
I turned away a man from a Cork City game in 2011 after I saw him put a naggin of Vodka into the jacket pocket of his seven-year old son.
These days, most flares are being brought into grounds stuffed into the crotch of jeans by minors who know the possibility of search and detection is minuscule.
Club have tried to tackle education. We’ve complained to the FAI and media outlets about official publications and televised ‘end of season montages’ – used at official league launches – featuring images of flares. It reinforces the idea that they are an essential part of a passionate fan culture.
One club even investigated installing a strobe lighting system for their Ultras section, to activate when a goal was scored, but having assessed the dangers of that idea, discontinued it.
But that attempt in itself was an acknowledgement that an ultras culture can be a vibrant and welcome contributor to clubs. Playing Blur’s ‘Song 2’ after a goal is scored just doesn’t cut it.
The FAI, clubs and everyone else has to face the reality. Flares and smoke bombs do add to the atmosphere on cold dark evenings, they are ingrained in fan culture and it’s getting increasingly difficult to keep them out of grounds.
Control is everything and other Leagues are showing this. We must accept that ultimately, we can’t keep flares out of stadiums. We have to face the fact that the problem isn’t necessarily the flare, but the likelihood that the flare is in the hands of an idiot trying to light it secretly in a packed crowd, then throwing it away before stewards wade in to see who they’re ejecting from the ground.
That’s where the danger really is, their illicit and uncontrolled use. We can’t stand over use of marine flares - designed to burn fiercely for a lengthy period – in football stadia, but there’s middle ground and we don’t need to eliminate the fun and the atmosphere controlled pyrotechnics can create.
That would equate to eliminating a New Year’s Eve fireworks display because of the inevitable illicit fireworks that will be set off all over the country tonight, causing worry to home and animal owners.
The FAI, clubs, Gardai, Irish Fire Services and representatives from supporters’ trusts and clubs should get together to investigate the controlled and licensed use of Bengal lights – which burn for a shorter time and at a much lower temperature than marine flares.
They should also look at the controlled use of smoke, which clubs like Portland Timbers use to great effect in the MLS. In fact, seek advice on how America’s MLS, Norway’s Tippeligaen and other leagues allow safe use of pyrotechnics.
