Safe standing

[Rich Pullen]

Didn't Yeovil once construct a stand that was standing but designed to make it easier for seating to be put in if need be?

[Arriba]

the standing issue is deffo a debateable subject.i doubt you'd get many liverpool fans keen on it.

[Spencer_White]

the standing issue is deffo a debateable subject.i doubt you'd get many liverpool fans keen on it.

I remmember the news after the last game that the Kop was standing.

There was loads of 'No seats' graffiti on the Kop. Fans there were devastated.

That was a full 5 years after Hillsborough.

[Reg Smeeton]

Yeah, but I only knew this because of wikipedia - so I went with 'part' instead, the common mans 'Bailiwick'

I just wanted a chance to use the word Bailiwick....what's the point in knowing stuff, if you can't use it from time to time.

[Rich Pullen]

I just wanted a chance to use the word Bailiwick....what's the point in knowing stuff, if you can't use it from time to time.

A fair point Smeeton.

[reeves4england]

I remmember the news after the last game that the Kop was standing.

There was loads of 'No seats' graffiti on the Kop. Fans there were devastated.

That was a full 5 years after Hillsborough.

Yep - it wasn't terracing that caused Hillsborough. That was just the excuse, and everybody knows it. I love the fact we're able to stand up in the Town End, and much prefer being able to stand when I go to an away game. It's just not the same sat down, although I definitely agree you do need to have seats for people who want/need them

[Arriba]

well during the service last month at anfield, a speaker was openly stating that terracing shouldn't return.

[jonny72]

Admit it, you're just trolling really aren't you?

Not at all - I'm not convinced terracing adds that much to the atmosphere. One thing that is for certain is that the lack of it doesn't present a good atmosphere - I doubt many people would say you don't have a decent atmosphere at Anfield, Old Trafford or Wembley. Though it being brought back won't bother me much as I'll just stay in the seats.

I do get extremely pissed with people that insist on standing in seated sections though. My dad can't stand for an entire match so when we get stuck in a stand with a bunch of self centred, brain dead morons who insist on standing it is fucking annoying and means he either can't watch all the game or has to endure the pain.

[DV]

I pefer to stand at away games I think most people do....but when we do we stand at the back so if people want to sit we arent getting in there way....

no harm done then

[Talk Talk]

I've only been watching football for a few seasons and I have to say that I find it unnatural to sit down at a match. The TE is where I have to be - stood up - the better view from the Arkells or DRS is irrelevant to me. I have tried it and it just felt so wrong. You can't fucking sing sat down.

That Posh stand on Saturday was sublime and what I would like at the County Ground.

So as Spencer said, it should be about catering for your paying customers wants and I reckon it would be an earner for people like myself.

(NB I obviously haven't been around for long enough to have experienced pre-Hillsborough terracing and so I don't have an opinion on what it used to be like)

[yeo]

well during the service last month at anfield, a speaker was openly stating that terracing shouldn't return.

Yes I heard that and it annoyed me a little bit.

No one is talking about returning to the kind of Terrace we had before Hillsborough that felt almost alive and pushed and swayed with every attack.When you think back to those times its amazing that more people werent hurt.I remember launching my kid brother who would have been 8ish into the air and him almost crowd surfing and loving it.

Safe standing isnt a return to terracing,its more designed seating areas but without the actual seat.They have it in Germany and whilst I will always feel nothing but sympathy for all the Hillsborough Groups I dont think they they are able to look at the issue subjectivly.

[RobertT]

True Safe Standing is not used in this country, and I really do have doubts about peoples likely love affair with it because it will not be the old style terracing that people really are thinking about.  As Spencer mentions, only economics will drive a change so it may begin from the lower leagues back up should Chairman panic over falling attendances.  It's probably something that would happen club by club rather than en masse, but I can't see it happening for years - a couple of clubs have paid lip service to having safe standing recently when discussing future ground developments but I see that as little more than pandering to vociferous fans at those clubs.

[Talk Talk]

True Safe Standing is not used in this country, and I really do have doubts about peoples likely love affair with it because it will not be the old style terracing that people really are thinking about

I fell in love with the Moyes End. Is that old style then? How would Safe Standing be different? And how would that compare to standing in the TE with the seats in place (which is fine IMHO)?

[jonny72]

I fell in love with the Moyes End. Is that old style then? How would Safe Standing be different? And how would that compare to standing in the TE with the seats in place (which is fine IMHO)?

Have a look at this (pictures of safe seating towards the bottom): http://www.users.bigpond.com/pengweeds/presentation.html

Do people really think it would improve attendances? I can't see it myself as standing tickets would have to be priced pretty much the same as seating tickets - capacity is unlikely to be increased much by safe seating, most likely it will stay exactly the same. So why would a club make it cheaper?

I think the chances of terraces returning in the form they used to be in England are a big fat zero. None of the authorities involved would go anywhere near that with someone else's barge pole.

[Lumps]

For all the talk of "the bad old days" of terribly unsafe standing crowds at football, I'd challenge anyone to find any examples of deaths occuring as a direct result of those bad old terraces.

Of the major disasters in football, from the Ibrox disaster in 1901 (or 1902 I can't remember) through the second Ibrox disaster in the 70's, Bradford, Heysel and Hillsborough, there's two common themes,

• poorly maintained stadia with piss-poor safety procedures; and

• treating fans like animals to be herded and penned up and having no clear strategies for crowd control

[/list]

How exactly would seats have prevented any of these:

Ibrox 1 :Part of an old wodden stand collapses and 50 odd peope fall to their deaths

Ibrox 2 : A safety rail collapses on an exit stair people fall and in the resulting crush something like 60 people are killed

Bradford : A wooden stand full rubbish with no fire exinguishers and the fire exits padlocked, catches fire from a fag end and about 60 are killed

Heysel : Holliganism, complacent policing and stewarding and a shitty old ground not fit to host a BSP league fixture combine and a wall collapses crushing hundreds and killing about 40

Hillsborough:  Exit gates are opened to allow a press of crowd big enough to fill an entire end to flood into a ground all at once and as a result of poor stadium design, they all  flow through a tunnel and into only the central third of the terrace, which is fenced in with 8 ft high fences with only two or three small gates which are locked.


Obviously the answer is that the idea of all seater stadia had fuck all to do with Hillsborough, (contrary to popular belief the Taylor reoport does NOT call for them at all), and much more to do with whcat sociologists like to call the "spectacularisation" of football; that is the process of changing football crowds from more active participants in the  game into nice well behaved spectators who sit quietly and applaud politely. It was about breaking up a football crowd to stop them from being a big collective mass and turn them back into a collection of individuals. Which is a shame becasue that collective feeling was kind of what made it fun in the first place. If it was just about watching the game you'd stay at home and get a Skysport subscription and watch people who could olay it a bit better.

I guess it had both ideological and commercial motivations. Of course it's made it almost impossible to maintain the sort of atmosphere that used to be generated by football crowds. In the past the people that liked singing used to gather towards the back to the left of the goal in one end, now they've all had to buy tickets for an individually numbered seat in groups of two, three or four scattered all over the stand. That's why the atmosphere in away ends is always so much better. A bigger critical mass of signing chanting fans with less choice of where to be.