That's pretty much exactly what happened. Remember watching the place burn on Grandstand, was really not very pleasant.
Same. It was awful. 'There's a Policeman on fire !' It just got really bad really quickly. I think they still show that video in Firefighting training videos to demonstrate how quickly a small fire can turn into a big out of control fire.
It's been a good few years since I used to go regularly. But yeah I can imagine some away days still have that feel. Especially in the lower leagues.
A lot of the grounds were actual ****holes though, outdated and dangerous. And the crowd management back in those days was treat them all like hooligans who need to be coralled. I remember being at games and thinking **** I'm going to get crushed here, and I've had to climb walls and fences in the past just to get myself out of a bottlenecks coming in and out of grounds. Hillsborough was a disaster waiting to happen really. And it wasn't the first time people had been killed at a football ground due to a crush.
I think they have to man all the exits now from what I see, also you can often see two people on the exits in their hi vis. It's easier to get disoriented in a football ground than you think, especially if you are just looking at stairwells and corriders of just concrete and steel - it can end up looking all the same, unless you put various sinage up and differing club posters to make it easier to navigate, all you need to do is add smoke to that situation and you've got a hell of a problem. Game I went to against Walsall at home, I sat the only place I'd never sat in the ground before, up on the next level. I will admit to getting slightly disorientated at half-time as I was making my way back to my seat, but the female steward was on the ball, came over and checked I was ok, which being a guy of course I am, she was still insisted on helping me lol. In the big grounds of 10's of thousands, one person lost can cause mayhem for a lot of people.
The modern stadiums are a lot better these days from the old grounds with their dilapidated terraces and big fences etc. Obviously the ticketing and stewarding is a lot better too and as much as I lament the loss of the old days, those grounds had to change and overall it's for the better. More women, children and families now enjoy the game. That said, I remember that guy falling off the top stand and rolling down the roof, was it at Ipswich last season.
I personally don't think the modern stadiums are better than the old stadiums to escape from, if the exit rules were applied correctly in both situations. In old grounds you had no cover, there were no stairwells in a lot of them, there were no corriders, it was just over the terrace and straight out the gate. We've been very lucky in modern times that there hasn't been an incident to date, to test these modern structures, personally in the likelihood of a major incident, I think it will fail much more than we realise, for a variety of reasons. For me there is two major failings, well possibly three actually, fall from height, disorientation and the seats becoming an obstacle in a panic situation and especially when you look at the age demographics, young and old.
Another thing to consider in modern stadiums is that when people exit you are maybe exiting them into confined concrete areas, rather than open space.
I can only really speak for the Emirates as that's the only modern stadium I've been to. For the lower tiers, there are plenty of exits and in a major emergency I think they'd just open the gates pitchside and let everybody onto the ptich. The upper tiers are a bit more complex, I think the biggest danger comes from the potential to fall down those steep steps, but once you're at an exit from the seats, the internal concourses are pretty roomy and the stairs are nice and wide. Although I would hate to think what it would be like in an emergency with everybody rushing to leave at once. Outside of the ground, there's plenty of room and it's pretty much all open.
You certainly get that coming out of the home end at Walsall, out of the gates and you have a brick wall 5 mtrs in front of you
Concourses was the word I was looking for. At my gaff they show there restraints when it comes to kicking out time, or during HT when the food areas are confined and over crowded. We've actually got planning permission submitted to create a fan zone, open air at the back of the home stand, so in the car park lol. The idea is to open up the concourse area, so that fans go outside, creating more space. You have to remember mate probably 99% of football clubs don't have a £billion to spend on state of the art. And even with that 1% the test of time just hopes, that height isn't a problem if something occurs that creates public panic.
No, when you come out of the ground towards the tube station, kicked off a bit when we came out and a few bystanders ended up tumbling down them.
The night we went was a cup game and they gave us 9000 tickets, that probably didnt help.where I came out the steps were directly in front of us, Robocops were busy battering folk on the ramp
It was rubbish under the seating. But note sure of wooden bits of ground were banned, parts of the Bullens Rd stand at Goodison had wooden sleepers/supports for the seats(wooden) place would bounce edit: or was the stand at Bradford full wooden construction?
any new wood stands were banned, so once the old **** had gone out or been condemned, it couldn't be replaced. So yeah I worded slightly wrong.
