Thetownend.com

I'd be very interested in the results of this.

http://thewashbag.com/2012/07/30/safe-standing/

I, for one, hate sitting down at football. It kills the atmosphere, and in shitty ends like the Town End it can be very hard to see the corners especially.

Officially, the Town End might be a seating area.  In practice, I think we all know it isn't.

It makes financial and common sense to make the Town End safe standing when they redo it. Everyone stands anyway because, as jayohaitchenn said, you can't see shit if you don't. By the same token, perhaps some of the lower areas of the Arkells could also be safe standing, particularly the ones nearest the Town End. It'd help improve the atmosphere if you've got an almost solid block of 'standees'.

Did I hear the TE is going to be two tiered? I might have made that up, but if it is the case, then it'd be great to atleast see the bottom tier as safe standing. Need changes in regulations to happen quite quickly I suppose - if we have to build a seated stand, I presume it could be adapted to safe standing should regulations change after it's built?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Safe standing has been in European grounds for years with no issues whatsoever. This country is too health and safety conscious. Too OTT.

I would have thought that standing in a seated area is far more dangerous than a well-designed safe standing area -  so even the Health & Safety police ought to be in favour of safe standing.

I'd be against installing it in side stands though - I love standing behind the goal but your view can get very restricted if you're standing down the sides.

Anyone know how ticketing works abroad - are you allocated a space in the safe standing area or is it a free for all?

You're allocated a seat but in front of the seat there is a bar so you can stand.

I believe that is the case R4E, although nothing confirmed as yet...will be interesting to see the plans when they come out for consultation

Surely, if new Rugby League stadiums can include terracing, then purpose-built terracing is safe.

It will never happen so why bother with a questionnaire.

Exactly my thoughts. Surely efforts should be focused on getting the regulations changed, talk of what we "could" do is somewhat meaningless at the moment.

It will never happen if fans don't do anything about it.

The results of a questionairre can be cited as evidence to support a campaign. It is no good pleading for change if you can't back up your plea with evidence that suggests there is desire for change.

Was sent this today


Sorry it's been so long!

Hi there,

It's been a fair few years now since you signed up in support of our Stand Up, Sit Down campaign, so we thought it was high time that we brought you up to date. We'd also like to ask you to do us a favour!

As you may be aware, in September 2009 we decided to pool resources with the Football Supporters Federation and to pursue our aim of ensuring all grounds offered fans a choice to sit or stand by working together on the FSF's Safe Standing Campaign.

Since then Peter has, in particular, spearheaded the campaign's efforts to maintain terracing at those grounds where it still exists, visiting the 23 Football League grounds which still offer a choice to stand. These visits, including observations on how well standing works, along with a comprehensive history of the safe standing debate and the arguments for and against all-seating, are included in his new book (pictured right) 'Stand Up, Sit Down - A Choice to Watch Football'.

For a detailed round-up of what the campaign has achieved in the last year, see the Safe Standing section of the FSF's annual report here.

Since that report went to press, two further Championship clubs, Derby County and Peterborough United (today) have also gone public in declaring their interest in safe standing... and that brings us onto that favour:

Please share a video!
In order to highlight the idiocy of the current all-seater regulations in a humorous way, Jon at the Safe Standing Roadshow recently teamedup with Peterborough United to make a silent movie:

'Safe Standing - Peter Burrow's Dilemma'

Please take a look and share it with everyone you possibly can via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and any other social media. And as you are asked to do at the end of the movie, please also sign - if you've not done so already - the FSF safe standing petition and encourage every recipient of your mails, Tweets and messages to do the same.

It's been a long road, but we are gradually getting there. We are hopeful of further positive developments over the coming months and Jon will keep you informed via occasional mails like this. If you would prefer not to receive such mails, please unsubscribe below. Regular visits to the FSF and Safe Standing Roadshow websites will also keep you up to date.

Sorry for the long break without any contact. Let's hope we have more good news to bring you very soon!

Cheers,

Peter Caton and Amanda Jacks
Stand Up, Sit Down

Peterborough today backed safe standing at London Road.

http://www.clarets-mad.co.uk/news/tmnw/peterborough_united_back_safe_standing_751002/index.shtml

Good job in paving the way, I honestly think we should follow suit. The seats are there in the event we are legally forced to do away with standing if we're in the championship, pending a law change of course.

I used to have the opinion that terracing was part of history and we should move on and forget the idea of standing at football. I've changed my mind on this having seen the safe standing idea with allocated spaces and the safety bars. Definately think we as a club should look to have a standing area if we can.

I used to stand in front of the barriers on the bank, you could avoid the shove in the back from surging fans. Terracing was ace, you could move around if you had some gobshite stood near you, or if someone had a smelly arse.

That's the sort of 'can do' spirit that made this country great!  ;)

Peterborough have offered their ground as a trial for safe standing areas and, as we are hopefully building the new Town End next summer I would have thought this is exactly the time that the club should seriously consider it too. J Wray seems genuinely interested in the views of the fans so I see no harm in gauging the fans' views.

The problem is we get a lot of fans who say their opinion on the internet, social media and in other local media who probably don't reflect the vast majority of other fans.

Take the Town End stand for example, the uptake on the offer for a £199 season ticket a couple of years back wasn't anywhere as good as expected.

I think for the people who enjoy the Town End already safe standing would be brilliant. Others will pay slightly more for the view and and chats about the quality of the Bovril/Oxo/whatever they serve these days.

I expect that even if they FA authorise safe standing they will fuck up the decision by saying it can only be installed in grounds where terracing exists already and where new stadiums are built or where seating already exists they cannot install safe standing...

To be fair, you can still move around now, as we hardly ever have a full stadium

It was the prem year, I had a season ticket in there. When we had terracing I stood mostly on the shrivvy, then the bank and the TE the least. I've always found the steps too shallow in there.

Thanks for the feedback so far on this survey. The whole purpose of the survey is to establish whether support exists to see safe-standing introduced, if the club was able to. Ultimately a change in the law and Football League regulations may be possible, however this will not happen without the evidence, fans and club support.

If you haven't already please give your views on safe-standing and how it could affect your matchday experience which will be reported to the club - who I'm meeting to discuss this issue in a week - and the Football Supporters Federation, who are leading this campaign.

Please click this link and fill out the survey - http://thewashbag.com/2012/08/06/safe-standing-survey/

Good to hear about the meeting.

Will you be posting results of the survey and feedback from the meeting at some point?

Yep, nice to see them take an interest even if it is ultimately somebody else's decision.

Depending on how things progress with the club and promoting the survey, the results will be published in a couple of weeks.

Finally after a bit of a delay... the results of our safe-standing survey have been published today http://thewashbag.com/2012/10/17/safe-standing-survey-result/ revealing significant support from those fans surveyed to see the introduction of safe-standing area(s) (if the club was permitted to do so).

I'll get the club's feedback on this soon.

Hopefully this will be brought up in the Q&A with the new chairman coming up

Would have been interesting to see how people would react to having to pay the same for a safe standing seat compared to a normal seat. I'm guessing not well as 81% in the survey expected to pay less.

I ask as I'm not sure why they would be any cheaper. The safe standing system will cost substantially more than normal seating due to the extra barriers and may even take up more space (meaning less seats). So if it was put in to the Town End for example I'd guess you'd be paying exactly the same for your ticket as you do at present.

Still think the whole thing is a waste of time. To implement safe seating you need a change in the law which I don't see happening, the main parties have more important things to worry about and wouldn't want to be associated with it if it went wrong.

I would pay the same for safe standing.

Safe standing....how weird,i went to footy for years and stood and never felt unsafe.

It was the old wooden grounds and fences that caged you in that made it unsafe....nothing to do with standing.

Saying that as a kid i could see fuck all and not sure as a kid that would go down well now...as a kid the atmosphere tempted me back not the action on the pitch.

Agreed. Money isn't the issue, choice is. I'd much prefer to have the chance of standing. Sitting down at football even after all these years just isn't right.

I actually feel sorry for the supporters who have never experienced the terraces. Shrivvie Road, at the back up by the away fans was brilliant, and if the football was average to good then even better, but if it wasn't well least it was still an afternoon well spent.

Spot on

If I was able to attend, I'd be willing to pay more to stand if it was an option.

Bump.


BBC story states 13 clubs back safe standing yet we're not one of them.  Seems odd as I thought the general rumblings from the club were that they were in favour of this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20679867

It did seem we were behind it, maybe it's a cost issue - if we're going to have our redevelopment maybe they don't want to shell out for this only to have to change it all again. And we stand quite safely anyway in the Town End so they don't actually need to change the seating there at the moment.

Premier League doesn't want it. Won't happen. I want it to, but it won't. The Premier League clubs who refuse to have any form of responsibility for the behaviour of their own players or fans have already built their stadia. Don't want to have to pay the money, or indeed let other clubs have the option of a different form of seating because it might undercut them (more people able to fit in a stand for cheaper overall means the all-seater stadia they've built are not economically optimised anymore).

The woman saying she's 'Insulted' that this option is being presented at the same time as the truth behind the Hillsborough tragedy has been revealed pisses me off slightly. The point of this is to precisely prevent the kind of thing that happened there. Ridiculous.

Same here. It's based on emotion, with no factual evidence whatsoever, as safe standing cannot possibly lead to a repeat of Hillsborough. All of the arguments presented against the idea seem flawed at best. I see no reason why the idea shouldn't be trialled, and ultimately hope that it brings back a choice for fans who want to stand.

So how do the club feel about this? Has the trust raised this issue with them?

If a new Town End is to be two-tiered, then surely this would be an ideal opportunity to trial a safe standing lower tier.

Safe standing at the CG has been put to previous regimes when a new ground/redevelopment have been mooted. Momentum for safe standing is building, so now is the right time to push for change (ie choice in how fans watch football). Safe standing design is not a return to poorly maintained, historic terracing, new rugby league grounds have terracing, all seater stands are not preventing coin throwing, pitch invading, racist abuse or inter-fan violence (Oxford away last season). The Hillsborough disaster should not now have the same influence as it has done on how people should attend and watch football matches.

After working with the Football Supporters Federation to promote the results of our safe standing survey to STFC, we now have a response from STFC...

http://thewashbag.com/2013/01/11/swindon-town-fc-offer-their-support-to-safe-standing-trials/

http://www.fsf.org.uk/latest-news/view/oldham-athletic-and-swindon-town-back-safe-standing-campaign

Fantastic news that STFC have backed the safe standing campaign!

Well done mate.

Well done indeed.

Well done Washbag! I have also signed the FSF petition backing safe standing areas!

Lovely stuff. Was annoyed to see our name off the original list.

Excellent ! Well done  :clap:

Good work.

   
Just spoke to Dostoyevsky and apparently he/she/it is against the idea

Something about Serbia or Bournemouth or something

Well done