Safe standing at the Emirates. Okay so I may be to young to remember what it was like in the terraces actually there is nothing to remember as I wasnât even born when terraces where still around in English football so im no expert on this. But for the life of me I donât understand why they havenât been reintroduced. I know many people will say this canât be done due to safety reasons but I donât see how safe standing will be a problem. I know itâs not football but I have been to many concerts where I have been standing and they have fitted thousands of teens and twenty somethingâs into arena where most people are extremely drunk and under the influence of drugs. And in general I have never heard of a person being hurt. So I donât see how a bunch of middle aged men (the majority of fans who go to the emirates are) canât be trusted to go to a football match and act accordingly. The football clubs surely know that the hooligan element has left English football and I doubt it will come back also the increased security and CCTV would surely discourage any future hooligans of even thinking about causing trouble. For me the Pros of safe standing heavily outweigh the Cons as with safe standing the club could decrease ticket prices whilst making the money back by fitting more people into the stadium and give more young fans an opportunity to buy tickets this will make the atmosphere ten times better Thank you
In most European leagues (I think, certainly in Germany and Switzerland), there are safe standing areas. I also wasn't alive back then when we had them in England, but from what I've read, the problems came with there being no limit on the number of people in the terraces (they just shoved as many as possible in to get higher gates) and old/crumbling stadiums.
I'm a big advocate of safe standing. Modern terracing is safe, effective and could offer increased capacity (especially attractive for clubs needing to build bigger stadiums) cheaper tickets and improved atmosphere. I was lucky enough to be a regular on the old North Bank Terrace (topside and middle) and those days were some of the most electric. The atmosphere on the terraces was incredible and it's something that has been lost from modern stadiums. There's a groundswell of support gathering for safe standing, with many clubs and leagues across the UK and Europe wanting to trial it's introduction. check out http://www.safestandingroadshow.co.uk/ for the latest developments.
Adding safe standing would be great for several reasons. - increased capacity and therefore increase in income. - could mean an increase in cheaper tickets - improved atmosphere. The man issue for us is that lslington council will not allow an increase in capacity as the transport links are already stretched to accommodate 60,000.
It's a shame that we can't increase capacity, but I do think with the vastly improved stadiums and improved technology/investment in safe standing that we should be able to have sections of the stadium which can be adapted to either safe-standing or seated. This will improve the atmosphere but retain choice, and not effect the capacity (which I imagine the council will insist on).
I don't think we'll see it at the Emirates unless we were given the green light to increase our capacity. It's not that it can't be done, but you'd have to persuade thousands of people to give up their seats in order to stand. As much as it pains me to say it, but if I were a Spud I would be lobbying hard for them to introduce safe standing and redevelop the old ****hole instead of building a new stadium. Potentially if they got the design right they could add the extra capacity at the existing site without having to burn down any other local businesses.
