Standing up for the right to stand.


During my younger days ‘the right to stand’ at football matches was a bit of an old chestnut.  I remember leading a debating team in English class defending terraces.  Hillsborough had changed football forever and clubs were steadily implementing the Taylor report, but many fans believed that ’safe standing’ areas could best maintain the atmosphere and traditions of the game, without compromising safety.

It’s scary to think how many years later (something-teen), but football terraces are back in the news.

The Independent reports that Liberal Democrat MP, Don Foster, has tabled a motion proposing that clubs, up to the top level, should be permitted to construct standing areas.  90% of the Football Supporters’ Federation is in favour, so there is a rare opportunity for Lib Dems to feel some love With this initiative.

Over the years, I must admit, my passion for terraces has somewhat dimmed.  I rather like watching a match seated and, so long as the game is exciting, seats don’t damage the atmosphere too much.  The Kop Stand at Windsor Park, for example, has created a mighty noise at international matches, since it opened.  Would anyone seriously want to return to the dark, windswept and slightly scary hill which preceded it?

Of course that isn’t quite what’s being proposed.  Germany is an example of best practice when it comes to safe-standing at top stadia.  I took a tour of the Axa Arena in Munich a number of years ago and the terraces there aren’t exactly the traditional concrete mounds of British football.

Rather barriers separate each row of spectators and flip seats can be added for European games.  It’s not the seething mass, for which older football fans have an understandable nostalgia, but it does allow for cheaper tickets and provides a safe area for those who do wish to stand.

Football can’t simply go backwards but if closely regulated terraces can accommodate fans without any compromises on safety, then this proposal deserves closer consideration.

Comments

K D Tennent said…
Couldn't agree more - if they got rid of those tiny, uncomfortable plastic seats I might actually go and watch league football more often. Standing is also preferable when its cold. In my experience of grounds like The Den, Loftus Road and Brisbane Road everyone always ends up standing in seating areas anyway, particularly in the away end. Seating thus seems a little moot!
9 December 2010 at 13:25
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Football fever in Russia

Russia Blog is getting excited about Euro 2008. Indeed it is drawing parallels between Guus Hiddink and Peter the Great in terms of successful Russo-Dutch exchanges of expertise. Meanwhile, in Moscow, fans have been taking to the streets in order to celebrate the national team’s achievements.
Read more

Stormont might not collapse but paramilitaries continue to disfigure Northern Ireland

Image
The devolved institutions in Northern Ireland are supposedly ‘teetering on the brink’ of collapse yet again.  After repeated failures to agree a balanced budget or implement welfare reform created months of uncertainty, the Executive’s future is now in doubt because the PSNI believes members of the IRA were involved in murdering a republican hit man.  Despite its apparent seriousness, this particular predicament is unlikely to bring the shaky edifice at Stormont crashing down. The IRA was supposed to have disbanded its military ‘structures’ and decommissioned its entire arsenal of weapons back in 2005.  It was on the basis of this understanding that power-sharing resumed in 2007 and the DUP entered government with Sinn Féin.  From the outset it was a fairly flimsy pretext.   Less than a year after John de Chastelain, the retired Canadian general, oversaw decommissioning, the Independent Monitoring Commission reported that the IRA retained a substantial haul of arms.
Read more

Walker loada rubbish

Former BBC employee Brian Walker has overrun Slugger O’Toole lately with countless poorly structured, poorly written posts. It is possible quickly to recognize and avoid these by subjecting each Slugger piece to a cursory inspection and identifying those which feature characteristic lack of paragraphing and a tenuous grasp on the technicalities of linking source articles. Although I generally evade Walker’s posts by this method, occasionally (and unfortunately) I have persevered and found that their content is as unrewarding as the style in which they are written. Today, for instance, I inflicted upon myself Brian’s thoughts on a mooted Fianna Fail / SDLP merger . In actual fact, he is right to welcome news that the Southern Irish party has dropped this proposal from its agenda; however, the logic by which he arrives at this conclusion is parochial nonsense. To summarise, Walker believes that pursuing realignment with larger parties, whether they are from the rest of the UK or fro
Read more