Safe Standing Roadshow

[SeCrEt FoX]

Cheers . Didnt know it has already been posted , did check first Honest

[bluesbrothers]

I'm all for backing this.

I've only been to a few away days since the footy bug bit me again, and they were all at seated grounds except one - Hereford in League 1. The atmosphere that day was amazing - my first experience of terraces, and it was just awesome. There were no problems whatsoever, and everybody had plenty of space despite us packing over 1,000 fans into one tinshed stand. I understand that stand has now been replaced with seating which only accomodates some 400 fans now, which is a real shame. The atmosphere was amazing - even by away day standards.

Safe Standing would boost attendence, and surely improve atmosphere. The danger of standing lay in those draconian cages installed in the 70's and poor gatekeeping leading to overcrowding - not standing itself. It's not as if we're telling everybody to stand either: as little as 5% of a ground reserved for standers - an area the size of L1 - would be reasonable. If its popular, increase the allocation. Simple.

If we're still allowed to pack into music concerts like sardines, why not football?

[ajthefox]

Typical joke of a response from the club to something which many fans feel very strongly about.

[bluesbrothers]

To be fair, it's not the club that needs talking to, it's the FA.

It's not the club that enforces the all-seater laws, it's the FA. And they're not even that well enforced - Peterborough still operate terracing, and at one point this season they were looking like play-off contenders for the Prem. The law is something like 4 years in the top 2 league to remove the terracing and make the ground all-seater. But of course, what with being a yo-yo club, they never stay in the Championship long enough for the law to be enforced.

But the good news seems to be that the FA seem open to looking into safe standing, even if clubs like ours are bricking it at the mere thought of their stewards having no spare seats to sit their lazy arses on.