Safe Standing at the AMEX: Yes or No?

[HawkTheSeagull]

Trouble is, the club isnt going to want that rail seating as, lets face it if your sitting down say halfway up, you will have a rail right in front of you, which isnt good considering the club want the Amex to be used for other non-football events. The only other solution would be to get temporary bars/rails put up as it is at the moment, so they can be taken down when they arent needed.

It is something i want though, considering i stand in the North already with no problems.

 

[storer]

YES

Has this been put, or likely to be put to the club??

its a great design/idea which clearly can work and is possible in our country and our level

 

[Lethargic]

I am against standing whilst it is against the law to do so.

However, I think that the law, which was right at the time, is now outdated and totally unnecessary. As has been said many times we are well behind the rest of Europe on this.

Safe standing as described above should be made legal as soon as possible. I can't believe that anyone would be against it.

It will, of course, cost clubs a lot of money to convert.

So on a legal technicality the law only states that clubs in the prem and championship must provide all specators with seats it does not mandate that all spectators must sit/use seats but standing in a seating area is illegal so it does follow that spectators have to have a seat and therefore must use them. An amendment to the law to allow standing areas would not require parlimentary approval and once that is in place there is no specific law against standing. The premiership and championship are the only places in the UK where these laws apply so it is not based on health and safety.
If its done properly it will work.

 

[storer]

surely those 'rails' are no differant to the height of some1 sat infront of you? well i hope that is how they have been designed...

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

How many times was Falmer 'not going to happen' ;-)

Us Albion fans like a good campaign, and our track record isn't too bad!!

Come off it, there's a slight difference between "we NEED a stadium" and "we'd LIKE you to rip out these nice expensive padded seats you've just spend thousands on and let us stand up"

 

[Mayfair Seagull]

Come off it, there's a slight difference between "we NEED a stadium" and "we'd LIKE you to rip out these nice expensive padded seats you've just spend thousands on and let us stand up"

Why?

- They can be removed and used elsewhere in the stadium.
- The club will make BIGGER profits from installing rail seats
- Cheaper tickets for the fans
- Massive increase in atmosphere

etc. there's nothing for the club not to like. I have faith in Tony Bloom. He's a proper Albion fan and I'm sure he'll like the idea.

 

[Ian Bairds Fist]

YES

Has this been put, or likely to be put to the club??

its a great design/idea which clearly can work and is possible in our country and our level

It was raised with Insider who said that the Club are currently busy with the expansion work. I have been in touch with the Safe Standing Roadshow who are keen to come to the AMEX and setup a 'demo rail stand' on a matchday to show everyone how it will work - but this needs the backing of the Club. I will be raising the result of this poll and general feeling of Albion fans with the various people to spread the word. However, the more people that can help push this issue the better.

 

[Dktr Faustus]

I'd support this too, although I'd probably end up swapeing my ST with someone in the West stand who'd prefer to stand more than me once my boys are old enough to go in the north stand by themselves. However, I'm not convinced about the increased capacity/lower price arguments. Surely it would still be one person per fold-up seat. I can't see that the fold-up seats would be considerable narrower or much more closely-spaced than they are currently, so I'd only expact a few more to be squeezed in per row at most. I'm sure that the club could shift the 2700 or so tickets, but I'd imagine around 1/3 or the current ST holder would not be in favour and would want to move elsewhere. So a big logistical operation re-assigning season tickets!

 

[teaboy]

Why?

- They can be removed and used elsewhere in the stadium.
- The club will make BIGGER profits from installing rail seats
- Cheaper tickets for the fans
- Massive increase in atmosphere

etc. there's nothing for the club not to like. I have faith in Tony Bloom. He's a proper Albion fan and I'm sure he'll like the idea.

All this assumes that having safe standing can lead to an increase in capacity at the Amex. Local planning permission may be needed similar to the recent capacity increase. Even if it does lead to higher capacity being allowed what plans would there be for travel to and from the stadium? How about the queues at half time? And why would it get any cheaper?

 

[Ian Bairds Fist]

I'd support this too, although I'd probably end up swapeing my ST with someone in the West stand who'd prefer to stand more than me once my boys are old enough to go in the north stand by themselves. However, I'm not convinced about the increased capacity/lower price arguments. Surely it would still be one person per fold-up seat. I can't see that the fold-up seats would be considerable narrower or much more closely-spaced than they are currently, so I'd only expact a few more to be squeezed in per row at most. I'm sure that the club could shift the 2700 or so tickets, but I'd imagine around 1/3 or the current ST holder would not be in favour and would want to move elsewhere. So a big logistical operation re-assigning season tickets!

There is the potential to fit 1.8 seats into the space of 1 normal seat - an increase in capacity of 80%, or from 2700 to 4860. If those extra 2160 are sold at a more reasonable £18 per game thats almost £40k per game or £920k per season. On the admin side of things - as some people have said, the Club is here to serve the supporters requests (where reasonable). I think the admin task would be worth the peace and quiet they get from stewards and fans during the rest of the season!

 

[Dktr Faustus]

There is the potential to fit 1.8 seats into the space of 1 normal seat - an increase in capacity of 80%, or from 2700 to 4860. If those extra 2160 are sold at a more reasonable £18 per game thats almost £40k per game or £920k per season. On the admin side of things - as some people have said, the Club is here to serve the supporters requests (where reasonable). I think the admin task would be worth the peace and quiet they get from stewards and fans during the rest of the season!

OK, I'm suprised by that figure. I don't feel that there's all that much room now when we stand, and I'm only a slight 11 stone. It could be cosy, and what about the half-time queues for the bogs? Perhaps if we all stand we can just piss on the floor in front of us like the "good old days"! I'd just hope I wasn't squeezed next to the man mountain that currently sits near me!

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

All this assumes that having safe standing can lead to an increase in capacity at the Amex. Local planning permission may be needed similar to the recent capacity increase. Even if it does lead to higher capacity being allowed what plans would there be for travel to and from the stadium? How about the queues at half time? And why would it get any cheaper?

That saved me the job of typing..

 

[father_and_son]

Remain a massive fan of safe standing - do think this would be the best move for us once the remaining corners are filled in and we run out of capacity to [easily/cheaply] increase capacity until the current laws.

I think that the "cheap seats" benefit most from the extra spaces, so personally would prefer it if the clubs were to forego the money (yeah right!) and add the extra capacity to the corners to make the game, in general, more affordable. Altruistic and unrealistic, but better for the game!

There are very few clubs outside of the premiership (or indeed in it!) where the demand for tickets is such that they need ways to get more people in and I'm not sure about the "atmosphere" benefits for a club that half fills its ground on a good day and then crams them into a smaller space and make the stadium appear emptier. Clearly not problem for us, but something to consider for the wider game.

Unfortunately though, I bring my young son to the game with me and he needs to be quite a bit taller before standing would work for us, so my vote is a resounding yes, but I won't be moving our tickets for a number of years yet.

 

[Mayfair Seagull]

All this assumes that having safe standing can lead to an increase in capacity at the Amex. Local planning permission may be needed similar to the recent capacity increase. Even if it does lead to higher capacity being allowed what plans would there be for travel to and from the stadium? How about the queues at half time? And why would it get any cheaper?

All of the above can be sorted out one way or another.

 

[HawkTheSeagull]

All of the above can be sorted out one way or another.

How ? It would need to go to a planning panel again and seeing as, lets be honest, transport can just about cope with 26k people, adding more would make waits for trains/buses even longer, more parking spaces would be needed too, but there is no space !! We dont even know how it will work with 30k people !!

Would be better off just making the current seats safe standing, some would want to move anyway and why have it adding more "spaces" when you might not even have enough people wanting to be in the safe standing area ? Why my suggestion of temporary bars/rails COULD work as a trial to see how popular it is, if theres a high demand, then look at putting in permanent safe standing facilities.

 

[dejavuatbtn]

I know of several fans who, due to affordability, availability at the time of purchase or preference, ended up in the north stand with the expectation that they would be able to enjoy a match sitting down. However, I recall my youth, standing in the north stand at the goldstone, enjoying the atmosphere of a massed north stand.
The compromise would be keeping the front half of the north and south stands as seated, and the back half standing. Whether this would lead to a significant reduction in pricing, if any, I have my doubts.

 

[father_and_son]

The premiership and championship are the only places in the UK where these laws apply so it is not based on health and safety.
If its done properly it will work.

Well, technically it was a safety issue but the concession/admission was that the cost would cripple all but the richest clubs and devastate the lower divisions as clubs failed under the costs of converting their grounds.
But the background for the change in the law was the hooliganism of the 80's and the cages that were introduced to keep fans under control (making surges extremely dangerous). The cages and [most of] the problems are a thing of the past and so the need for all-seaters has also past!

 

[attila]

Self evidently yes. It was always yes, but there was no possibility of the law being changed while the politically-motivated lies about what happened at Hillsborough were still being spread and believed. Those fans have been rightly exonerated and the reasons for opposition to safe standing rendered redundant. Indeed, given the final truths about Hillsborough, and modern vastly improved safety methods/standards, there is no more logic in banning safe standing 'because of Hillsborough' than there would be in banning all seater stadia 'because of the Bradford fire'. Both happened as a result of gross negligence when attitudes to football safety were tragically and dangerously different (as did the Heysel tragedy: I went there six months before that happened and can personally testify that the whole place was a crumbling disaster area as has been widely documented)
Standing and sitting are equally safe in the modern era. The issue is one of control and the corporatisation of football. Today's 'security' chiefs want to be able to identify the location of everyone in the stadium, so they want you sitting placidly, a customer in a numbered seat, not a fan on a terrace. In order to win the battle for safe standing that attitude has to be tackled head on. There's plenty of time

 

[brightn'ove]

OK, I'm suprised by that figure. I don't feel that there's all that much room now when we stand, and I'm only a slight 11 stone. It could be cosy, and what about the half-time queues for the bogs? Perhaps if we all stand we can just piss on the floor in front of us like the "good old days"! I'd just hope I wasn't squeezed next to the man mountain that currently sits near me!

1 seating space turns into 2 standing spaces.

 

[KZNSeagull]

With safe standing, are you still allocated a "seat" as such ie you have to stand where you are allocated?

Atmosphere is built from those that start the singing congregating together.