This has probably been brought up before but I'm gonna throw it out there again. It's inevitable that alot of EPL clubs are going to be building new stadia(i.e., Liverpool, Arsenal, Fulham, etc.)I read a little bit ago that there were some arguments being made about the re-introduction of "safe terraces" back into English Premier and 1st div sides' stadiums. Safe terraces are currently used in many stadiums in germany, italy, etc. What would the likelihood be of seeing this happen in England? Which clubs would be likely to lead the way? What would be the new "culture" or behavior of fans?
terraces the chances of terraces being re-introduced are zero & the only way you will see them in the Prem is if a club who don't have an all-seater stadia get promoted. Highly unlikely as Portsmouth, Wolves, Notts Forest etc all have modern stadia & Leicster (spit!!) have just moved into a brand new multi-million pound one.
People who want terraces back are just mad. It's much safer and easyer to control the crowd with seats. Just look at Torino vs Milan this week. Some people say that you don't get the same atmosphere sitting as you do standing. Well i've been to football standing and sitting and i can't tell the differance.
Safe standing should definetley be introduced. Its worked well in germany and other countries so it could work here. I hate sitting down at football matches, it just doesnt feel right. A standing section that is in full voice for the whole match would be electric, and an improved atmosphere often improves the teams performance. Footballs become corporate enough as it, bringing a little more passion back is a good thing http://www.safestanding.com/safe/index.php for more information.
I must be getting old! I'm agreeing with a red! Generally,you get a better atmosphere with terracing 'cos all the fans who want to be vocal can congregate together. I know Hillsborough was an accident waiting to happen...I've been in some awful terrace "pens" around the country (Sorry Manc,but OT was the worst,but that was probably 'cos fans paid at the gate at the time & there was always a fair few Blues who wanted to see the match live!) I think that,if they restricted the number of tickets allocated to a terrace to a safe number,there shouldn't be a problem.My main arguement for there return is 'cos of the conveniance,if I want to go to the game with my son or daughter,or a friend I just can't do it...I've got a season ticket next to a friend & all the seats around us are also all season tickets,the only chance I've got of taking my kids is for a cup match,hardly the way to gain your next generation of fans!!
Torino's ground is all seater. I don't think terracing will come back. Even lower division clubs, who can have terraces if they want, tend to build new seated stands rather than rebuild terracing as it doesn't cost much more to build a stand rather than a covered terrace, the maintenance is lower and you can charge more money for admission. One thing that really hits the atmosphere hard is over-zealous stewarding. There are many fans at my club who have been banned for life for the terrible crime of standing up to try and get singing going. Admittedly they are ones who did it a lot rather than just a one-off but it's a ridiculously harsh punishment for a 'crime' that is not even against any law. The problem is many local authorites threaten (or so the clubs claim) to close sections of any ground where fans persist in standing up. It's all down to interpretation of the Taylor report, which called for the end of terracing after the Hillborough distaster. I'm 99% certain that although it outlawed terracing it made no legal requirement that fans in seated areas must stay sitting down. Fans standing in seated areas present no danger at all but every week I see fans doing nothing more than trying to get behind their team get dragged out of the ground by stewards - which is all the more annoying as the club seems quite happy to let away fans stand. The result is that the atmosphere is normalled muted and often non-existant, apart from the away end.
There's no difference between seating and standing in safety terms. The differences arise in the way in which the spectator areas are managed. Hillsborough happened because too many people were allowed into an area of the ground that was penned in by steel fences. It did not happen because those people happened to be standing. As the tragedy in Ghana last year proved, if you lose control of the arena and the crowd in that arena, then something horrible will happen, irrespective of whether people are sitting, standing or tapdanding in wellies. The reintroduction of standing can be achieved with total assurance on safety as long as it is properly managed. But it won't, because UEFA is moving in the opposite direction and the clubs don't want areas of their ground to be wasted on the comparatively low revenue from a standing area. No one is going to pay what they do now for a standing area and when the alternative for the clubs is a seat bringing in anything up to £40 a match then you have a big No on the whole standing thing.
I find it strange that it is unsafe to stand during a game, but it is safe to stand before, during half time and at full time when thousands upon thousands are trying to get to the same small-ish exits.
Same deal with the johannesburg tragedy(45 dead in an all seater stadium). Seats or no seats, it can happen at anytime when there is overcrowding/lack of crowd control.
I don't see the problem with the terraces personally. I remember when I went to Syracuse, the student section stood at football and basketball games practically the entire time, even though we did have seats. Ironically, the only times we didn't were during breaks, when everyone else was moving. We very rarely had any problems there, and it could get pretty rowdy, especially during rivalry games. I also think having one section of people standing helps the atmosphere in a stadium or arena. If anybody's ever read Nick Hornby's "Fever Pitch", then you know that the terrace can be intimidating even for the home fans. Imagine what it's like to the other side! I also think it helps keep the blue collar fans happy, because it gives them an opportunity to see their favorite club play at a lower cost and without having to pay an arm and a leg for season tickets.
From the impression I get out of reading Fever Pitch, I'd hazard to say that the old terrace culture at English soccer games was an entirely different animal from the crowds you'll meet in the student section at a college football/basketball game in America. I don't have a position on the issue, since it doesn't affect me, but it makes sense that there is a greater potential danger when you have thousands of people standing close together, pushing this way and that, moving as one great organic body. Ever been pushed to the front of a crowded mosh pit or knocked to the floor? It's easy to get seriously injured or even killed, even if it's a benevolent crowd. Introduce some hooligans into the middle of the mob, and serious violence could easily escalate out of control. At least with seats, the crowd is broken up into neat rows. It's easier to watch individuals and contain any problems. How can security isolate & contain problems in an amorphous mob of 3-thousand bodies jostling shoulder to shoulder? I'm just curious, but what are the proposals to ensure "safe standing" on terraces?
Well, for a start, you have no perimeter fencing, thereby instantly ensuring that Hillsborough could not happen in the way that it did. Secondly, you have collapsible crowd barriers. These are the barriers erected in a criss-cross pattern across the terrace and designed to break up the "one big organic body". The result is nothing like a mosh pit at a gig, for instance. The idea behind the new barrier technology is that they break the flow of a crowd, but can never act as barriers to safe outlet or as something you are crushed against, as they are designed to retract into the stand at a certain pressure point. Not entirely sure how this helps to be honest, but those are the proposals, such as they are. It was widely discussed over here about four years ago and the technology explained. I'm sure you could find somthing on the net about it.
One very important thing is to ensure that only the correct amount of people go into each section of terracing. The problem with Hillsborough was that there were three terrace sections, and naturally people tended to want to go in the middle section which offered the best view. The middle section was twice as densely packed as the side sections, which worked out at something like 50% higher than capacity. If you drove a 15 ton truck over a 10 ton limit bridge, and the bridge collapsed, would you say the bridge was unsafe?
Both England and Holland will never see terracing again. Both football asscociations hope to kick the supporters out and get families to replace them. Can't do that with terracing now can you?
So: No perimeter fencing Collapsable crowd barriers Tighter limits on crowd numbers. In Hornby's book, he describes tumbling from the middle of the terrace to the bottom whenever Arsenal scored a goal, carried down by the sheer kinetic energy of the mob. Could the new barriers routinely contain that kind of energy without endangering those who are pushed to the front, or would they collapse every time a goal is scored? What would be a safe number of people on a terrace? Do you think the hooligan problem is smaller than it was 10-15 years ago? Would the return of terraces make it worse again? I don't mean to be adversarial. I'm just curious. The last 10-11 years in the US, we've had a stadium construction boom. Every team wants a new stadium to bring in more 'revenue streams' from luxury boxes and restaurants and all that. Inevitably, the new place comes with higher ticket prices. The working-class guys and the students are pushed to the upper deck and bleachers, left to complain about the wine & cheese crowd packing their cell phones to the games and the young suburban families who have been sold on 'the entertainment experience' of coming to the fancy new ballpark. To the hardcore supporters, the atmosphere in the new park just isn't the same. It looks like English football is going through the same kind of changes. If the atmosphere in the stadia is not so vocal and boisterous as it once was, is it because people have to sit in rows, or is it because the lads have been priced out of the grounds? It seems to me that the North End in your favorite stadium could come roaring back in full throat again, all-seater or not, if the club would reduce the prices for that section. If one wants a less genteel atmosphere, make a section affordable to a less genteel crowd.
Unless he's referring to the very old days, when there were fewer barriers, your couldn't 'tumble' more than a few feet in reality. Barriers (lateral) were generally no further apart than a few rows of seats. for example, one of the most terraced grounds in the country (percentage wise) until its demise in 1998. I called the far half of the covered terrace (3rd pic down) home for nearly 15 years. http://www.footballgroundguide.dial.pipex.com/elmpark.htm Only an evil shampoo commercial tart stopped the place from gracing the Premiership in 1996. it's a bit of an inexact science, but usually worked out on a people per square metre basis. you get the occasional idiot running on the pitch, as at Villa Park last night, but real fights inside the ground are few and far between. Many in the press recoiled in horror when the fences came down after Hillsborough, saying there'd be trouble every week, but the wasn't. The thing with a terrace is that you can stand where you want. Generally you get a group of singers who start the songs and vocal fans stand nearer to them, while less vocal ones choose to stand somewhere else. In time certain sections of the terrace get reputations for singing (or being miserable old gits) etc. When you change to seating, the abilty for a crowd to 'find it's place' so to speak is lost and you get people who would normally congregate spread out randomly all over the stand, mixed with families, day trippers etc, and it's much harder to generate an atmosphere. It's easy to say the singers should go together, but you have to remember that England doesn't really have organised supporter groups like they do in other countries. It was always more 'off the cuff' which is why singing tended to complement the action on the pitch, rather than at many foriegn games, where although the singing is good, it has no connection with the play.
The football ground site is excellent whoever posted it thanks. Maybe it hasnt been updated ---Tottenham must charge more than 7 pounds a ticket and .50 for a beer??? As an earlier poster said stadiums have gone to hell in N America where I grew up. Best seats are so pricey the rich cant afford them - they get bought by corporations that use them to glad hand clients who dont give a damn about the team...A farce of a situation occurs at the Air Canada Center where half the best seats are empty because the execs are are all in a back room drinking scotch. (The scotch part is OK but they could watch the dam,n game.) Also gone are the old standing room sections which granted were nothing like terraces. They were a couple of rows behind each ring of seats where you could stand up and smoke , drink mugs of beer and make all the noise you wanted. Now all you can do is spend a weeks pay on a nosebleed seat and another weeks pay on a shot glass of beer and a slice of pizza. And God help you if you light up a cigarette. The problem is cash. Sports have become the new place to "be seen" and people are willing to pay anything...The big screen pub is the place to go now although with talk of pay per view they are even trying to take that away.
MLS games over here are probably the cheapest of any of the professional sport leagues, which will probably be one of the reasons that the sport will continue to grow. A D.C. United game costs me 15 bucks for standing room only seats behind the goal. If i wanted lower level seats for a hockey game it would be about 85$a pop, friggin ridiculous.
They could always try charging the same for standing as for a seat. Which they do at the Shay. More people choosing to stand.
When Ajax moved to the Arena they didn't provide the F-side with an own section. The first season in that stadium was terribly silent. After a while a group of youths 'concoured' a TV platform on the south end, which attracted more youth to that area, standing and singing on and around the TV platform (unused btw). At a certain point some of the old F-side boys decided it was time for action. They made a visit to the board, demanding that the F-side could return, on the south end. That season Ajax started the whole process of taking share holders off of the south end and giving anyone who wanted to join there a season ticket for the south end. But by then, there was trouble because of people standing on the stairs and others not sitting in their own seats (and usually standing in front of other seats). After handing out 19 stadiumbans, which were later recalled after a storm of protest, a solution was found. Sections 128 to 126 were 'unnumbered' meaning you can sit where you want. Standing doesn't seem to be a problem anymore as well and these days everyone on the south end can sit or stand where he wants. Simple solution, isn't it? Two years ago a new group emerged on the 2nd tier in the northwest curve, section 410. Sort of the same story.
Safe standing areas can be done. Most, if not all, of the new stadia in Germany, for example, incorporate "convertible" terraces, meaning they are kept as terraces for Bundesliga games and switched to seats for UEFA and Int'l games as needed. These are state of the art structures too...Arena auf Schalke, Allianz Arena, etc... It can (and should) be done.
New/Newer German Stadia Volkswagen Arena in Wolfsburg -total cap. 30.000 -8.000 standing Aol Arena in Hamburg -total cap. 55.000 -10.000 standing Arena auf Schalke in Gelsenkirchen -total cap. 60.000 -16.000 standing Allianz Arena in München -total cap. 66.000 -10.000 standing RheinEnergieStadion in Köln -total cap. 50.997 -14.000 standing Neues Waldstadion in Frankfurt -total cap. 52.000 -8.000 standing