Stand Up If You Love ….
July 5th, 2009 | Author: Ash
Following the Hillsborough disaster, the Taylor report recommended terracing in the top flight to be phased out. Newly promoted sides from League One into the Championship, also have to have all-seater stadiums within three years. The event sent shockwaves throughout football as 96 football fans lost their lives.
What I am about to say is in no way supposed to be disrespectful to their memory, but is it time that we reintroduced standing areas into the higher tiers of our football league?
Our German counterparts have implemented standing areas in their top flight of the Bundesliga (the third most attended league in Europe). For example, big stadiums like FC Bayern’s Allianz Arena have removable seating so that standing can be allowed during matches; approximately 10,000 seats can be removed to accommodate 30,000 in turn.
What are the benefits from allowing seating areas you ask?
Comfort for others: If you are an excitable football fan and the minute your team goes beyond the half way line on a counter attack, you bolt out of your seat standing. There are normally people behind you, who you will then block and will in turn, begrudgingly have to stand to see.
Atmosphere: In a standing area football fans would enjoy a better atmosphere, rather than being mixed with families and executives. It would encourage your players as it would turn these dying atmospheres in current stadia to unwelcoming, lively environments.
Price: Standing tickets in the Bundesliga tend to be under 10 Euros, an exceptionally cheap price to watch top flight football. If it was to be the same in England, it would help keep “real” fans in the game, who are currently close to being priced out.
Fear of ejection: Currently football teams can lose their licence for their stadium if fans persistently stand. Hence why standing fans are thrown out. With designated standing areas this would not be an issue, meaning stewards can concentrate on more important matters.
Increased Capacity: As a Man Yoo fan I am applying to the vast majority of home matches. However with the large following, I rarely manage to get a ticket. With an increased capacity, it means I and fans alike would have an increased chance of watching their idols play. Also leading to a greater revenue to the club.
Now obviously with this there are some negatives with standing.
Increased disruption to local area: Many areas which have a football club, struggle to cope with the numbers of fans as it is. Whether it be public transport or traffic, increasing this by 10,000/20,000 more could bring chaos to these areas on match day.
Control: It would be harder to control a sea of people as opposed to those in seating. Currently to track down a troublemaker in seating is easy, but if they were in a large crowd it would be harder to track them down, for example, someone throwing a missile.
Avoiding a crush: What is to say that with the return of standing areas, we would not have a crush. This ultimately is the biggest con of reintroducing it. No-one wants scenes resembling the Hillsborough disaster.
Safety of opposition fans: At all games there is always away fans in the home end. Should they make their way to the home standing area, their safety would be heavily compromised.
I believe that with the advances made in electronic ticketing at the turnstiles, that clubs would be able to heavily regulate numbers to these areas. It would mean that counterfeit tickets are redundant and there would be little chance of overfilling a certain area. With the set up of the current stadia, the pitch is no longer fenced of to the public, so should a problem arise, the pitch is now accessible as an overspill. The dangers are still very valid but with increased capacity and revenue, and a potentially livelier atmosphere it does seem a very attractive idea to clubs. And with cheaper tickets, more readily available and better experiences for the fans, it perhaps is time we gave this some serious thought.
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