We live next to major football ground… it’s a nightmare – disrespectful fans leave rubbish everywhere and block drives
RESIDENTS next to a major football ground say that it’s a nightmare – with disrespectful fans leaving rubbish everywhere and blocking drives.
Thousands of home and away fans flock to The Hawthorns to see West Bromwich Albion play every week.
Locals slammed the constant litter left after games, as well as the standstill traffic and early-morning tannoy tests.
Vanessa Violenus, 31, told BirminghamLive: “People go up to the football match and then leave all their bottles on the wall.
“We don’t want to be trawling through bottles, it is not good enough. Some people block off drives.”
Mandy Kandola, 34, said: “We have got issues when they are playing, fans put rubbish all over the place.
“The fans have got no manners or respect.”
Arnold Blake, 88, has lived next to The Hawthorns for 80 years.
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He said: “Living here is a lot better than the early days when you’d get into more trouble.
“On match days, they used to try and break the windows but we don’t have that now.”
Another elderly resident slammed a tannoy operator for allegedly testing his equipment at 7.30am on a Bank Holiday.
She said: “There is one problem, it was a Bank Holiday, half-seven, and I heard ‘ding dong’. I could have rammed it up his a***.”
But the pensioner added that, on the whole, parents flouting parking rules at a nearby school are a greater annoyance to her.
Other locals complained about unrelated speeding and crime in the area around The Hawthorns.
West Bromwich Albion cleans the roads around the ground before and after games, and also organises weekly litter picks – even though it has no legal obligation to do so.
The club has been contacted for comment.
Sandwell Council said: “We want to keep Sandwell an attractive, tidy and welcoming place to live and to visit so we encourage all residents and visitors, including those on match days, to bin their litter or take it home with them.”
It comes after residents living near a major Premier League ground said that fans keep damaging their cars – but cops won’t help.