An Emirates support worker spoke to Layth to share his experience of the worrying issues with the club's new e-ticketing prior to Arsenal vs Nottingham Forest - that led to more than 30,000 fans still outside, at the scheduled time the match was to kick-off. 

The game eventually kicked off at 1pm when more supporters had made their way inside the ground. It was the first time Arsenal have used the new e-ticketing system for a Premier League game.

Read on for a forthright account of how events unfolded, from an Emirates worker who was handed a key to swipe the gates individually to allow fans access to the stadium on a 'challenging day'

........

I am happy to share with you today's experience while working on Turnstile C.

I am not a steward, I work on behalf of a third party called Aesthetics.

We are there to provide help and support to both the stewards and matchgoing fans, in order to help at the turnstiles and make it all run smoothly.

We are the guys and girls on matchday in the grey hi-vis jackets with the Arsenal badge on.

I do it for the connection with the club, but it's only £15 an hour, so you can imagine the drop out rate on match days.

Today was meant to be a generally smooth day and all staff were briefed about the new e-gate system.

I was fully aware of the potential issues that could come with the day, but know one expected the gates to go down.

I took up my position at Turnstile C along with two from my team and two Arsenal stewards.

One in orange - that's the Arsenal steward and one in blue, that's the steward who has the master key and can scan people into the ground if they have issues with membership cards / phones.

So any issues with fans getting in, we refer to the guy in the blue hi-vis.

When the gates went down about 45 mins before kick-off - although it wasn't hard to figure out what happened - none of us knew what the hell was going on, and no idea on when the issue was going to be resolved.

Not one Arsenal senior steward came across to us to communicate the issue, and how we were meant to manage the situation.

The team that I was in had little no or little experience on how to deal with the situation.

The error at the gates lead to delays for fans with more and more arriving at the turnstiles with no knowledge of the situation.

I personally had to go find a senior to request that security stop allowing people past the security checkpoint, as I could see potential issues around health and safety and potential crushes.

At that point, there was no PA announcement outside the ground or inside to my knowledge that the game had been delayed.

The steward who has the blue hi vis has a master key card which was handed to me, and I essentially had to swipe the gates individually to allow fans access to the stadium.

At no point were we requested or asked to check if fans had tickets, it was simply get everyone inside as fast and as safe as possible.

I had to communicate with fans to not scan and simply go straight in, one by one, and explain in a challenging situation what the issue was.

I did see a build up of police but at no point did they ever come across to help or support us.

I believe the club must install a PA system that could have clearly communicated with all those in the area that the game had been delayed and the gates had stopped working.

Not one Arsenal steward had a megaphone which would have been simple enough to communicate with fans, and I didn't see one take control of the situation.

I wasn't too happy about just letting everyone in but safety was my main concern.

It was a rather challenging day. I have no idea how many people I essentially let in the stadium without checking tickets, possibly 1,000.

Concern is, if this was a high profile game we could have seeen similar scenes at the Euro2020 final at Wembley with people with no tickets gaining access.

Simply not good enough from Arsenal.