Sports events - Appropriate environment for children?

[rsdraig]

Hi,

I've a season ticket for a regional rugby club and this year got a ticket for my 8 yr old girl to come with me. All good, she loves it and I love having her there.

At the game on Friday, 4 'blokes' behind us were behaving unacceptably (profuse, continuous and loud swearing, abusive talk of women, etc.). Not sure how much my little girl took in (turns out she did in fact learn a few words), but I was certainly on edge and unable to watch the game.

At half time, I reported it at the ticket office, asking to be relocated. They checked on the behaviour and though they stated that 'they'd probably had a few beers', took no other action.

Unable to stay there, we had to leave. I'm currently requesting a refund on the season ticket, though my experience with this club means that they're unlikely to care.

What are my options? To what degree does a sports club like this have an obligation to provide a safe/appropriate environment for children (when they're selling children's tickets)?

I know they can't control the behaviour of other customers, but surely when they've been notified of behaviour like this they have a duty.

Any advice on how we can extract ourselves from this situation? I've already decided that I can't take my child there again, and I'm unlikely to go to any further games, I just think its unfair that the (profit making) sports club should benefit.

Thanks,

Very unusual for rugby ime. They are usually family friendly. We have been season ticket holders for years. Have travelled all over the country and abroad. I can count in one hand the time we have ever had to complain. Even then we just spoke to the individuals and they stopped.

You will always get idiots in all walks of life. On the whole however rugby is one of the better family sports.

Our local football team has a dedicated family area which works well. Lets the adults w/o children watch the match in peace without having to mind their language, or be irritated by children with varying levels of interest in the actual sport.

I’ve actually been apologised to (on account of being a woman) by some men who were swearing, and that wasn’t even in the family bit!

Agreed, I've been going for years and been looking forward to when the kids would be old enough. Rugby has always been (in my opinion) family-friendly.

My concern is that we're in the season-ticket area, so we're going to be near these idiots for a while. Mostly is the poor reaction from the club - basically shrugging their shoulders, acknowledging that the behaviour was unacceptable, but not prepared to do anything about it.

Do they have any obligations to maintain an appropriate environment? This isn't really a 'safety' issue, but certainly its abusive (my female friend also wanted to leave as she was very uncomfortable with the topics of conversation).

I agree with Piglet, very unusual for rugby.
I think that you should have challenged the blokes at the time, not rely on the club to sort it for you. If you had got the support of a few others near you then you could have shamed the blokes into better behaviour in front of DC.

I thought about that, but trust me, their verbal behaviour was aggressive. Last thing I wanted to do was provoke anything, particularly in front of DC.

I have in the past been one of the 'other' people supporting, but there was a high risk in this case that provoking them wouldn't have ended well. I'm no chicken, but the odds weren't good.

Besides, professional rugby tickets aren't cheap. Shouldn't the club provide appropriate security and provide a safe/non-abusive environment?

As per my posts, I can't hold them responsible for the behaviour of other customers, but should I be able (and how?) once that behaviour has been reported to them and they have also checked/witnessed it?

My concern is that we're in the season-ticket area

Where exactly is this?

Season ticket holders are all over the stadium not segregated into areas.

I guess that must depend on the venue. In this case they tend to give the season ticket holders the better seats in the category, so we tend to all be grouped together, though there is change from year to year (we moved this year as we added another seat for the DC).

Anyway, my original point/question is what is the argument to the club that they're not providing (or rather ensuring - once they're aware of an issue) an environment that's appropriate for children and so there's an argument to refund the tickets?

To be honest, we might still go to games, buying tickets in the family zone, but since the club doesn't seem to care (enough to take action), I'd like to see them get the impact of lost revenue rather than my sitting on partially used season tickets that I have no desire to use.

I'd write a polite email to the chief exec (or whatever the title is) of the club and ask if they have a policy and if so what it is.

Tbh I'm not sure you can expect too much but I'd go right to the top and if you're not happy with the answer ask that person to authorize a refund of the ticket. I'd think they'd do a refund get you off their backs if they aren't going to do anything about the language.

My DC went to football matches with me from that age and still do, they knew that some of the language would be inappropriate and it's never been a problem.

Thanks - that's my planned approach. Worst case, we write off the ticket price. But what does the club learn from that about maintaining an appropriate environment!

I agree, a certain amount of rough language comes with going out in public spaces and that's all good (developing social skills, robustness, etc).

This was much more than cursing the ref, etc, e.g. long and detailed conversations (at high volume) that were inappropriate (stories of sexual abuse, etc).

I guess I'm saying that I'm not being a prude or coddling the DC, just that it was the kind of situation she should be protected from. Hence my fury at the club for not taking action.

The Chief Exec is a great idea though.... I might just email a link to this thread (save me having to type it all out!).

Ive taken my son NH racing, point to pointing and eventing from a baby and never had any issues.

I don't think you can compare NH racing where you're free to move around with a sport where you're stuck in your seat with no way to avoid anything inappropriate.

We go to football matches regularly. A lot of fans swear but we had an incident where a man behind us was making homophobic comments and I wasn't happy about it. I complained and we were allocated seats elsewhere. In football there is an ombudsman for fans if you need to complain and the club don't resolve it, is there something similar in rugby? Also, have you checked the ground regulations? As in ours it states that homophobic/racist language won't be tolerated so I would have taken the complaint further if it wasn't sorted. I'm not sure about other sports but swearing is part of football in a lot of cases and much as I'm not keen on my son hearing it, I can't stop 20,000 people shouting "the referee's a wanker!" He knows what swearing is so I just ask him not to repeat it.