Travelling fans should read this -

[bhaexpress]

From the Official Web SIite, sounds a bit iffy to me but they've said it.

Important Info For Away Fans

Club Statement

Albion's away supporters are in severe danger of having their ticket allocations cut, if fans continue to stand at away grounds over the coming season.

The club have been warned that Local Authorities and police are likely to advise other Championship clubs to cut back Albion's away allocation, unless fans sit down at matches.

At the first away match of the season the majority of our away following at Derby stood up continuously throughout the 90 minutes, and this has been reported to the Football League by Derby County's safety officer.

He said in his report 'Based on last years intelligence, Brighton is a family club - no problems expected. However for whatever reason 1,500 out of 1,700 Brighton supporters stood throughout the game. Although no trouble was caused it is unnacceptable for this amount of away supporters to stand. This problem needs addressing by Brighton management.'

Club chief executive Martin Perry said, "We have been warned. Persistent standing in seated areas is dangerous. There is a far greater risk of serious injury if you stand for long periods in a seated area and whilst we know some of our fans would like to stand up at matches the Ground Regulations state that no standing is permitted in seated areas while play is in progress.

There are many supporters who want to sit down but can't because people are standing up in front of them. The message is clear, our supporters must sit down at away matches - otherwise this could have a very serious impact on our away allocation this season and beyond".

"We're not talking about standing during goals, exciting parts in the game or when singing 'stand up if you want Falmer' - that's fine, provided fans sit down again afterwards."

"Local authorities are clamping down on this, and if fans do not sit down, we will have our away allocation cut. We have one of the largest and now, best behaved away following in the League, we do not want our allocation reduced simply because we have a reputation for standing."

 

[Pigsy]

miserable non-standing Derby bastards

 

[Scarface]

Was anybody actually asked to sit down at Derby? I'm sure the football league would love to hear that the stewards did f*** all but watch us standing there. The only time one came near me was to tell someone they couldnt smoke!

 

[Brighton till i die]

bunch of c*nts - we all f***ing stood - THERE WAS NO TROUBLE, and no stewards said a word - then they f***ing go off and report us!

bring back the f***ing terraces for fucks sake!

 

[8ace]

Was anybody actually asked to sit down at Derby? I'm sure the football league would love to hear that the stewards did f*** all but watch us standing there. The only time one came near me was to tell someone they couldnt smoke!

Yeah I got told I couldn't smoke - stood for 90 minutes without been asked to sit once. Bunch of wankers.

 

[LANGDON SEAGULL]

What a hypocritical arguement. It mentions many fans want to sit down, but according to this report, only 200 chose to sit down. Not many in my view. It also says there was little trouble or danger from the standing fans, so whats the problem then?

It then states it's OK to stand during the singing of Stand up if you want Falmer, therefore the solution is to sing this for the entire game, because the report says this is allowed. Maybe they should have been at Rotherham, clearly not enough seats to go round, so many stood at the front with no bother and common sense from the stewards.

People obviously want the choice of sitting or standing, so the governing body should provide it. It works fine in Germany, rather than adhere to the knee jerk reaction rule of all seater stadiums.

 

[Napper]

what a absolute fu*king joke
I've always stood at away matches and never seen any injurys
Threatning us for standing.....what a joke, who are these c*nts

Bunch of prawn sandwich eating c*nts

Got fu*k all better to do with themselves apart from dish out nimby warnings , hardly life threatning

 

[Dave the OAP]

To be honest this has been coming for a while.

No matter how many people bleat on about it, all seater stadiums are here to stay and we are obliged by the terms of our ticket and ground rules to sit down.

I know I am also a culprit, as I hate sitting down in small cramped seats with no leg room, however, I just hope that we will not be a club that is made a scapegoat of.

It would be interesting if the turn around and say we can only now have 500 for Palace!!!!

 

[Ex-Staffs Gull]

I agree DTG, I hate the all seater stuff, but the Football League will enforce this and as more severe problems reduce (i.e. Fighting etc) they will pick on the smaller infractions.

As for cutting our allocation, I am not sure about that, would the other clubs be happy if the FL said we are only letting you sell 500 tickets for this game and not the 1500 you could have sold, I know it is down to the Police, but I would still be surprised.

As for the Phalarse tickets, got mine already and they can't have the fecker back until the turnstile on the 17th.

 

[Starry]

We're threatened with that at every away game, last season our allocations at Reading and West Ham were cut because we choose to stand. And this season because those at Reading stood they are cutting it even further. There were a few other games it happened to. We get handed stupid "Ground Rules and Regulations" leaflets with the no standing bit highligheted all the time.

We're currently having a back and forth argument with Leeds City Council who are threatening to close our Kop for home games because we all stand.

Sucks

 

[Bozza]

To be honest this has been coming for a while.

Spot on Dave - it is amazing that it has taken this long to catch up with us when other clubs have had away allocations cut already.

 

[Curious Orange]

I'll sit if the people in front of me sit as that is polite to the people behind me, otherwise I'll be standing, 'cos paying to look at someones back is not my idea of fun.

And I didn't hear any Derby stewards ask anybody to sit at any point during the game. They moved people away from the TV camera platform I was by at one point, but that was it.

 

[The Large One]

I find this a load of old bollocks.

I would dearly love to see the hard irrefutable evidence which states that standing in a seating area is dangerous. I am certain that there is none. If there was, we would have heard it by now, and we would comply on issues of common sense. Derby are trying to use the law to beat us round the head with. And that is pathetic. All that will happen is that 90% of 500 instead of 90% of 2,000 people will be standing at an away match.

On a wider note, the mere fact that the vast majority of us standing indicates that sitting at a match is not our preferred method of watching games. And when the 'safety issues' that the authorities keep banging on about is successfully challenged, we could (and should) see the return of our beloved terraces.

 

[Yoda]

I the stewards ask us to sit, the vast majority of us do anyway. I have one thing to say to Derby County

 

[Bozza]

On a wider note, the mere fact that the vast majority of us standing indicates that sitting at a match is not our preferred method of watching games. And when the 'safety issues' that the authorities keep banging on about is successfully challenged, we could (and should) see the return of our beloved terraces.

Why do we all (well at least 90% of us) sit at Withdean then?

 

[Kukev31]

Join www.standupsitdown.co.uk

Standing at matches is blantanly just as safe as sitting, and i hope we continue to stand.

 

[Windmill]

To give a different slant to this problem, I quite often take my daughter to away games, as I'm sure many parents do, and sometimes she doesn't get a decent view of the game because people are standing. This means that to be able to see she has to stand on the seat.

At Rotherham there were a lot of people standing near the back just behind the goal, and when we scored, some of the lads, understandably, were jumping around, which resulted in a couple of youngish (12-14 year old) girls being sent flying.

Luckily they were unhurt, but the whole family decided to move to another part of the stand, to avoid this happening again. What were the stewards doing? Absolutely nothing. People continue to stand at the back and in the aisles for the rest of the game, which passed off without any other incidents, however it could have been a lot more serious.

I think that away clubs need to ensure that their stewards do their job even if this means they have to take unpleasant steps like asking people to sit down, rather than reducing ticket allocations to clubs with large and passionate travelling support.

 

[eastlondonseagull]

bunch of c*nts - we all f***ing stood - THERE WAS NO TROUBLE, and no stewards said a word - then they f***ing go off and report us!

bring back the f***ing terraces for fucks sake!

What he said

 

[Yoda]

I think that away clubs need to ensure that their stewards do their job even if this means they have to take unpleasant steps like asking people to sit down, rather than reducing ticket allocations to clubs with large and passionate travelling support.

Here here!

Thats all they need to do. ASK US YOU BUNCH OF CS

 

[The Laughing Bluebird]

Spot on Dave - it is amazing that it has taken this long to catch up with us when other clubs have had away allocations cut already.

Indeed. We've had our allocations cut at numerous grounds over the last few years because of this problem.