Saturday Night @ The Station (aka Football Fans and Dry Trains)

Now I’ve had time to recover, I can fill you in on events at the work last night.  I will however only give you the highlights so you won’t get bored with the “normal” stuff.

I managed to snag a rare overtime opportunity in connection with the Manchester FA Cup Semi Final at Wembley.

The team was split into two elements ticket checkers and booze busters.  The former is self explainatory whereas the latter needs a little bit of a bio.  The definition of a booze buster is a member (or members) of staff asking people if they are carrying alcohol and if they are, removing it from their possession (with Police help if necessary).  This is all well and good but some football fans are devious bastards people who will go to great lengths to hide their stash, even putting it into their childrens backpacks.

Irritations of the shift:

“Official” Charter Trains on adjacent platforms to our scheduled services causing us to delay boarding and change platforms. (Many thanks to the MCFC stewards for their help, patience and understanding)

Two 16 year old “men” approaching me with child tickets and when asked how old they were replying “15 mate”, then giving their dates of birth as January 2005.  This is normally not that bad but they refused to provide ID or pay the difference to the adult fare until the Police intervened. (Thanks BTP)

A woman approaching me with a wrongly routed ticket flatly refusing to move off of the platform or pay the excess to allow her to travel. (she eventually left after being “persuaded” by a helpful Man Utd fan)

The Good Bits:

Hilarious scene of several RPO’s doing impressions of Carl Lewis to beat passengers to a train after a (very) late platform change.

Being chatted up by a rather beautiful young lady while helping her board her train.

The superb banter between the RPO’s, Management & BTP Officers on duty.

All in all it was a good shift with very little trouble.  Just goes to prove that not all football fans are animals, I also include in this the Aston Villa, Brighton & Millwall fans travelling home both ways through the station.