The news broke today that Celtic have decided to install 2,600 “rail seats” in Celtic Park. The seats have been in use on the continent, notably in Germany, for some time and represent a pragmatic and sensible solution to the concept of safely standing to watch a football match.
Most people won’t need the history lesson, but just touching on the key points will hopefully make it clear on what a breakthrough this could be.
Voted for in 1990 in the aftermath of the Hillsborough Disaster, Premier League clubs are required to have all-seater grounds. As a result, any club with designs on being a top division side will also follow suit (even though the Football League voted to allow standing areas in 1992). The last notable terrace in the Championship was Peterborough’s London Road, which has since been redeveloped (and the side relegated of course).
The Taylor Report, the document by which the changes were made with a view to preventing a repeat of the tragedy at Hillsborough, has been subject to challenges in the past over the issue of safe standing. Whenever the suggestion has been put forward, the findings of the report have been used to justify refusal – and on the surface you’d be forgiven for thinking that this was totally understandable and indeed necessary. Nobody is comfortable with the idea that attending a football match could end in injury or death.
The trouble is that the waters are muddied – we know, first of all, that the most recent Hillsborough enquiry has revealed that many of the reported details were incorrect. Whilst the Taylor report had concluded originally that the main reason for the disaster was “the failure of police control” – the recommendations of the banning of terracing was made without key information.
The Hillsborough Independent Panel discovered, off the back of a call from a Government Minister, Andy Burnham, to release documents not made available to Taylor, that there were attempts made to conceal what happened. This included the police making alterations to 116 statements relating to the disaster. The conclusion of the panel confirmed that Liverpool fans were not to blame for the disaster. In July 2013, the number of altered statements rose to 164 and a further 55 police officers changed their statements.
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That situation is ongoing and the fight for justice continues.
What is clear, however, is that the Taylor report was produced without the full information so the legitimacy of the conclusions could be challenged – it should certainly not be seen as the definitive reason for the justification to abolish terracing.
With all that said, there are actually far more straightforward reasons to look at safe-standing – namely the undeniable fact that many fans at football matches stand anyway. It is a popular fallacy that clubs have to force fans to sit. Clubs are actually only obliged to provide each fan with a seat – the sitting part is inferred but not an instruction.
I state this because it is important to realise that the rejection of safe-standing is on safety grounds – i.e. that a fan sitting down is safer than a fan standing up with rail seating provided. Whether that is true might even be in debate – but let’s say that it is true. The problem with it as a statement is that it is not reflective of reality.
The actual comparison should be – is a fan standing in a rail seat safer than a fan standing in a normal seat. The answer is an obvious, overwhelming “YES” quite clearly. So we are faced with the ridiculous situation currently that fans are being forced into unsafe behaviour because the authorities are not comparing the genuine reality of the situation, they are comparing a perceived reality and are actually refusing a safer solution.
I am sure many of you reading this bear the lower-leg scars of a season of football. Whether you sit or stand at the game, the moments of excitement and pure adrenaline are often accompanied by a sharp pain as you pile into the seats in front! This is madness surely? How is this safe?
My final point is to look at the rail seat itself. It is not a return to terracing – it is in fact a win/win solution. Each person still has an allocated seat (which they can choose to use) so the idea that there could be another Hillsborough-style crush is not increased by its presence. You need only put it in a specific area of the ground too – so like-minded people can congregate in the same area. That would help the atmosphere and general experience no end.
We all know standing makes the singing louder and there’s nothing quite like celebrating a goal in a terrace. Whilst rail-seating prevents a “surge” (which can be pretty terrifying) you would get back so much more of the feeling.
Celtic have taken a big step, let’s hope the rest of the football world can quickly follow suit. Can you imagine the atmosphere if part of the Lower Holmesdale or the Arthur Wait was converted?
One thing I know for sure – we’d need an awful lot more than 2,600 rail seats if safe-standing is finally allowed.
