Wear-Tyne Derby: Police Praise Fans

28 October 2013, 05:14 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

Northumbria Police are praising the majority of North East football fans after a successful derby day operation at the Stadium of Light.

The match saw a large policing presence across Sunderland and Newcastle as more than 46,000 supporters attended the Stadium of Light for the derby game.

Early on Sunday morning officers, working with British Transport Police, helped get more than 1500 people on to special Metro and Rail services at Central Station in Newcastle.

Supporters were in good nature and worked well with officers. Supporter coaches, arranged by Newcastle United, transported around 1000 away fans to the game.

In Sunderland, officers were out from early Sunday morning, visiting bars and pubs and speaking to fans - again there was very few incidents of disorder and fans responded well to officers.

After full time Sunderland fans left the stadium quickly and without incident and Newcastle fans remained in the North Stand for around 20 minutes as part of a pre-arranged holdback.

Supporter coaches got back to St James' Park safely and around 1500 people were escorted to St Peter's Metro station where they boarded trains and Metros back to Newcastle. In total 20 people were arrested throughout the day - seven of which were during a pre-planned operation carried out at around 5am on Sunday morning.

The majority of the other arrests were for public order type offences.