When violence erupted at Wellington Oval yesterday, the question on the lips of most players and spectators was ?where were the Police??

Officers only attended after trouble flared at the Friendship Trophy Final, with the only Police at the ground the match officials, clearly none of whom were on duty.

North Village captain Keith Jennings, who was appalled by the violence that caused the match to be abandoned as his side fought for a third cup trophy of the year, was particularly scathing at the lack of uniformed officers at the ground.

?They (Police) know this town and country violence is going on,? he said. ?You had three teams from up the country playing down here.

?If the game had been played at the stadium (National Sports Centre) you would have had Police presence. This is a field that is wide open and the Police only showed up after everything was done.?

Bermuda Football Association president Larry Mussenden, also the Attorney General, admitted the BFA had not requested Police for the match, despite the attendance of the followers of four different teams yesterday in St. George?s.

Mussenden admitted: ?We did not consider this a high-risk game.

?Whenever we have any indication that there could be problems, we involve the Police, but there was no indication at all in relation to this match.?

Supt. Roseanda Jones, who was among the approximately ten Police officers who initially attended the incident: ?This was a BFA game and our presence here is to do patrols.

?It is not our place to be inside the grounds at games. If the BFA want any Police assistance then its usually down to them hiring Police officers.

?We patrol all of the games but it is not something that we do where we have Police officers present for the duration of any one game.

?There were no police present at the match; it just happened that there were some officers in the area around the time the incident occurred.

?It is not part of our duties being at every single match. When the BFA feel they need to, they hire officers to police matches.?