SafeStandingRoadshow
Jamie Slabber
Should the Lane be made safer?
Let’s face it, White Hart Lane, like most other grounds in the Premier League, is an all-seater stadium in name only. There may be seats in the Park Lane End, but few, it seems, actually get used during the game. The fans have literally voted with their feet and turned this section of the ground into an unofficial standing area. Yet is standing behind shin-high plastic seats with no means of supporting yourself if you lose your balance actually safe?
So, should the Lane be made safer?
What the law says
The law of the land says that Tottenham Hotspur FC may admit spectators only to ‘seated accommodation’. It further says that spectators may follow the game only ‘from seated accommodation’. It does NOT, however, stipulate that spectators must sit. Fans standing in front of seats and thus still watching the game ‘from seated accommodation’ are not breaking the law. That’s why you’ll never see any fans arrested for standing (for confrontations with stewards who have asked them to sit, perhaps, but not for standing itself).
“So where’s the problem?” you may ask. Well the fans standing in the Park Lane End aren’t breaking the law, but they are breaking ground regulation number 13, which states that spectators may not stand persistently in seated areas.
Battered shins
So standing behind low-backed seats is against ground regulations. It’s also not altogether safe. Who hasn’t skinned their shins when celebrating a goal and getting them caught on the wicked curled lip of the seat in front?! Some, I’m sure, have even fallen into the row in front in wild jubilation of the latest Gareth Bale goal! This is not safe! In our nanny state of a modern society it has to stop! We, as fans, need saving from ourselves!
Clubs like Spurs could overcome the breach of regulation 13 and provide a truly safe environment for their fans who already stand in their thousands by lobbying government and the football regulators to be allowed to install ‘rail seats’ in designated safe standing areas of the ground.
Rail seats
What on earth, I hear you cry, are ‘rail seats’ and how would they make standing at the Lane safer? Let me show you in this video, filmed on location at the home of German Bundesliga club Hannover 96:
In many situations - especially for clubs like Spurs with a ground, or new ground, that has a limited footprint - the installation of these seats could in theory lead to an increase in capacity, thus enabling the club to offer cheaper ticket prices for the standing area while at the same time still making more revenue in total and thus soon paying off the rail seat capital expenditure costs.
At the Lane as it currently is this may present a challenge (any increase in capacity would require more/wider exits, wider concourses etc.). But if planned at this early stage into the new ground, a significant increase in the currently envisaged capacity ought to be possible.
And whether it is or not, there is also, of course, the issue of ‘customer care’.
If a business truly cares about its customers, it will do all it can to provide the products that they want. In safety terms, it will also do everything possible to ensure that its customers can enjoy its services in the safest way possible. If Tottenham Hotspur FC truly believes in ‘customer care’, it will therefore seek a change in the relevant regulations so that it can provide those of its customers who want to stand with the appropriate ‘safe standing’ product and will ensure that its customers partaking of this service do so in perfect safety by installing rail seats to provide a waist-high support within arm’s length of every standing fan, just in case they lose their balance in celebrating the latest Spurs goal.
And they will do so even if it makes them no extra money.
No pipedream
A safer Lane need not, therefore, be a pipedream. Standing safely behind rail seats in the Park Lane End can be achieved. Pressure merely needs to be put on Spurs to lobby government and the Sports Ground Safety Authority to let them and other clubs provide their thousands of standing fans with a safer environment in which to support the team in their preferred manner. Not to do so could be deemed a lack of regard for spectator safety.
Jon Darch
www.safestandingroadshow.co.uk
PS: Important
If you believe that fans ought to have the choice to sit or stand, please sign the Football Supporters’ Federation’s safe standing petition and urge your MP via this quick and simple tool to support Early Day Motion 573, which calls on the government to permit a few small-scale trials of safe standing at rail seats.
Let’s face it, White Hart Lane, like most other grounds in the Premier League, is an all-seater stadium in name only. There may be seats in the Park Lane End, but few, it seems, actually get used during the game. The fans have literally voted with their feet and turned this section of the ground into an unofficial standing area. Yet is standing behind shin-high plastic seats with no means of supporting yourself if you lose your balance actually safe?
So, should the Lane be made safer?
What the law says
The law of the land says that Tottenham Hotspur FC may admit spectators only to ‘seated accommodation’. It further says that spectators may follow the game only ‘from seated accommodation’. It does NOT, however, stipulate that spectators must sit. Fans standing in front of seats and thus still watching the game ‘from seated accommodation’ are not breaking the law. That’s why you’ll never see any fans arrested for standing (for confrontations with stewards who have asked them to sit, perhaps, but not for standing itself).
“So where’s the problem?” you may ask. Well the fans standing in the Park Lane End aren’t breaking the law, but they are breaking ground regulation number 13, which states that spectators may not stand persistently in seated areas.
Battered shins
So standing behind low-backed seats is against ground regulations. It’s also not altogether safe. Who hasn’t skinned their shins when celebrating a goal and getting them caught on the wicked curled lip of the seat in front?! Some, I’m sure, have even fallen into the row in front in wild jubilation of the latest Gareth Bale goal! This is not safe! In our nanny state of a modern society it has to stop! We, as fans, need saving from ourselves!
Clubs like Spurs could overcome the breach of regulation 13 and provide a truly safe environment for their fans who already stand in their thousands by lobbying government and the football regulators to be allowed to install ‘rail seats’ in designated safe standing areas of the ground.
Rail seats
What on earth, I hear you cry, are ‘rail seats’ and how would they make standing at the Lane safer? Let me show you in this video, filmed on location at the home of German Bundesliga club Hannover 96:
[video=youtube_share;apX5V1IJCW4]http://youtu.be/apX5V1IJCW4[/video]
In many situations - especially for clubs like Spurs with a ground, or new ground, that has a limited footprint - the installation of these seats could in theory lead to an increase in capacity, thus enabling the club to offer cheaper ticket prices for the standing area while at the same time still making more revenue in total and thus soon paying off the rail seat capital expenditure costs.
At the Lane as it currently is this may present a challenge (any increase in capacity would require more/wider exits, wider concourses etc.). But if planned at this early stage into the new ground, a significant increase in the currently envisaged capacity ought to be possible.
And whether it is or not, there is also, of course, the issue of ‘customer care’.
If a business truly cares about its customers, it will do all it can to provide the products that they want. In safety terms, it will also do everything possible to ensure that its customers can enjoy its services in the safest way possible. If Tottenham Hotspur FC truly believes in ‘customer care’, it will therefore seek a change in the relevant regulations so that it can provide those of its customers who want to stand with the appropriate ‘safe standing’ product and will ensure that its customers partaking of this service do so in perfect safety by installing rail seats to provide a waist-high support within arm’s length of every standing fan, just in case they lose their balance in celebrating the latest Spurs goal.
And they will do so even if it makes them no extra money.
No pipedream
A safer Lane need not, therefore, be a pipedream. Standing safely behind rail seats in the Park Lane End can be achieved. Pressure merely needs to be put on Spurs to lobby government and the Sports Ground Safety Authority to let them and other clubs provide their thousands of standing fans with a safer environment in which to support the team in their preferred manner. Not to do so could be deemed a lack of regard for spectator safety.
Jon Darch
www.safestandingroadshow.co.uk
PS: Important
If you believe that fans ought to have the choice to sit or stand, please sign the Football Supporters’ Federation’s safe standing petition and urge your MP via this quick and simple tool to support Early Day Motion 573, which calls on the government to permit a few small-scale trials of safe standing at rail seats.
