Time to stand up for standing up A lack of atmosphere, overinflated ticket prices and the dark shadow of fencing looming large in Lens, have put standing at football matches back onto the agenda.
Paul Wilson February 25, 2007 The Observer It was appropriate that images reminiscent of Hillsborough should surface in a week when Manchester United fans protested about paying £45 to get into Craven Cottage, and a number of Premiership clubs announced price reductions for next season. Because Hillsborough is where it all began. All-seat stadiums might have been an appropriate and necessary response to a dreadful tragedy, but they changed football in ways that few could have foreseen at the time. Lord Justice Taylor tried his best, specifically recommending that clubs should not use seats as a means of ramping up prices, but his wishes were ignored and seats, wages, television deals and almost everything else have been ramped up to a level that everyone in Life on Mars except John Simm would find staggering. Yet as events at Lens so vividly demonstrated, seats in themselves are no panacea. Not when fences still exist, Uefa stage games at unsatisfactory venues as if Heysel had never happened and the police default mode is to treat all fans as hooligans. Even in this country, where the high cost of seats is rather loftily held to have solved the hooliganism problem now plaguing Italy (by pricing out the young and the troublesome), being forced to sit down is proving divisive. Hardly a game goes by at Anfield or Old Trafford without repeated Tannoy requests for fans to show consideration for other supporters and sit down. There is nothing more annoying than paying a fortune for a seat then being forced to stand because people in front of you are standing, and this ongoing argument itself is likely to provoke a major disturbance before long. So should we bring back standing areas, as more than 100 MPs have requested? I would say yes, because they improve atmosphere, allow easier and cheaper admission, are still enjoyed in Europe and in other sports, and need not be considered inherently dangerous in modern stadiums with CCTV and improved stewarding. But I was not at Hillsborough, nor did I lose a friend or relative in the crush, and I fully respect the view that even a slight risk of a repeat is too much of a risk to take. The time has arrived for a rational debate on the issue, if such a thing is possible in football. In theory at least, standing areas offer the hope of turning back the clock to a time when the cost of admission to a football ground did not exclude anyone, when you could choose your immediate company, make as much noise as you wanted and feel part of a crowd rather than a member of an audience. All the things that used to distinguish football from a visit to the theatre, in other words. Clubs used to peddle the line that they were offering similar entertainment to the theatre and were entitled to charge similar prices to seat spectators in comfort, but this is clearly nonsense. Half the fans don't want to be seated, in any case who goes to the theatre every week, and how many theatre-goers make away trips to Sunderland and Wigan? Football has always been about making money but, now it is knee-deep in the stuff, another thing you don't hear so much these days is that it needs to be run more like a business. It could do with being run less like a business for a while, and more along the lines of a national asset, like a park or a listed building, that should be accessible to all. It is unlikely that the freedoms supporters took for granted two or three decades ago will ever return and perhaps there are pressing reasons why they should not. There is little point in pretending that standing was completely wonderful. Yet a debate might result in some useful compromise. If all-seat stadiums must stay, why not reserve some tickets for sale on the day of the game on a first-come, first-served basis as they do in Germany? Away fans, who have already incurred expense travelling to the game, should not be asked to pay any more than the cost of the cheapest home ticket. There might even be scope to go further and accept the Football Supporters' Federation's idea to set a cap of £15 on away tickets next season. Much stricter action needs to be taken against people who stand in seated areas and much more could be done to make tickets not only affordable but available to young people, who do not always have the resources to wait in telephone queues and pay by credit card. The best initiative by far to have reached this column comes from Bradford City, another football club touched by tragedy. In what seems a sensational deal - assuming you want to watch League One football - the Bantams are offering season tickets for next season at £138 or just £6 per game. The proviso is that at least 10,000 fans must pledge to take up the offer, so the club can make its financial projections. You won't find better football value than this, or many other clubs making such an effort to help fans, yet after three weeks the take-up is still hovering around the 5,000 mark. One hopes the missing numbers soon sign up, because if this scheme works it could easily be adopted by much bigger clubs who would rather see supporters than empty seats. Improbable? Unworkable? Pie in the sky? Maybe so, but nothing like as outlandish as being asked to pay £45 to watch Fulham. http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/02/24/time_to_stand_up_for_standing.h tml [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> See what's inside the new Yahoo! Groups email. http://us.click.yahoo.com/0It09A/bOaOAA/yQLSAA/GtUolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Please use [email protected] for general discussion. To unsubscribe send a blank message (from the email account in question) to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Join as a full member of IMUSA today: http://www.imusa.org/join.htm Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/imusa/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/imusa/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
