Here's the transcript of the interview:

What is your role, Graham?

I am one of the Inspectors here at Chesterfield. My responsibility is for the operational planning side. Obviously the football has got a major implication for my department. On most of the games I'm actually the Inside Ground Commander.

Why do we need policing for football matches?

Nowadays all matches are categorised. "A" and "B" being the least, and "C+" being the major category, where we expect disorder to take place. On a category "A", the main reason we police it is for evacuation procedures. We're about one of the only clubs at Chesterfield that's still got the wooden stand. If that was to catch fire it would very quickly spread, so it is very important that we've got officers on the scene that can put in road blocks and start evacuation, to prevent any deaths - that's why we police "Cat As." "Cat Bs" are the ones where we anticipate substantial numbers of away fans, and we try to make sure they don't conflict with the home fans. Normally on a Category B match we would not anticipate any major problems. The ones we anticipate problems on, and this is all intelligence-based, are the "Cat C" ones.

Are there many of those?

This year we've probably got more Cat C and C+; I think we've got about eight or nine Cat c and C+ matches.

Who determines whether these are Cat C matches?

Months before, we have an intelligence input and it will depend on the intelligence we receive. We always have "spotters" that come and identify trouble-makers in the visiting supporters. So we get the intelligence and we make a decision as to what category the match is. It depends on a number of factors, like how many fans have actually been travelling, the behaviour of the fans, how many banning orders we've got - because now in Chesterfield we've unfortunately (well, fortunately, for us) we've got around forty-five banning orders, which means that those people aren't allowed to come. They're not true supporters - they're there for one reason only, and that's to cause as many problems as they possibly can. So, every match is categorised, but it is based on intelligence and what we believe is going to happen.

Do you think that the intelligence that Derbyshire Police get is as good as that which other forces get, or is it based on the budget you've got to gather this information?

Budget doesn't play a part in this at all. Football intelligence is centrally-based and is called ENSIS. Every piece of information we get is graded according to whether we've used that source or informant before, and information comes from a number of different sources, both locally and at the away fans' end, as well.

So you have access to the same information that all other police forces have?

Yes, there's one basic database and after every match, there's a match report that goes in so, as the matches progress throughout the season, there's a very accurate record of how fans actually behaved when visiting certain clubs, and its all there on the database for you to go through.

A lot of people would say that "police" and "intelligence" don't often go together - what would you say to that criticism?

Its easy to say, but they'd be very hard-pushed to substantiate that claim. In the matches we've done over the last twelve to eighteen months we've been very successful in the way we've policed them, so much so that we've been getting comments from some of our "prominents" that we know on a personal basis to the effect that we've basically got it sewn up at Chesterfield and we can't do anything, and any time we try to plan some disorder, you're always there. So anybody that would say that, I've got quite a lot of evidence to the contrary.

That's praise from troublemakers, is it?

Very much so, yes. Unfortunately, this season, at virtually every away fixture the Chesterfield hooligan element have actually caused problems and made some big implications for the policing. I can't think of one where they haven't done, so far. We must have had four or five away games, so at every one we must have had problems.

Is the Chesterfield away hooligan element growing, then?

It seems to be one of the factors. As I've mentioned there are about forty-five banning orders which prevent what we call these "prominents" using the town centre - they've got a map which shows that they cannot come anywhere near the ground and it means that any of the away "prominents" have to go outside the town centre to try to find the Chesterfield "prominents." So the more banning orders we get, the more successful we are in trying to stop any disorder taking place. Occasionally they try to get into that area but the intelligence works: ninety-eight to ninety-nine percent of the time we know where they are going to be.

How do you measure success, then?

If the majority of the people who attend the match can do it in a safe and trouble-free environment, then I've done my job, and the officers have done theirs, as well.

There has been criticism, specifically with the Walsall game, that some of the policing seemed heavy-handed and intimidating, Could you explain what was happening that day, and the use of cameras?

I'm a bit surprised about that: Walsall wasn't any different to any other and it was a category C match. Depending on the category the generic staffing applies, basically for health and safety and risk assessment, and so that we can be effective in managing the amount of "prominents" that we get from one place to another. Sometimes that does take quite a significant amount of officers. Walsall was "Cat C" and the generic staffing was exactly the same. We do have two teams of evidence-gatherers which, when we are looking for banning orders, particularly by complaint, we need to show the court that the person we want to ban goes through a series of behaviours, not just at one match but at a number of matches, to show that his behaviour is not there for the football but he's there for causing disorder. If we can show him with a group of "prominents" that are shouting, swearing in the street, gesticulating then he can't say that he's actually just turned up. That's the main reason we use the evidence-gathering: by its very nature, people going about their normal business will possibly get in a video or a still shot. But we're never, ever going to use that. The only thing we're interested in are the prominents, when it's the scenes of disorder. I can guarantee to members of the public that if they get in a video or a photograph its possibly just a case of "wrong place, wrong time;" its nothing that we're going to save on file and, if they are going about their normal business, they've got nothing to worry about.

You can imagine that if supporters with no knowledge of trouble or trouble-makers, are going about their business and suddenly a policeman in uniform jumps in front of them with a camera, it troubles them.

I can understand that but all I can say is they are there to& at the scenes of disorder, like we saw with Cardiff a couple of years ago, there was major disorder in the town, lots of innocent people's cars got damaged, property got damaged, people got assaulted, licensed premises got damaged and there were very, very ugly scenes that we never want to repeat in Chesterfield. When that prosecution file went to court is was very successful in part due to the amount of video evidence we got, both from the helicopter and from the evidence-gatherers on the ground. At the end of the day nobody can argue with the video footage that's there.

I take it that the evidence gatherers are there for every Cat C game but perhaps sometimes they're more prominent? What triggered all that activity for the Walsall game?

We have two teams of evidence-gatherers on a Cat C. We normally put one within the town centre and the other outside the centre, in areas where the intelligence suggests there might be problems. Its nothing out of the ordinary and I don't know what sparked off the concerns that you have at the club. If people do have concerns, by all means pick up the phone and speak to me. At the end of the day we're only interested in the "prominents:" we're not interested in Mr and Mrs Smith going about their normal business, whether they're actually attending the match or not. I've noticed that there's been a lot more families going to the club and at the end of last season my ten-year old son was allowed to go to his first match. There's no way I'd have allowed that if I thought there was a possibility of him getting hurt. Its changing, and it is for the better.

There's a lot of young lads who are boisterous because they're young lads. We've all been there - is there a danger that they can get caught up in this and feel that they've been caught just for being a young lad?

There's a big difference between being boisterous and actively seeking confrontation. Being boisterous I can live with - we've all been young and done similar things, possibly. But there's a big difference between that and starting fights or picking on older people who are taking their sons into the ground, which we've had in the past. By all means support your club, and as long as that doesn't spoil it for anyone else, then I haven't got a problem with that.

You mention that we've got other high-profile games - which are they?

In the not too distant future we've got Doncaster, who have got a high level of support at the moment. Chesterfield have around a 2,200 capacity for visiting supporters and I'm talking to the club at the moment because I'd like that to be an all-ticket fixture, for everybody. If we don't I think their 2,200 tickets will be taken up very, very quickly and it would be very easy for prominents to come and buy Chesterfield tickets. Hull, by the very nature of their support, which has caused a lot of problems in the past; there's also the local derby with Sheffield Wednesday, which will be a very popular one. Those will be the main category C+ matches we'll be doing, and there'll be a lot of police officers there.

What advice would you give to supporters so they have an enjoyable afternoon out?

Try and arrive at the ground at a reasonable time: normally, the prominents arrive within the last five minutes to try to get in, and you don't want to get caught up with those. And if they hear things, please contact us and let us know.

One thing to add - you've said in a previous conversation that nobody actually saw any trouble: we had the intelligence that 25 to 30 Walsall prominents were coming on the train and they caused substantial damage to that train and actually stopped it twice. (There is a separate enquiry going on with the British Transport Police into these lads.) Once they actually got off the train we stayed with them and prevented them from getting into the town centre. All they wanted was conflict with Chesterfield. There was also another group of about fifteen in a minibus. So we could have had about 40 Walsall fans - or saying that they're Walsall fans - in the town centre looking for trouble, but because we were quick to react we kept them at the away licensing provisions - the Industry and the Chesterfield Arms - they were looked after by the police and told that if the pubs were damaged they'd all be arrested. We don't mind them having a drink but they were told they wouldn't be allowed into the ground if they got drunk. We were very effective. Had those people got into the town centre and caused problems that would have been a major drain on our resources. Touch wood, the last eighteen months, we haven't had disorder here.

How do you ensure they get back off home again?

It can be quite hard because once they're in, they mingle into a crowd of 700 or 800 people but when they are coming out then the spotters pick the prominents out, keep them on one side and then we can take them back to the railway station. When people say "We didn't see any disorder," I'm pleased to say "No, you didn't, because there wasn't any - not because the potential wasn't there, but because it was policed well."

A lot of these groups will try to make contact with eachother - is there a temptation to let them meet away from the ground in a controlled environment, and let them get on with it?

(laughs) Do you want the official answer?! We knew that Chesterfield had been in contact with Walsall and we knew the site they were going to be at, but unfortunately for the Walsall lot they never had the opportunity to get where they were going. We'd got officers there in case, anyway.

Inspector Graham Lamin, thankyou very much.