The UK Government announced plans to launch safe standing pilots at top-flight football grounds this season. The hope among many football fans is that, providing results come back demonstrating safety, legal standing can once again resume at top-flight English football grounds.
The end of a blanket ban in the Premier League and Championship grounds would acknowledge standing fans for the first time since 1994. It would provide greater opportunity to bolster atmospheres, reward fan bases, and improve safety at football stadiums.
Safe Standing to Return to Top-Flight Football
Politics and Sport
The government would like to end its blanket ban on standing in the Premier League and Championship. Consultation over the issue was part of the Conservative’s 2019 manifesto, and has support of all other major parties.
The government is keen to play up its footballing credentials after their ‘legislative bomb’ against the Super League. Such a move would represent the return of a vital component of footballing fandom, and with it, they hope, popularity.
They will be hoping that there are no safety issues that arise from test events. But the fact that Liverpool’s Spirit of Shankly returned 88% positivity for safe standing is important. The club bears the scars of Hillsborough, and still seeks Justice for the 97.
They come from a vehemently anti-Conservative city. The support of Liverpool fans removes a potentially politically difficult obstacle.
The fact that it involves discussions with fan groups is encouraging, but should not represent the full extent of consultation. After all, asking about a universally popular initiative with nearly no downsides is easy.
Discussions over club ownership, board representation and other more existential matters would be dogged in a mire, debated heatedly and inevitably involving tough decisions. Far better to start with widely acclaimed and longed-for policies.
Safe Standing and an Enhanced Atmosphere
The general consensus amongst football fans is that standing boosts the atmosphere. From a physical perspective, bellowing at the top of one’s lungs is easier from a standing vantage. But the move would also be psychological.
Standing brings you that much closer to the action. It clinically links the body to what is occurring on the pitch. It’s no wonder that fans stand, as if by force, whenever a chance avails itself. Permanent standing ingratiates the fanbase to matters on-field, inhibiting reservations and vocally linking them to the players in a more vocal manner.
One only has to look to other leagues around Europe to see this in action. Germany’s Bundesliga has safe standing, the lock-and-key railing model that would be replicated in England. Their clubs produce some of the most outstanding atmospheres in world football, and regularly boast higher attendances than their English counterparts.
Safety First
German safe standing also demonstrates the safety of such engineering. Reintroducing standing to England would not result in the decrepit stands and hooliganism of the 1980s. Railing on every row would make it safer than the ad hoc, unacknowledged standing that currently occurs.
There is also a sense of societal inevitability. That is, fans will stand regardless, as they have done for the past 25 years. Try as they might, authorities seriously struggle to enforce seating rules. Thus, regardless of whether it is right or wrong, it makes more sense to work with trends to make standing safer. In the words of the Sports Grounds Safety Authority, it has a “positive impact on spectator safety.”
Safe standing allows for proper checks and legitimate ways to police the rules. There would be no ambiguity over etiquette, in which part of the stadium it is ‘acceptable’. Sections may be predominated by families with small children, elderly and disabled people that cannot stand throughout. Removing confusion over standing areas allows for more efficient policing of such areas.
Step in the Right Direction
Whatever cynicism fans may have over the motives of government or their clubs, the announcement is a positive breakthrough. For too long, fans have been treated as an irrelevance, or even a hindrance. The dated views of the chattering classes have held back moves to introduce logical initiatives at the behest of oft-silenced spectators.
This represents a chance to bring fans closer to their players and clubs. It provides the blueprint for improved atmospheres and safer viewing. It also symbolises a move to finally recognising the wishes and desires of fans. For without them, football would be nothing.
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