The pitch at Tranmere Rovers was thoroughly cleared when Merseyside Police’s Mounted Section seized the opportunity from the club to practice vital crowd control techniques.
With three football clubs to police in the region, the section is expected to keep between 5,600 and 45,000 fans safe at each match throughout the football season.
Tranmere Rovers kindly offered to work with Merseyside Police by allowing 12 horses and riders to use the pitch at the end of the season to practice crowd clearing tactics.
For some of the younger horses this was the first time they had a chance to put into practice the techniques they had learnt within a real stadium environment. The experience was made more life like for the horses by the real sounds of a football crowd being played through the grounds loudspeaker system.
Mounted Inspector Mark Fallows said: "Exercises such as this are invaluable for our ongoing training and we are very thankful to Tranmere for letting is use their facilities. This is a great example of a local club and the police working together.
"Being inside the stadium is a very different environment both visually and acoustically for the horses and riders so the chance to get this experience and to practice tactics in a real setting was fantastic."
The mounted section is an operational specialist section with a staff of one Inspector, two Sergeants, 22 Constables, 11 civilian stable hands and 25 horses.
Policing football is just one of the many roles the horses perform. The section supports neighbourhoods by patrolling open spaces that would not usually see a police presence and specific areas where there is a need to increase police visibility. They are also used to help prevent or address public order issues, as well as providing high visibility patrolling at rugby matches, race meetings and other special events.
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