PLEA TO Y25/Y26

[FiNeRaIn]

Svlad clearly getting wound up at the fact everyone thinks all-seating stadiums are crap. They are good for other sports, but it was the heart and soul of British football. They manage it safely in Germany, it can be done here...end of story.

[Svlad Cjelli]

Why 4,000 away fans can stand but the home fans can't?

Why other clubs get away with allowing their supporters to stand if they choose to do so?

Why can't the council bother with more pressing matters?

I'd suggest you go away and read the hundreds of posts about this that have been here before, and also digest the terms of the Football Supporters Act 1989.

I'd also suggest you take a look at these two links :

http://www.safestandingroadshow.co.uk/home
http://www.fsf.org.uk/campaigns/safestanding.php

And in answer to your three questions :

Why 4,000 away fans can stand but the home fans can't? - Because once a large enough mass of supporters decides to stand stewards are unable to prevent them doing so without risking a public order offence - plus clubs have much greater power over home supporters than over away supporters, in the form of club bans, removal of season ticket, etc.
Why other clubs get away with allowing their supporters to stand if they choose to do so? - Do they? Examples, please?

Why can't the council bother with more pressing matters? - Because they have a statutory duty to enforce the laws - they don't have a choice which laws they will and which they wont enforce. They're also overseen by the FLA.

[Svlad Cjelli]

Svlad clearly getting wound up at the fact everyone thinks all-seating stadiums are crap. They are good for other sports, but it was the heart and soul of British football. They manage it safely in Germany, it can be done here...end of story.

WTF? If ever a single post was wide of the mark by a million, million, miles this is the one.

[LoyalRoyalFan]

Why can't the council bother with more pressing matters? - Because they have a statutory duty to enforce the laws - they don't have a choice which laws they will and which they wont enforce. They're also overseen by the FLA.

Wolves, Leeds, Cardiff?

[Svlad Cjelli]

Why can't the council bother with more pressing matters? - Because they have a statutory duty to enforce the laws - they don't have a choice which laws they will and which they wont enforce. They're also overseen by the FLA.

Wolves, Leeds, Cardiff?

See the answer to the previous question : Because once a large enough mass of supporters decides to stand stewards are unable to prevent them doing so without risking a public order offence.

Also,regarding Wolves, you must have missed this article in the Wolverhampton Express & Star, 11th March 2011

Wolves’ standing fans handed a final warning

A reduction in the Molineux capacity enforced by Wolverhampton City Council is “inevitable” if fans continue to stand up during games, Wolves warned today.

The council will force the club to reduce the 5,345-capacity Jack Harris Stand by at least 500 seats if fans refuse a “last chance” offer to prove they can stay seated at matches.

Council officers have written to the club asking it to draw up a strategy for withdrawing seats from use, claiming the problem has not been resolved despite repeated requests.

Wolves chief executive Jez Moxey said: “This is going to be a huge problem for those fans affected but no-one is going to be able to say: ‘It’s not fair, you didn’t tell us.’ Many clubs have forced reductions — now it is about to come to the Jack Harris Stand unless something is done quickly.

“It’s now up to the fans themselves to decide, there’s nothing more we can do. This is the last chance. Persistent standing has to stop from this point onwards. We aren’t going to be able to change Government policy or that of the football licensing authority on the issue of safe standing.

I could show you similar things happening at the other grounds too.

[LoyalRoyalFan]

Don't normally read the Wolverhampton Express and Star...

[Svlad Cjelli]

Don't normally read the Wolverhampton Express and Star...

Is that because it completly invalidates your arguments?

[LoyalRoyalFan]

Don't normally read the Wolverhampton Express and Star...

Is that because it completly invalidates your arguments?

It does. But why can't our local press give this issue a little more attention?

[John Madejski's Wallet]

Why can't the council bother with more pressing matters? - Because they have a statutory duty to enforce the laws - they don't have a choice which laws they will and which they wont enforce. They're also overseen by the FLA.

Wolves, Leeds, Cardiff?

Southampton last time I went.

They were all allowed to stand, while the away fans were agressively bullied into sitting down. Basically the exact opposite of Reading!

[Svlad Cjelli]

You're both assuming that in any instance where a large group of supporters are standing that "they're being allowed to" - in reality it's usually that the stewards are unable to stop them.

So other actions are taken : for instance the threatened Wolves stand closure, and this, which is going on at Newcastle.

http://www.shieldsgazette.com/news/local-news/newcastle_threaten_to_ban_fans_for_standing_1_3736802

Newcastle threaten to ban fans for standing


NO STANDING ... Newcastle fans have been threatened with a ban for persistent standing.

Published on Friday 2 September 2011 10:52

NEWCASTLE United are on another collision course with their fans, in a row over stadium rules.

Magpies officials have issued letters to between 100 and 150 supporters, after claims of bad language and abusive chanting among those sitting in the south east corner of St Jamess Park.

The club says those who have ignored repeated warnings over standing during matches could face a temporary ban.

[floyd__streete]

Bad language and abusive chanting eh? Absolutely disgraceful. How can these people live with themselves? Give them all a pair of rumblestix and they'll soon fall into line.

My own conspiracy theorist view is that the authorities love all-seater stadia, so they can watch over, control and identify those whose behaviour doesn't absolutely match the family-friendly ethic that has been imposed on football supporters since the onset of SKY's involvement in the game. You have got more chance of getting the Thames to flow backwards than you have of convincing the powers that be and the H&S brigade to reintroduce terracing in the top two tiers of english football.

[manny96]

My own conspiracy theorist view is that the authorities love all-seater stadia, so they can watch over, control and identify those whose behaviour doesn't absolutely match the family-friendly ethic that has been imposed on football supporters since the onset of SKY's involvement in the game. You have got more chance of getting the Thames to flow backwards than you have of convincing the powers that be and the H&S brigade to reintroduce terracing in the top two tiers of english football.

I wouldn't even class it as a conspiracy. All seater stadia are rationalised and monitored structures. If everyone has a seat, everyone is individualised and identifiable, even if they refuse to sit down. Where once the stadium was an inverted panopticon (apologies for the temrinology), the crowd looking in on the action in the middle, now it is coercive power in the centre surveilling the 'masses' on the outside. The crowd is caught even more in the gaze of an audience (private and public) as cameras monitor and broadcast crowd reactions. It's a contradiction that the 'atmosphere' created by vociferous fans is seen as both entertaining and a threat to the sanity and safety of the football viewing experience. It's also about the construction of risk; hooliganism, offensive language, terraces and seating, alcohol are all colletivised into a single 'package' of risks, which get confused and conflated. It's clearly the image of risk, of drunkeness, of violence, of racism that is a threat to a commercial product than the actual risks involved. The numbers of deaths at football grounds in the 20th century is minimal compared to the hundreds of millions who've gone to matches. Ironic then that by situating all seater stadia out of town, fans, relying on road transport (a far more dangerous activity), might well be placed at more risk.

[Svlad Cjelli]

Bad language and abusive chanting eh? Absolutely disgraceful. How can these people live with themselves? Give them all a pair of rumblestix and they'll soon fall into line.

My own conspiracy theorist view is that the authorities love all-seater stadia, so they can watch over, control and identify those whose behaviour doesn't absolutely match the family-friendly ethic that has been imposed on football supporters since the onset of SKY's involvement in the game. You have got more chance of getting the Thames to flow backwards than you have of convincing the powers that be and the H&S brigade to reintroduce terracing in the top two tiers of english football.

Using the word "terraces" is a lazy bit of sensationalism, and you, Floyd, really ought to know better. No-one wants a return to terraces.

People want the introduction of properly designed safe-standing areas, as used in Germany and across the world.

See http://www.safestandingroadshow.co.uk/gallery-2 for the safe-standing area at Hoffenheim, for instance.

And don't anyone try and use "safety" as an argument any more - that has been thoroughly discredited, even the FLA concede that. It is simply about supporter control, and the ludicrous generalisation that supporters who want to stand are more likely to be hooligans.

[FiNeRaIn]

Way too over-articulate and annoying to read manny. You are writing on a football message board. You aren't doing an English dissertation. Floyd usually has a good blend of writing skills, try and find his balance.

[zummerset]

... an inverted panopticon (apologies for the temrinology).

You lost me at panopticon

[Svlad Cjelli]

Way too over-articulate and annoying to read manny. You are writing on a football message board. You aren't doing an English dissertation. Floyd usually has a good blend of writing skills, try and find his balance.

But try to avoid Floyd's lack of accuracy.

[manny96]

Way too over-articulate and annoying to read manny. You are writing on a football message board. You aren't doing an English dissertation. Floyd usually has a good blend of writing skills, try and find his balance.

This is true. Should adapt to context. Too much time in academia.

[zummerset]

Still 732 posts in hardly any time is going some Manny - good work

[manny96]

You lost me at panopticon

Is fair. But I can't think of another word for it. It's a model of a prison where the guards are in a tower in the middle and each prisoner is in a visible cell. It's used as a way of describing how the state, with limited resources, is able to maintain control over a much bigger population.

It all sounds a bit pretentious but there is some substance there. @Finerain - I did actually write an essay on it albeit in Urban Studies, not English thus accounting for style.

[manny96]

Still 732 posts in hardly any time is going some Manny - good work

80% meaningless, but who cares? No change there - I talk crap in real life as well. Ironic that I mistype 'terminology' though.