17
Mar
2014
By Calvin at 16:40 GMT, 12 years ago
Headlines sometimes paint the wrong picture!
This appeared in the Express and Star on-line on 15th March.
Make of it what you will, but I think someone needs to rethink the figures.
‘Mobile phones, cash, debit cards and number plates have been stolen from fans at West Midland football grounds, figures showed today. Aston Villa saw more complaints of thefts at their stadium than any other West Midlands side in the last three years.
‘In total, 21 incidents were recorded by the county’s police force at Villa Park – which holds almost 43,000 fans – since 2010. In contrast, Molineux – the home of Wolves – which has a capacity of 31,700 – saw just seven recorded offences between 2010 and 2014...........’
TCPW Comment
Now I’m all in favour of football grounds doing everything they can to reduce the opportunities for theft, but I do wonder what has made these statistics newsworthy.
It seems that Villa Park, on average, has recorded 7 thefts from fans per year over the past three years. Assuming their average attendance of 36,626 has been the same over the last 3 years, that’s 695,894 attendances per year for the 19 home matches; call it 700,000 for convenience.
700,000 divided by 7 equals 100,000, so that’s a 1 in 100,000 chance that you could have been the victim of a theft at the Villa Park ground if you attended each of the home premiership games. If we instead present the statistic in the normal crime way, i.e. per 1000 households or people (depending on the type of crime), that’s .001 per 1000. You chances of burglary in any one year are about 24 households in every 1,000, so you stand a considerably higher chance of burglary than you do from theft at Villa Park.
Therefore, whilst I have sympathy for those who have been victims of thefts at football grounds I do wonder what made this incredibly small number of crimes worthy of reporting. It seems to me that the stewards, police, staff and the supporters at all the grounds mentioned in the report should be commended for keeping the crime levels so low!
Story source: Express and Star: http://www.expressandstar.com/news/crime/2014/03/15/villa-park-tops-list-of-thefts-at-stadiums/
