Worksop Town hit back at comments from opponents after cup tie 'crowd trouble'

The game at Sandy Lane ended in a 1-1 draw after the Tigers – who play in the Northern Premier League Premier Division, one level below Kings Lynn, of the National League North, scored a late equaliser.

That led to a replay on Tuesday night (October 1) which Kings Lynn eventually won 4-3 on penalties after a goalless draw.

Prior to the game, however, Kings Lynn said they would be increasing stewarding numbers for the game after what they called ‘totally unacceptable’ trouble at the game at Worksop.

The club claimed some of their fans were ‘attacked’, including women and children, after the Tigers scored their late goal.

They added that there had been no segregation of fans at Sandy Lane whereas there would be for the replay.

Speaking to the BBC before Tuesday’s game, the club said: "We will ensure a safe place for all fans to watch football at The Walks (Kings Lynn’s home ground) as this kind of behaviour at football matches should have died out decades ago."

In repsonse, the Tigers said in a statement: "For 99 minutes of play, the match reflected the good-natured attention of the spectators and our fans took with good grace the King’s Lynn goal which separated the sides until the final minute when we equalised to force a replay.

"Maybe our supporter celebrated the equaliser a little too exuberantly, but he did no harm to anyone and he certainly didn’t deserve to have King’s Lynn fans soak him with drink and move on him in an aggressive way.

"Neither should the scoring of an equaliser provoke a petulant childish act of violence from one of their players resulting in serious damage to a pitch-side dugout.

“Credit to the King’s Lynn manager and his assistant who were embarrassed and apologised, whilst agreeing on behalf of their club to pay for the damage.

"At Saturday’s match, there was no evidence of drunkenness or abuse of laws relating to alcohol purchase and consumption.

"We employ a very vigilant designated premises supervisor and our vice-chairman is also a licence-holder.

"Regarding our match planning, on the day of the draw, we were in immediate touch with the North Nottinghamshire Police unit, as we always do, and continued to feed them with information as we received it.

"We contacted their secretary who advised that there would be one supporter minibus with 50-100 travelling spectators.

"The message came back from the police unit to say that they could not see an issue with this game.

"Therefore, we decided on a low-key approach but updated our expectations for attendance of around 750 we organised nine volunteer stewards and five SIA-badged security staff with no segregation.

"As far as we were concerned there was a minor disturbance which was quelled by our security staff.

"We have had no reports of assaults or injury, nor any adverse reports from police or any other authority.”