Safe standing survey | Vital Football

Safe standing survey

Done.

Left a lot of comments too.

On the question about what the main obstacles are, I clicked 'other' and typed "all of the above" and went on to say how weak, lazy and useless our fans are and that the club are similar in that they'll likely show no desire and drive at all to make anything happen. The precious and selfish nature of many fans is also a problem, with too many unwilling to give up 'their' seat or use their legs a little bit and start standing up - as if they're more important than the club. Lastly, those wankers at the council will always make things difficult.

I commented most about the possible locations of it. The Kop has to be the starting point, flawed as it may be (needs rebuilding completely). Either end of the South Stand would be good but there are too many supporter based problems there - number of ST holders, demographic, ticket pricing etc. John St is the 'family stand' - OK, fair enough. So next we're onto the good old BLUT/corner. This is my second preference after the Kop. The existing supporter based problems are minimal there, the acoustics are great, it's currently a wasted area and having an atmosphere from home fans there would be transformative for the whole stadium. But whether it's viable or not is another matter. I suspect it isn't. Because the away fans are below and of course fans standing and singing automatically translates to violence. I'm also unsure of whether we can have standing areas in upper tiers or on stands that steep.

Ultimately I do think we have to push for this as fans, because it can't get any worse than it is now, where rather tragically we only have about 9 rows of the Kop stood up, stretched across the length of the stand, to no positive effect.

I do have reservations. One being possible capacity reduction - this isn't my concern but it will be the club's. And there's absolutely no reason why you should need to reduce capacity just to introduce standing. Fans stand in seated areas constantly, everywhere. Enough space. No safety issues at all. So let's not pretend we need to reduce capacity to be safe. Nonsense. Hopefully reductions aren't necessary.

Another is the potential petty enforcing of strict and permanent sitting down in any and all areas that aren't 'safe standing'. It could be farcical. I'd like to trust common sense to prevail somewhat but these days trusting in the common sense of others means you have no common sense of your own...... :clown:
 
It’s down to the regulations put in place by the authorities you have to have a set min width because it becomes a walkway and not a seating area I’d say you would lose at least one row of seats per 2 rows of safe standing possibly more
 
Which of course is nonsense because when being used as a walkway, a regular row of seats would be made safer and more manageable by installing a rail at a higher level to lean against rather than having to scrape your legs against the top of the seat of the row in front........ :clown:

And obviously a row of rail seating wouldn't be used as a walkway any more often than a regular row of seats would be.
 
I appreciate this is a big thing for some, but I just think it is sentimentality. Its as old hat as wearing rosettes, home knitted scarves, and swinging rattles...
 
Nah, it's simple really. When fans stand, they sing. When they sit, they don't. More standing = better atmosphere. At least these standing areas give everyone who wants to stand the option to do so. It improves choice for fans.

So I'm well in favour of it. But it's by no means a complete solution. In many ways it's terracing without the advantages of terracing. But here in Clown World it's probably the best we're going to get.