Operation Anfield explained after announcement during Liverpool vs West Brom

Liverpool were held by West Brom in a frustrating encounter for the champions at Anfield.

The Reds opened the scoring through Sadio Mane, but conceded a late Semi Ajayi header to ensure the spoils were shared.

On the pitch, Liverpool failed to click into second-gear as Sam Allardyce earned another impressive result on Merseyside.

However, away from the action on the field, fans were left bemused by an announcement made in the sparsely populated stadium.

With Liverpool in Tier 2, governmental guidelines allows them to have 2,000 supporters back in the stands, with the rest watching from their television screens.

In the first-half of the encounter, ‘Operation Anfield Exercise’ was heard being announced over the public address system.

Minutes after the initial announcement, the all-clear was given, with viewers on social media left baffled by the call.

A number of wild conspiracy theories were quickly attributed to the announcement, but it does play an important role in the game day experience at Anfield.

‘Operation Anfield Exercise’ is actually an instruction to stewards, who must be ready to deal with an emergecy at a moment’s notice.

The announcement is to instruct all the stewards at Anfield to get in their correct position in the stadium.

As that is happening, the turnstiles are tested to ensure they could accommodate a mass exodus from the stadiums, making sure fans would be able to leave quickly and safely.

Anfield bosses carry out the practice several times in a season to test everything is working properly.

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