Safe Standing rejected | Vital Football

Safe Standing rejected

I stood in the "safe standing" area of Old Trafford in 1967. The crowd that day was a post war record for them. No problems at all, the match at the City Ground again one i attended is i think still our record attendance, again no problem. In fact i am struggling to think of any match other than "that one" that has ever been a problem. Safe standing i don't think will ever return, but not for reasons of safety.
 
I think there are some inherent problems with safe standing for the current market.

For a start, the demographic has changed so much. Instead of a working class game, football is now more of a mixed economy with probably an emphasis more on the middle class.

From my own experience of working in schools, middle class schools I have worked in the kids would be maybe 50% forest fans, 25% county or Derby and the rest something else. The working class schools I have worked in, I knew more kids who played for forest than watched them. They would mostly wear big PL club or Barcelona shirts, support those clubs but never actually be able to go unless it was a stadium tour for their birthday.

So I think the demographic has changed and so has the potential number of people who want safe standing. They can no doubt make a noisy minority but could forest put together a whole stand or even tier of fans who want to pay for it? I don't know. Maybe, but maybe not.

Secondly, PL clubs seem to want to be able to charge £40+ for a ticket. That's hard to justify for standing. I can't see clubs being willing to give up matchday income when they don't need to. There isn't that much evidence that safe standing will bring new fans in or the lack of it will cost clubs fans
 
Some of my happiest moments watching football were spent being part of packed terrace surges as a youth. Visits to Filbert Street and Highbury are fond memories.
 
The people craving it couldnt manage to do it for 90 minutes without the guarantee of a radox bath and rub down with ralgex immediately after the whistle
 
Have the people who think it's not worth changing to allow safe standing been in a football ground recently?

Everyone stands in the Lower Bridgford. Everyone stands in away sections at every ground. But that's people standing in front of their seat and it's technically illegal and it's less safe than rail seating. How could it be worse to put in rail seating, that have allocated positions and allow people to stand in some degree of comfort.
 
Pope John XXIII said:
Secondly, PL clubs seem to want to be able to charge £40+ for a ticket. That's hard to justify for standing. I can't see clubs being willing to give up matchday income when they don't need to. There isn't that much evidence that safe standing will bring new fans in or the lack of it will cost clubs fans
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Don't forget that you could presumably get quite a few more people in the same area if they are standing up. They wouldn't allow it, but I think the CG has held about 48,000. The laughable thing is I worked as a steward at a Leicester Tigers game at the CG. Not only were the fans allowed to stand up, but they could also take their pints to their seats! Football fans obviously can't be trusted!
 
Said it before, but as you get older a sitting only area would be good too! You miss half the goals if you can't stand up as fast as everyone else. This would preferably be in an area where people would be banned from going off for a pee/beer/pie etc every 5 minutes when the game is in progress too !
 
Lienking said:
Don't forget that you could presumably get quite a few more people in the same area if they are standing up. They wouldn't allow it, but I think the CG has held about 48,000. The laughable thing is I worked as a steward at a Leicester Tigers game at the CG. Not only were the fans allowed to stand up, but they could also take their pints to their seats! Football fans obviously can't be trusted!
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That's the law. It was a Taylor recommendation, along with all-seater stadiums, that football fans can't drink in view of the pitch.

Safe standing wouldn't significantly increase capacity - the space available is still about the same it's just designed for the purpose with a barrier to stop you falling forward, rather than the seats to injure you if you fall.
 
factchecker said:
That's the law. It was a Taylor recommendation, along with all-seater stadiums, that football fans can't drink in view of the pitch.

Safe standing wouldn't significantly increase capacity - the space available is still about the same it's just designed for the purpose with a barrier to stop you falling forward, rather than the seats to injure you if you fall.
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Depends what you mean by safe standing. You really only need a barrier every now and again to stop the crush. Of course what is planned, from what little bit I know about it, appears to be a standing seat. The problem is that football fans can't be trusted . As I said it's ironic that 30,000 rugby fans can be deemed to be standing safely in the same ground. I may be wrong, but presumably 30,000 football fans could be deemed to be standing safely in the CG if we were playing in the lower leagues too.
 
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