Safestanding

New post on my blog. Regarding Safestanding.

http://the-beautiful-game.org/

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I was too young to have ever ‘stood on the terraces’. I’ve always known the football stadia I visit to have tiered seating. But with a lot more talk about mooting ‘safe standing’ areas, I’ve thought about how it might affect the atmosphere at games.
The thought of 52,000 Geordies roaring the Toon at St. James’ Park would be a sight to remember. Unfortunately I doubt it will ever come to fruition.

Most would argue that seated stadia were introduced for a reason – tragedy at Hillsborough and at Heysel, where 96 and 39 supporters respectively were killed due to a collapsed stand, or the mass stampede that ensued. Can the footballing authorities allow that possibility to ever arise again? I don’t think so. The other issue is that supporters pay a fortune to see their beloved team on the field, not the backside of an over-grown ape in front of them.

On the flip side, the atmosphere would improve vastly. Just imagine the entirety, or a large portion of a stadium, chanting in unison at their golden boys on the grass beneath them- a true footballing cauldron. The intimidation that the away players and fans must feel would be huge.

I’m bringing this up because I’ve gradually noticed the atmosphere at football games being severely diluted in recent years. This might be due a more family feel, which in itself has a positive affect, or that those supporters who do create much of the atmosphere are being segregated – the latter certainly being evident at St. James’ Park.
Furthermore, in many European leagues, particularly the Bundesliga, a lot of stadiums have safe-standing areas, coupled with a lot of safety features to prevent any disasters from occurring. How difficult can it be to reconstruct a stand to allow it to be terraces or safe standing, only taking into account the mass of the thousands of fans upon that stand? Understandably the health and safety of the supporter must be prioritized above all else.

I certainly would love to see standing at stadiums return – only if measures were effectively introduced to never repeat the tragedies of the Hillsborough and the like.
But will every fan see it that way?

Comments welcome.

Comment. Follow. http://the-beautiful-game.org/

 

Id like to see it back

 

Standing should have always been safe. But the government at the time hated football and its fans, they caged people in like animals, and there were no safety exits.They then tried to shift the blame when Hillsborough happened with lie after lie.

 

Standing still exists at lower league clubs (Peterborough in the Championship still have 2 standing ends). There are no problems there, so I think it could work.

Interesting question, where is the larget all-standing football stand in the world?

 

Is it South stand at Borrusia Dortmund

 

I'd like to see it back as the atmosphere was a different class when we had it to what we have now. Considering there was 15,000-20,000 less people, that tells you what standing does for the atmosphere. You never got cold either, even in the depths of winter. You just bounced up and down singing all match.

I'll be controversial and say that the banning of standing was a massive overeaction to certain disasters where there were many other factors in play.

 

No, that's not all standing.

It's actually Wrexham!

 

I hear Heather Mills is in favour of it too....

 

I loved standing and think in standing areas the atmosphere is better.

 

Agree

 

She would suit a stadium as lopsided as the SDA.

But in all seriousness, how easy would it be able to convert stadiums to allow for standing, including the other factors like outside of the stadium as well as in it? Would teams who have spent large amounts of money on expanding existing stadia or new ones be so welcoming of this after spending x amount of millions to increase capacity to comply with regulations?

 

You have to remember the stadiums back when standing was permitted were less engineered, with many of them being dilapidated timber and tin constructions decades old.
Less emergency exits and huge fences along the pitches were a contributing factor to the disasters and in the intervening years these have been rectified.
Managed well I think standing would be a benefit to the game experience but I think it's still some distance off; clubs don't want to deal with the increased risk. More could be done by Newcastle to manage the Milburn underpass after full time for instance.

As for the atmosphere, I was flicking through some old programmes and found an article in one by John Hall back when the plans for the new leazes stadium were announced. In it he mentioned figures relating to fan attendance along the lines of 90% of tickets would go on sale to the public with the remainder going to corporate, but the corporate seats would raise over 85% of the clubs revenue. In my opinion corporate money has reduced the atmosphere, not the seats.

Incidentally my first ever toon match was 18 years ago today... standing on the Gallowgate in weather not unlike todays.

 

I'm a big advocate of safe standing. It works across the lower leagues and across the Bundasliga in Germany, with some very intelligent designs.

As a basic premise, fans should be given the choice as to whether they want to sit or stand. There is no longer any evidence to suggest that it is dangerous as modern design has proved. (The point about the old dilapidated grounds is right) and in fact it's been proven that it's more dangerous to stand in a seated area.

There are benefits for clubs, fans and the environment by introducing safe standing. Clubs increase their capacity, thereby reducing the need to have to build new stadiums, fans get more choice and cheaper tickets and the old stadiums remian in place instead of being replaced by out of town identikit bowls with no soul and atmosphere.

I used to stand on the old North Bank terrace at Highbury between 1984 and the sad day that they knocked it down and I will always carry fond memories of the electric atmosphere that the terraces generated. We might not be able to go back to the days of 20,000 fans all standing together, but modern design, with small areas of safe standing for those who want it, is something that football fans deserve. There are only benefits as far as I can see.

Anyone wanting to get involved with this issue a bit more should check out the Football supporters federation website, they have got a petition to bring back safe standing.
http://www.fsf.org.uk/petitions/safestanding.php

 

Rep cos I've missed you!

 

I dunno lol, if we're getting hammered, I kind of want to sit down.

bums

 

I will forever miss that exhilirating surge down the terraces and finishing 100 yards from where you started. And there were never many injuries unlike what the middle-class rulers of the game will tell you.