Graham Kelly: Fans' 'bar stool' can cure problem of all-seater stadiums
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Your support makes all the difference.The Football Supporters Federation is giving the first public viewing to a new, safe standing design at its second annual fans' parliament being held over the first weekend of June in Walsall. Invited to attend are safety officers from the 91 League stadiums and police match day commanders from all 92 clubs. The FSF hopes the new design will solve the problem surrounding fans continually standing in seated areas.
The revolutionary concept, designed by a Devon company, has a row of seating attached to a barrier, but the seat is at chest height, rather than the usual low level. The barrier prevents the supporter from falling backwards or forwards and he or she steps into the seat as if it were a bar stool in a pub, so they don't have to keep standing up every few minutes to allow people to pass on their way out to the toilet or refreshment areas. When the fan stands up in excitement, he is likely to be of approximately similar height to the person alongside him, who may still be seated.
Malcolm Clarke, the chair of the FSF, is 6ft 4in and he tested this without blocking the view of someone still sitting in the row behind him. The Federation has demonstrated the system to safety officers and club officials of four Premier League clubs and all were positive in their views.
The Minister for Sport, Richard Caborn, and the Football Licensing Authority have been asked to view the prototype and the FLA has requested technical specifications.
However, the FSF is concerned that the Government may have lost the plot on the issue of standing. There was pressure to impose seating throughout most of Europe's top grounds following the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 because this was felt to be the safest method of controlling large crowds.
English football tried to stall the all-seater call for cost reasons, and successfully lobbied David Mellor, when he was sports minister, to persuade him to reverse the legislation as far as clubs in the lower two divisions were concerned.
Germany, too, have never gone the whole hog towards all-seater stadiums. Grounds contain safe standing areas that allow standing during Bundesliga matches and are then converted into seating areas for European and international fixtures in order to comply with rules of Uefa and Fifa, the European and world governing bodies respectively. Somewhat surprisingly, of all the venues for the 2006 World Cup, only the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, which will host the final, is 100 per cent seated.
Last season, German clubs were drawing the largest average league attendances in Europe; Borussia Dortmund, for example, topped the 80,000 mark on at least one occasion.
The Premier League has never shown any great interest, as far as I am aware, in contemplating the return of standing areas. I would be surprised if the conservatism the clubs demonstrated when the all-seater principle was first mooted after Hillsborough was not mirrored now if the possibility of restoring some safe standing areas is proposed. What would be the effect on ticket prices?
Such areas should be easier to monitor for crowd safety. The current problem of fans who are standing blocking the views of those sitting behind would also be removed at a stroke. Stewards would no longer have the thankless task of repeatedly asking them to sit down.
Lord Justice Taylor wrote in the Hillsborough Report (1990): "It is possible that in the early stages of conversion there may be instances of fans standing on the seats or in front of them because they are used to standing or to register a protest, but I am satisfied that.... spectators will become accustomed and educated to sitting."
Speaking from Hillsborough on Match of the Day on the evening of the disaster, I said, somewhat presumptuously: "We must move fans' preferences away from the terraces", which was a more immediate and clumsy way of saying what Taylor stated a year later. Neither of us got it right.
The ludicrous example of Carrow Road is cited by the FSF: in the away section there is a notice warning that persistent standing will result in a reduced ticket allocation for your club. However, it is usually the home end adjacent to the away fans which is the main location of standing and thus the source of a pointless job creation scheme for the stewards.
The stewards start from the front and work back persuading supporters to sit down. Every so often a chant goes up: "Stand up if you're top of the league" and everyone stands up, forcing the stewards to return to the front row to start all over again. They never reach within 10 rows of the back, where fans stand throughout.
"Will the Canaries be reducing their allocation to their own supporters?" asks the FSF. The debate on standing should be reopened.
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