Fan invades pitch and attacks Villa Player

How can any club, any sports organisation of any description, counter a complete moron like this bloke?

If clubs have more stewards then they're accused of being OTT, when something like this occurs they're accused of having insufficient stewardship and security, I could go to County Mall and attack someone, how are you going to stop me and are you going to blame County Mall for 'allowing' or 'not stopping' me from doing it?

As usual the outcome will be the club being held to blame when the only real reason is that a brainless pillock can't and won't control himself

Birmingham fans cheered loudly as he cowardly punched the player from behind & also appeared to kick or stamp on him afterwards... cheering continued as the idiot was escorted off while blowing kisses to the mob.

The barrage of abuse on social media that followed included references to the players dead brother.. arguably more offensive than the assault.

Yes Birmingham will be punished for lax security & the actions of the morons that "follow" them... the most appropriate would be to make them play a sequence of home games behind closed doors.

Dunno if it will actually make any difference.

The last laugh was with Grealish who did not seem too bothered & really enjoyed scoring the winner, a truly fantastic reaction to the incident.. don't expect to see any others...!

Don't want to get too political on here and I don't particularly like the phrase "not just a football problem" but to an extent it is true, with nationalism rife here and in other countries (the worlds richest being one) and it seems to have almost given "open season" and legitimacy for every racist, bigot and yob to do what they want whether it be at football, out on the street or in Parliament? IMO
Grealish handled it well but was perhaps lucky the fat moron missed his chin and it ended up more of a cuddle than anything, but wasn't a great idea to dive in with the Villa fans second half no matter how much he felt justified.

I find it extra ordinary that IF a player tripped over the offender and man handled him to the ground he will be sent off according to the laws of the game.

This idiot was just that - an idiot. He's gone to prison and has now had to face up to it.

But football needs to be less sanctimonious about this. I've seen players assault other players on the pitch. Will they be jailed. NO - Will they be condemned by everyone. No

This has double standards written all over it when it comes to criticising the bloke who ran onto the pitch. How many coming togethers like this between two (or more) players been described as the passion of the game.

And I wasn't sure - but was Grealish booked for his celebrting?

Yes he was booked for jumping in the crowd. Don't agree with your post at all, if players "attack" each other it is to a certain extent contained and more controllable than some fan deciding on the day to come on and punch, stab, kick a player and then as we have seen this weekend, giving some license to some other tosser to do the same in this or another game (what about if his mates had followed him onto the field and all joined in attacking the player?). 14 weeks is a joke sentence.
Yes you get people like Shearer going over the top with the draconian punishments but I hope this isn't just dismissed by people such as Minister of Sport as a football issue, when all sorts of attacks are going on much worse than this in the world outside football.

Apparently the 14 weeks was supposed to be setting him as an example for others. I suppose it has to be in some context with other assaults and no idea if he has a record, but would he have got the same sentance for striking Grealish on the street?

With respect Mick that is tosh. It's not more controllable when players do it. All the players join in, The referee and his assistant are the ones charged with breaking it up - That's 3 maybe four men

When a fan runs onto the pitch - the full range of stewards and police can enter the field and escort him off - that's upwards of 50.

I'm not supporting him at all - I just find the way we treat players carrying out an assault is different to a fan.

And we shouldn't be able to get weapons into a ground - people are searched for a reason

Four years ago I was involved in "tea-Gate" when I threw half a cup of tea over a player. Hands up it was wrong. But I did it in response to carl Baker deliberately pushing Lewis Young into the advertising hoardings - Lewis nearly had to leap the hoardings. Had he of done he would have landed on top of my very ill father-in-law putting his life at risk (and at the very least endangering him) Hence my anger and reaction.

Karl Robinson was furious - he ran down the touchline to remonstrate with me. He demanded the referee send me packing (The ref asked the stewards to remove me - they refused) Robinson used language towards me and my father in law that was out of order - including the suggestion he'd make me a Cripple like that See you next Tuesday.

Afterwards Robinson claimed it was scalding hot tea (it wasn't it was in the 60th minute of the game and I'd bought it at half time) and suggested I needed a lifetime banning order. His players had acted exemplary (no suggestion of the blatant push on Lewis or his own language)

When I phoned MK Dons to apologise Robinson refused to speak to me - I pointed out to the club that if he wished to keep telling lies I would report him to the FA/EFL for the language he used towards me and my father in law. But I left it there.

So that's the sort of double standards I'm talking about - Yes I was wrong - but yes there were reasons behind my actions which I think show some sort of justification for it. But in Robinson's world, he and his players had done no wrong and I was the only guilty party. That's santicmonious double standards of the highest order. Robinson was given an opportunity to vent his spleen - I choose to keep my side of the story to myself. Had I decided to take it further I'm reasonably confident Robinson would have received a pretty hefty ban too (As I had witnesses to his outburst)