When fans attack: how cities handle events like Super Bowl Sunday

From Philadelphia’s ‘lamp-post challenge’ to Auckland’s street riots, passionate sport fans don’t always behave – so how do cities keep them in check?

Two Sundays ago, Philadelphia police district captains were granted an unusual expansion to their powers: they were allowed to smear Crisco – commercial lard used for cooking – on streetlights. The idea was to prevent Philadelphia Eagles fans celebrating their team’s victory in the NFC Championship Game from climbing the poles – as Eagles fans traditionally tend to do – risking injury and damage to public property. But lard wasn’t enough to stop them.

Some of the estimated 12,000 fans who filled the streets following the Eagles’ victory over the Minnesota Vikings scaled the greased poles anyway, achieving viral video fame in the process. There was even the suggestion that police had goaded them into trying.

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