By Jake Walton.
Tonight, the 16th of December 2013, Scunthorpe United held an AGM meeting where one of the main topics of conversation was the proposal to build a new ground with a 12,000 capacity to start with and a potential upgrade in capacity to 18,000 if needed. Not that it ever will be mind you. However at the meeting the Chairman, Peter Swann, was questioned about keeping the terrace at our current Glanford Park ground. Swann admitted that he would introduce ‘safe standing’ in the new ground if it is allowed by the Football League.
Now. I have contrasting feelings about the so called safe standing within grounds. The majority of me is happy that we would keep a semi terrace if allowed to by the governing bodies but I am also aggrieved because keeping our old terrace would be safe. No matter how you look at it all standing at football grounds safe and don’t let the Hillsborough disaster fool you into thinking otherwise, along with all the bullshit surrounding the disaster. The fact of the matter is all standing is safe. In the 100 odd years in which grounds were majority standing there was only 1 major accident in this time. Ibrox and Hillsborough don’t count as Ibrox was to do with fans rushing back in after Rangers scored a late goal and Hillsborough was done to sheer incompetence of the police and partly Liverpool fans climbing into the ground without tickets, the only other time there was an accident was in 1946 at Bolton’s old Burnden Park and this was down to overcrowding in the ground from people being able to pay at the turnstiles without a ticket, people climbing over the closed turnstiles and entering a gate which was picklocked open by a father and son in order to escape the increasing crush. These are the only major accidents in British football that have occurred from terracing. Nothing that security and policing at games nowadays can’t control.
Capacity at a game can be easily monitored. Turnstile workers count how many people have been admitted into a certain stand by increasing a ticker by one each time someone enters through the turnstiles. Each ticker is connected so that when someone enters a turnstile at one side of the ground the ticker at the turnstile at the other side of the ground increases by one as well and when the stand is at its maximum capacity turnstiles are closed and no-one else is admitted access to the stand. Simple really. Couple this with the fact that seats in certain areas of grounds are not used as people prefer standing then you have an even bigger safety hazard I suppose as they are in peoples way constantly and can be fell over. Pedantic I know but football nowadays is all about safety in Britain.
In short as much as I am for safe standing to regenerate a bit of badly needed atmosphere into our soulless, beautiful game I don’t think that there is a need for it as standing side by side on an olden days terrace is safe enough and me, along with millions of others would prefer to be stood side by side on an open terrace in Arctic temperatures watching their team get demolished away at York City on a freezing cold November night than be enclosed in a safe standing zone.
An example of safe standing in Germany. This photo is from Hoffenheim’s away end.
Under The Floodlights 