Southampton Football Club partnered with 2CL to upgrade its ageing security infrastructure, including CCTV and radio systems, to enhance safety for fans and staff at St Mary’s Stadium. The new solution provides full camera coverage and advanced communication tools, ensuring improved security and more efficient operations.
Southampton Football Club is a professional football club that competes in the UK Premier League, the top tier of English football. As such it has a strong local following and hosts other top flight clubs from around the country. A priority of the club to both home and away fans is not only that they have a fantastic experience when visiting St Mary’s Stadium, but also that they feel safe within the grounds. With an ageing closed-circuit television (CCTV) system and a timely opportunity to review the capabilities of the radio system used by the site security team, Southampton FC approached us to review their system and procedures. |
AT A GLANCE Industry: Sports Grounds |
“The quality of work provided by 2CL has been nothing short of exceptional. From start to finish, their team demonstrated an impressive level of expertise, professionalism, and responsiveness to our needs. The new system has truly elevated our stadium’s safety and security and we couldn’t be more satisfied with the results.”
— Andy Darbyshire, Event Safety Officer & Head of Security
Problem
In particular, Southampton FC wanted to improve the CCTV coverage inside the stadium while upgrading the outdated system design. In addition, the introduction of new fan zones within the grounds also needed CCTV coverage – a gap that needed addressing immediately.
Solution
The new system, which comprises 62 CCTV cameras and 200 digital radios, gives Southampton FC full camera coverage across the site and an improved radio system for the security team.
Radio System: Enhanced monitoring and control
The new radio system has the benefit of all recording all communications, an important feature should the need arise to playback any radio chatter. This could be used, for example, to demonstrate the content and timings of communications across the team following an incident which could provide crucial evidence if required by law enforcement.
In addition, all channels can be monitored by the control room, with the radio controller also able to speak on multiple channels simultaneously. This allows instructions to be passed to various teams quickly while ensuring the same message is sent to all.
![]() Fixed CCTV cameras at Southampton Football Club |
![]() Control Room at Southampton Football Club |
The new radio system also benefits the security team directly. The man-down, lone worker, and emergency system that Southampton FC now has in place means that their security personnel will always be safe.
CCTV: Full coverage in high-definition
Southampton FC’s control room now has access to 26 high-resolution crowd control cameras within the bowl of the stadium and 32 perimeter cameras – all of which was installed by 2CL, including all the necessary fibre and data links.
The high-definition cameras allow operators to zoom in and capture every detail – ensuring that any perpetrators can be easily identified and tracked while a security team is deployed. Their state-of-the-art solution is also enabled with Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance the security picture for the team to allow them to make quicker decisions and resolve issues more effectively.
By reorganising their security technology environment, Southampton FC has a system its security team can work with, with greater confidence and reassurance. Importantly, it also provides the external assurance that the club are delivering on their commitment to the safety of fans.
The Future
2CL is proud to be the Official Venue Security Technology Supplier to Southampton FC and will be supporting their security team both day-to-day and into the future with:
- Ofcom license management and renewals to ensure legal compliance
- Annual Preventative Maintenance Inspections (PMI)
- Emergency call out cover 24/7, every day of the year
With a stadium and grounds that is ever changing, Southampton FC has a reliable system that can be expanded and adapted to changing requirements to ensure the continuation of crowd safety.
More information
To find out more about how an integrated digital radio and CCTV system can enhance the security at your stadium or venue, please contact us: