The following is reported by Colin Osborne in the Hereford Journal:
Football fans returning from Saturday's Hereford United game against Kidderminster have hit out at the use of CS spray by Police on a crowded platform at Worcester Foregate Street railway station.
Police say they were called to deal with a disturbance "involving a number of troublemaking football supporters returning to Hereford" - but fans say there was no trouble, and that they had travelled on the train alongside regular passengers and shoppers.
"There were a few hundred people on the platform and there were some protests from people who wanted to leave the station to get buses," said John Baggott, a native of Hereford who was returning to Liverpool, "but Foregate Street itself was closed off by Police, and suddenly everyone was affected by CS spray."
"I saw people with their eyes streaming, other people were vomiting on the platform and many were screaming for water.
"The police action was unjustified. I cannot understand why it happened and I think the police lost the plot."
Another fan, Jason Hicks, told the Journal: "The spray was potent and even affected us as we were still on the train. I saw people on the platform kneeling down and gasping for air."
One fan who ended up in Hereford's County Hospital on Saturday night was barman Mike Long, who went to work in the evening until he began to feel "worse and worse": "I got really worried when I began to cough up blood. It frightened the living daylights out of me, so I went straight to the hospital A&E department, where I was told I still had fumes on my lungs. I was detained for an hour.
"I originally felt the effects of the CS spray on the platform where I saw two people unconscious on the floor" he said.
Worcester police spokesman Michael Vockins said CS spray had been used "to control some of the more disruptive fans." Fans were moved down a steep staircase leading from one platform to another on opposite sides of the station: "Fans were pushing and there was a fear that people might be pushed and injured in falling. There was a very limited use of spray on a few people - it was certainly not sprayed over a whole group." he maintained.
In the Opinion section of the Journal letters page, the correspondent questions the need for use when no arrests were made.