The middle classes won't allow safe standing because to do so would lead to lower ticket prices and the working class coming back to grounds.
The government treating football fans like animals, together with the complacency around ground safety contributed greatly to Hillsborough. Modern stadia, technology, policing and stewarding means the chances of it happening again are minimal.
Mate, with all due respect that is complete ****e tbf. Firstly, the proposed solutions involve the same space per standing person as a seated person so the prices would be the same. The cost to change the stands significantly would be massive otherwise. The days of thousands of lads surging on a huge terrace, the crushes and rivers of piss are gone forever and to be honest rightly so for a number of reasons. Who are the working class now anyway? Two adults in a household with a job each will probably be getting enough income for 1 or 2 cars, a mortgage, a holiday abroad and so on. That sounds pretty middle class to me whether they call themselves it or not. This is about people who want to stand rather than sit only and I dont see it at all as a class issue, whatever classes are meant to be these days.
Was listening the other day on the radio to some Supporters type representative who made a perfectly valid point that safe seating designed for people to stand was much safer than a significant away support standing all the time in an area designed to sit down in. Also this rep person said, and I agree, that the only totally safe stadium is an empty one. Any stadium with people in has a degree of safety risk and that safety is all a question of controlling and minimizing the extent of that risk. A refusal by the Government to review the position on all seater stadiums doesn’t suggest a Government that is proactive or open minded. Can’t see anything changing anytime soon. For me I like standing at football matches, always have always will.
It also assumes that the middle classes have so much extra dosh sloshing around that they are happy to pay extra. That's no one I know.
Really not bothered about safe standing, I just think nobody should be policing an area and forcing people to sit down. Level 7 and now the gallowgate are the areas which create atmosphere, and everyone knows the craic. If you want to be a prawn-sandwich-eating-seat-filler who may as well be watching at home on sky, sit elsewhere in the ground. Nobody will die from standing up where there are seats, so there's no need to change the design of the seating areas or stadiums.
