Safe standing trial offer

[bertlambshank]

I have never fell sleep at a game standing where as....

[The Left Side]

Well i'm in favour of it, so well done for the Villa

[1874]

I think it is funny how the mail describes it as 'audacious'. I can't really see the risk myself.

[MonsXI]

Also Margaret Aspinall:

"There is no place for standing in modern football and I cannot comprehend why people want to go back to how it was in the 1980s.

It is both insulting and insensitive to suggest that it is a good idea, particularly knowing there has never been any accountability for what happened at Hillsborough in April 1989.

I have had the argument about what happens in Germany thrown at me before, when people have raised the idea about bringing back standing in England.

Well, what people in another country do is their own affair.

We have had two tragedies at grounds with standing terraces in Great Britain - 96 football fans never returned home from Hillsborough, 66 lives were lost at Ibrox.

When I talk about never bringing standing back to football grounds here, I am thinking about my children and grandchildren going to games.

They should never be put in a position of how it was in the 1980s."

Can't talk to some people....

Correct me if I'm wrong but neither of the disasters were due to standing. one was due to overcrowding in a stairwell and the other due to poor construction of the stand.

[Legion]

Interesting debate on Talksport this evening.

[dave.woodhall]

Interesting debate on Talksport this evening.

There's a phrase you don't hear very often.

[itbrvilla]

What time?

[SashasGrandad]

I would have thought that the lower North Stand would have been the most obvious choice for trialling safe standing. Wasn't it standing in a previous era, rather than the holte, which was constructed as an all-seater stand?

When the Holte was rebuilt it was built as an all seater, the North Stand was rebuilt and had standing at the front with a big fence to house visiting supporters.

The Holte used to house up to 28,000 people who used to happily enjoy themselves. Those of us old enough to remember what used to happen when we scored a goal and you could suddenly find yourself surging forward and amazingly you used to end up back standing next to your mates. I never saw anybody get hurt. Then they started to put fences up and behaviour got worse.

[Steve R]

I don't see how standing in an area designed for standing is less safe than standing in an are designed for sitting.

To me the argument is as much about having the option of sitting down as it is about choosing to stand.

I hope we get the chance to go through with the trial.

[Legion]

What time?

4-6.

[john e]

havent heard any scousers who are in favour yet, both Mickey Quin and Alvin Martin were against, so not expecting many to be positive for obvious reasons,
 but i agree with what a previous poster wrote, it wasnt terracing that killed anyone it was the fences that penned people in and treating fans like cattle that caused it

[Deano58]

As a Manchester City supporter I'd love to see you blaze a trail on this for football fans everywhere. We've had a safe standing campaign for years but unless the club backs it, there's no chance. For me, it's inevitable and economics will eventually make it the only way forward. Good luck with it.

[Ad@m]

This is still a long way off.

Rightly or wrongly, terracing at football stadia is intrinsicly linked with the Hillsborough disaster in a large chunk of the public's mind.  The Taylor Report pretty much guaranteed that by its main recommendation following Hillsborough being the outlawing of terracing where large crowds occur (ie the top two divisions).  This is therefore a political issue and I just don't think there's any political appetite to risk rocking the boat with a public sceptical of standing areas.

Secondly there's the economic argument.  Football clubs spent a fortune converting stadia or building new ones to comply with the laws of less than 20 years ago.  They're only going to agree to spend more money converting them again if they can see a return on the investment.  This will only be the case where they're short of capacity now and can see terracing as a way to get more people in cheaply (not many clubs), but this almost certainly won't involve reducing tickets prices for those areas as there will be demand and the clubs will want to recoup the investment. 

Anyway, are there really that many people who don't go to football matches because they are forced to sit down?  Thinking as a businessman (as almost all football club owners are), if it's just a case of people who currently go and sit, but would prefer to stand, what's in it for the clubs?

[bones.]

I would have thought that the lower North Stand would have been the most obvious choice for trialling safe standing. Wasn't it standing in a previous era, rather than the holte, which was constructed as an all-seater stand?

When the Holte was rebuilt it was built as an all seater, the North Stand was rebuilt and had standing at the front with a big fence to house visiting supporters.

The Holte used to house up to 28,000 people who used to happily enjoy themselves. Those of us old enough to remember what used to happen when we scored a goal and you could suddenly find yourself surging forward and amazingly you used to end up back standing next to your mates. I never saw anybody get hurt. Then they started to put fences up and behaviour got worse.

When the North Stand replaced The Witton End, the terracing at the front was split between the Villa and the visitors, wasnt there big sheets of perspex or something to make the divide? Can anyone remember if the stand was actually built with fences or were they added later?

[olaftab]

This is a strange world. Most away fans including  us stand when there are good seats provided to make a point. I remember being with our supporters in the safe standing area at Werder Bremen and what did most of our supporters do? They sat with their arse on one safety barrier with their feet on the one in front!