So why was the ‘bomb’ device spotted so late?
This is a season Manchester United must wish would end. Falling standards on the field have been hard enough to take. Nothing, though, will embarrass them as much as this.
Everything United did in the wake of a suspect package being found in the north stand 20 minutes before kick-off against Bournemouth yesterday was first class. it was competent, efficient and smooth.
They responded to an apparent terror alert by falling back on a contingency plan professionally constructed and diligently rehearsed.
it worked. Nobody panicked. Everybody left Old Trafford calmly and quickly. The level of fear among United’s 76,000 paying customers was kept to a bare minimum.
There was only one catch. The device found strapped to a gas pipe in a toilet was put there during a training exercise and had been left there in error.
so the responsibility for this abandonment and all the complications that follow lie partly with United.
The responsibility for the enormous use of police man hours. The responsibility for the employment of the army’s bomb disposal experts. The responsibility for the enormous inconvenience to Bournemouth and their supporters. The responsibility to any stress felt by their own public.
Compared to this, United’s recent failures to get to away games at Tottenham and West ham on time pales into insignificance. That was regrettable. Yesterday’s episode was on another level.
Last night sources presented a possible explanation and it deserves to be heard. it seems an external company left the suspect package behind.
The United steward who spotted it yesterday — and the police officer who confirmed it looked real — would not have been part of the training drill. They would not know it was a dud. it looked real because it was supposed to look real.
But this doesn’t answer three pertinent questions.Why was the device not spotted in the security sweep that must take place in all public areas ahead of each game? And why didn’t someone on United’s huge match-day security team realise that a training routine had been carried out in the north stand so recently?
Why didn’t somebody join the dots before the whole stadium was evacuated and the device destroyed amid such tension?
These are the questions that United will ask themselves this morning. indeed, these are the questions that the authorities — including the police, FA and Premier League — will want answered today.
These days we live with the fear of terrorism. The Paris attacks — that included a bomb outside the stade de France — in November have seen to that.
This is why, at about 4.15pm, a young man in a bright yellow steward’s coat sidled up to evacuated journalists on the Old Trafford forecourt and asked a very nervous question.
‘Do you think we are safe standing here?’ he said.
By that stage it was clear we were. United had done the second half of their job expertly.
however, the fact that one of the hundreds of men and women paid to ensure the well-being of match days visitors to United felt compelled to ask the question summed up just what an unnerving day this had been.
There was never any sense of great panic. Nothing ever felt particularly frightening.
What happened had brought everybody up short, though. it had reminded us all again that going to a major sporting event will never be the same carefree act of escapism it used to be.
Looking back on it today with the benefit of what we now know, there are two things to be grateful for.
We should be grateful United’s evacuation and emergency procedures worked so well, that on the day our worst nightmares threatened to come true those people paid to look after us were able to do so efficiently.
And we should be grateful there was no security breach. Driving home yesterday, before news of United’s blunder broke, the one thought that was hard to shake was that somebody had broken the security that circles big football grounds on match day, even if he was only a hoaxer.
Clubs in England introduced pat-downs and bag searches in the wake of the Paris bombings. Where would we go next if something happened to persuade us that is not enough?
None of this need worry us today and we should be thankful. it turns out this is Manchester United’s mess to clear up.