Goalkeeper Chris Kirkland assaulted by fan midmatch

Last night in the league football return and Yorkshire derby, shortly after Kirkland conceeded Leeds equaliser, a Leeds fan invaded the pitch and struck him in the face. He needed medical attention it some time and during that time many more Leeds fans invaded the pitch generally to cause a nuisance. Kirkland eventually got back up and bravely continued, but was visibly shaken by what had happened. Worse, the 20 year old that assaulted him has been banned from all professional football matches Leeds play since he was 16 for his involvement in a riot. He's breached that ban on at least three occasions since then.

It was on sky sports so some of you probably saw it, but if you didn't there is a video on YouTube if you really want to. I won't be giving the link out though simply because its in really bad taste in my opinion.

Appropriate punishments? Placed into stocks and every member of Wenesdays teams get to take a free shot? Forced to play goalkeeper for a penalty shoot out, only with his hands tied behind his back and a bullseye on his forehead?

Banned for life and prison sentance - although I suspect he get slap on wrist and 2 year ban

Looking into it, the wonders of social media have pulled through again. Within minutes of it happening his name was found, his Facebook profile spread worldwide and most amusingly the idiot had his mobile number public ally viewable on his profile. That too has now been spread all over Facebook and twitter. Shared thousands and thousands of times.

Red614 wrote:Looking into it, the wonders of social media have pulled through again. Within minutes of it happening his name was found, his Facebook profile spread worldwide and most amusingly the idiot had his mobile number public ally viewable on his profile. That too has now been spread all over Facebook and twitter. Shared thousands and thousands of times.

Oh dear. What a prat.

Shocking footage on the news.... Needs to do time for this

I would charge him with Common Assault, let him do time, ban him from all football matches for life and deduct 6 points from Leeds for bringing the game into disrepute and failing to control their fans. I would also stop Leeds fans from going to away matches and make them play their next match against Sheffield Wednesday behind closed doors.

Dave Jones called for a ban on fans because of this, apparently. Assuming he is talking about an away game, and in the case of a lack of action by the team, I think he's right. One idiot caused te most fuss but many more caused problems around the ground, it was unacceptable even without the assault is what I heard. It's the clubs responsibility to deal with this as it was their fans, and ultimately their fault a banned fan got himself a ticket and inside the stadium. Act hard on those that did cause trouble, lifetime ban the main guy and temporary ban any others proved to be causing trouble. If they don't act harshly enough, I would support a ban of all fans from Leeds' next away game. The 'it would kill the atmosphere' stuff is pathetic and beyond the point - a player got assaulted mid game. You can't let that go.

At the end of the day, we had a bad reputation as a club for our fans around ten years ago. We simply dealt with it professionally and promptly and now we are considered a family friendly club. Why Leeds have never bothered I don't know but it needs to be aggressively eradicated from the game. The FA are under massive pressure, after what they have said about the Serbia u21 game, to act on this.

Slumdog's Son wrote:At the end of the day, we had a bad reputation as a club for our fans around ten years ago. We simply dealt with it professionally and promptly and now we are considered a family friendly club. Why Leeds have never bothered I don't know but it needs to be aggressively eradicated from the game. The FA are under massive pressure, after what they have said about the Serbia u21 game, to act on this.

My point exactly. The club should be allowed to deal with this themselves, simply because it wouldn't be fair on the majority of well behaved fans if they did start getting bans. But if the club isn't doing enough, in reality they have no choice. The FA can start docking points or banning fans from matches, and I think most fans would choose a one game fan ban over their team losing valuable points.

I think Leeds have had their chance...their fans have been poorly behaved for years. It's too late now, the FA needs to act harshly. If the majority of fans are well behaved they won't condone this sort of act and you won't see someone being applauded for this in the way that the Leeds fans welcomed this hooligan back into the stand with open arms.

I hate to say it on a football forum but if this happened in rugby he would have been decked when he got back to the stand. And it would never happen again.

Can't argue they've definetely had their chances. Assaulting a player though is a new low, might just do enough to force action.

Red614 wrote:Can't argue they've definetely had their chances. Assaulting a player though is a new low, might just do enough to force action.

The FA have to act or they will look weak and could open a pandora's box of hooligans thinking there are no repurcussions in sport for violent actions. If the team are punished, I know it's unfair, but these idiots will find they have no support from their colleagues and will stop ruining these matches for everyone else.

Red614 wrote:Last night in the league football return and Yorkshire derby, shortly after Kirkland conceeded Leeds equaliser, a Leeds fan invaded the pitch and struck him in the face. He needed medical attention it some time and during that time many more Leeds fans invaded the pitch generally to cause a nuisance. Kirkland eventually got back up and bravely continued, but was visibly shaken by what had happened. Worse, the 20 year old that assaulted him has been banned from all professional football matches Leeds play since he was 16 for his involvement in a riot. He's breached that ban on at least three occasions since then.

It was on sky sports so some of you probably saw it, but if you didn't there is a video on YouTube if you really want to. I won't be giving the link out though simply because its in really bad taste in my opinion.

Appropriate punishments? Placed into stocks and every member of Wenesdays teams get to take a free shot? Forced to play goalkeeper for a penalty shoot out, only with his hands tied behind his back and a bullseye on his forehead?

I think there is a argument to publish a link so that at least everybody can see what happened; I wouldn't call it bad taste to do so.
It's quite shocking, in this day and age that a thug banned from football can waltz in to a high profile local derby like this.
Is that really Leeds United's fault?
As the Chairman of the FA said to Margaret Thatcher at the time of Hillsborough, "Madam, when are you going to get your thugs out of our football stadiums?"

I'm not banning people from putting the video up, quite right it would be wrong for someone to comment on something they haven't seen. I just find myself quite shocked by all the tweets along the lines of 'goalkeeper gets punched in te face, this is hilarious!'. It's a serious matter and I personally don't want to be considered to be turning it into a bit of a circus show.

And no, it's not fundamentally Leeds' fault. Yes a ticket ended up in a banned fans hand but it was probably bought by a friend and without ridiculous security measures that can't be prevented from happening. But it is their responsibility to deal with it. The club is accountable for their fans, fundamentally.

At the end of the game Colin Wanker sent his team over to applaud the Leeds fans. He then 'condemned' the assault but commented on how easily the keeper went down. Leeds and Colin are a match made in heaven.