Acting Police Sergeant Hannah works in the Neighbourhood Policing Team (NPT), as an additional skill to her core role, she is one of the Operational Football Officers (OFO) for Hampshire’s Police Football Unit.
Hear about working for us: Hannah, Operational Football Officer
Tell us about your Operational Football Officer (OFO) role:
As OFOs we have two main roles when we police football games:
Community engagement – to act as a link between the police and a club’s supporter community, with a view to achieving increased trust and confidence between the football operation unit and supporter community.
Information and intelligence – to provide live and relevant information and intelligence on supporters, ensuring appropriate resource deployments by POPS commanders.
How does your role support the force?
With the community engagement, this is where we gather intelligence which gets fed back to the DFOs (Dedicated Football Officers) to help them assess the risk of future fixtures. The intelligence can be shared within Hampshire but is also sent to the relevant forces. This helps to determine how many OFOs are required for upcoming matches.
OFOs in Hampshire are involved in policing football from the Premier League down to the National League. This is a challenge itself with varying crowd numbers, club rivalry and the public order command structure of games.
In the National League, OFOs are often the only police contingent at football games. So, we are the first port of call for football-related disorder. Building a good working relationship with the club stewards and the safety officer will go a long way!
I mainly work Aldershot Town FC fixtures. A small town club, with a relatively large following. I go to both home and away Aldershot Town FC fixtures. Knowing your supporter community is important when working the away fixtures. The police force we visit will be reliant on our knowledge to locate fans, engage with them and help prevent disorder before/post match.
Outside of your two busy force roles, any hobbies or interests?
I like to spend time with family and friends on rest days. My three young nieces keep me busy with life outside the job. Oh, and I will always have a holiday booked!
Are there any particular teams you work closely with?
As an OFO, you will work with officers from all over the force, in a variety of roles. Football policing is fun, it’s a good break from the day to day world we all work in.
We are the faces the supporters will see, week in and week out, and the ones they can seek out when away from Hampshire.
For our current vacancies visit our vacancy page All Hampshire Constabulary Jobs, or if you have any questions, please contact police.recruitment@hampshire.police.uk and we would be happy to help. Alternatively, please call us on 023 8045 1611.
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