WYCOMBE Wanderers legend Jason Cousins' hopes of a nest egg for his retirement have been shattered by a massive police bill.

The former Wanderers star was hit by a huge £9,500 bill a record for any match at Adams Park to police his testimonial against Celtic on Tuesday.

The game against the Scottish champions was set up to provide the out-of-work footballer with a tax-free fund for his retirement after 11 glorious years at Adams Park.

But Wanderers were furious that the police insisted on having 45 officers on duty inside the ground.

There was no trouble on the night and police, who also had a large presence in town at the tax-payer's expense, confirmed that no arrests were made.

Cousins will now have to foot the £9,500 bill for the policing inside the stadium himself and once he has paid Celtic's expenses, he will only walk away with a fraction of the profits he was expecting from the match against former Wanderers boss Martin O'Neill's Celtic side.

Wanderers director and Sky Sports football commentator Alan Parry is furious.

He said: "I thought the police presence was over the top. It was a testimonial and they treated it like an Old Firm Glasgow derby.

"I spoke to Martin O'Neill and he told me that for a normal home game at Celtic where they attract crowds of 60,000 each week their police bill is £11,500 and Jason's bill for this week's game was £9,500."

The match, which Celtic won 4-0, attracted a crowd of 5,072 half the ground's capacity including around 1,000 from Celtic.

Parry said: "I thought it was an insult to Celtic fans to treat them as potential troublemakers. They behaved impeccably. They joined in the occasion. They chanted Jason's name yet they were treated like hoodlums.

"Our own stewards could easily have handled that fixture. It is a £9,500 hole in Jason's finances for the night. He had no choice about it and it wasn't necessary.

"Wycombe Wanderers prides itself on the good reputation of its supporters home and away. We get letters of praise from police forces up and down the country and we should be rewarded for that by a more sensible approach."

Police spokesman Chief Insp Clive Webb said: " This match was organised at short notice.

"As with any fixture of this nature, we have to judge the policing resources according to intelligence available at the time.

"The view of the club was that the match would attract capacity crowd. The level of policing was agreed with the club. There were no arrests made and no disturbances. This is exactly what Chiltern Vale police and the club wanted to achieve and is a testimony to the success of the policing operation."

Cousins, now at non-league Aldershot, said: "I was surprised at the police presence and the bill. It seemed a bit over the top. The whole point of the night was to generate some income and this has taken a large chunk of it away."

Fans thought they were supporting Cousins but almost £2 of every ticket for the match went towards the cost of the police operation.

Meanwhile an insider for Britain's biggest club, Manchester United, confirmed that for a run-of-the-mill United home game with a 67,000 crowd there are just 60 officers on duty.

October 11, 2002 11:31