Talking sport: Who is picking up the tab?

Around 5.30pm on Saturday you'd have thought a royal visitor was making their way through Horfield and Bishopston.

Above the shops on Gloucester Road people were leaning out of windows to get a better look at what was heading their way, hemmed in by a cordon of yellow-jacketed police and flashing blue lights.

At street level the riot squad were ushering pockets of Bristol Rovers fans towards the city centre, despite the reluctance of some of them to move. Overhead the helicopter that had spent most of the afternoon above BS7 was adding a bit of Apocalypse Now to proceedings.

Then they came, marching on together, as the song goes. Around 25 Leeds fans who had clearly been earmarked as wrong 'uns, and in need of a special escort. Down the road they went, ringed by the forces of the law, and followed by three police vans, with others racing ahead to make sure each potential flashpoint site was cleared.

In a part of Bristol where unusual behaviour raises few eyebrows on a Saturday night, it was appropriate seeing what looked like a hammer being used to crack a nut.

But then there were glimpses of why the police were needed. Not all the Rovers fans had cleared out, and as the Yorkshiremen came level with the Venus Bar, there was jostling and raised voices as the Leeds boys (and men) tried to push towards the Rovers fans inside. By sheer weight of numbers, the police stopped this unhappy union from taking place, and the hoolie boys carried on.

Gloucester Road is, essentially, a thriving high street, where traditional Bristol meets the 21st Century. Hardware stores and greengrocers rub shoulders with wine bars and delicatessens, hardened cider drinkers wait at the bar alongside people wanting skinny lattes.

Most of the football season, it's untouched by the sort of police presence we saw on Saturday, but for certain fixtures - Swansea City, Swindon Town, etc - the place has a more sinister feel.

As someone who started out as a news reporter, I couldn't help but be drawn to the flashing lights and the constant baying of the police dogs as the visiting fans were ushered away from the part of town they had, perhaps, intended to terrorise.

Earlier, before kick-off, as some 2,000 Leeds United fans were filtered into the away terraces at the Memorial Stadium through the same cavalcade of police, with the same chopper blades clattering ovehead, they'd struck up a chorus of "What a waste of money...", aimed not at the usual target - some expensive purchase who couldn't hit a barn door with a banjo - but the cost of what was going on around them.

You can imagine that the majority of their supporters, who just want a drink and a decent game, probably get fed up of being the centre of this sort of circus every other week.

And it must be costing someone a pretty penny. I counted five police vans involved in the escort, two mounted police, at least one officer per fan - maybe more - and of course, the eye in the sky. Surely the police themselves must think they have better things to be doing.

Maybe this will be the biggest handicap to English football moving forward, in the lower leagues anyway. Not the old cliche of excessive player wages, but the financial burden of shuffling groups of Burberry-clad men from stations to stadiums and back again.

Last week the broadsheets were full of black and white images recalling the miners strike of the 1980s, and it was noticable how many police were in the shots, hundreds and hundreds of them gearing up to crack heads on the picket lines. Back then there was political will to use force to crush the pit workers, and the resources to go with it. Now, with taxpayers propping up the banks and the economy in tatters, there has to be a question mark over the policing of sport, just as there are doubts over over the burden on the NHS of treating people who smoke, or rush headlong into the arms of obesity.

Following the Leeds fans, encased in their bubble of police, I got as far as the arches where Cotham Brow meets Gloucester Road and gave up. I can only assume their destination was Temple Meads or the bus station, which are both a fair stroll from the Mem.

Two things struck me as the curious convoy of fans, police and police vans went past the busy shops and bars of the stretch of road between the Bristol Flyer pub and Zetland Road.

Firstly, several shopkeepers took one look at what was going past and flipped the signs in their doors from 'open' to 'closed'. Secondly, the ones that didn't retreat stood in the doorways to watch the passing spectacle and shake their heads.

One asked a passing officer how much overtime he was on. Good question, but I've got a better one - who is picking up the bill?

This coming weekend, Bristol City entertain Cardiff City and supporters will be subjected to a similar level of policing. Somewhere, a big invoice is building up. Can we really afford it?