Safe standing
It is important in the context of association football in the United Kingdom, where a series of fatal incidents led to legislation requiring major clubs to develop all-seater stadiums during the 1990s.
[2] On 15 April 1989, a crush on the Leppings Lane terrace of Hillsborough during an FA Cup semi-final resulted in the deaths of ninety-seven Liverpool supporters.
[3] Overcrowding had resulted from a gate being opened on police instructions to relieve severe congestion outside the ground and failure to direct supporters away from the already full central pens.
[5] The subsequent inquiry led by Lord Justice Taylor concluded that the immediate cause of the disaster was the failure to cut off access to the central pens when the gate was opened.
[1] The Taylor Report made 76 recommendations,[10] including that, after a given timescale, all stadia designated under the Safety of Sports Ground Act 1975 should admit spectators to seated accommodation only.
The relevant UK guidelines for sports ground safety, the Green Guide, sets out the parameters for building and managing modern standing terraces.
Until as recently as 2004, for instance, top-flight German club Borussia Mönchengladbach's home stadium, the Bökelbergstadion, provided standing accommodation for over 25,000 fans and seats for under 9,000.
[17] To continue to accommodate standing fans at domestic matches and yet be able to convert their stadia into all-seater facilities for UEFA games, the German clubs developed a range of solutions.
Several clubs adapt their grounds to UEFA all-seater requirements by bolting temporary seats to the steps of otherwise essentially conventional terraces and removing the crush barriers.
[18] For domestic games the seats remain locked flush between the uprights of each frame, thus providing accommodation and maximum space for standing fans between rows of the waist-high rails.
German clubs using rail seats include Werder Bremen, Hamburg SV, VfL Wolfsburg, Hannover 96, TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, VfB Stuttgart, Bayer Leverkusen and Borussia Dortmund.
The club had obtained a "safe standing" certificate 13 months earlier after years of negotiations with supporters, football authorities and Glasgow City Council.
[25] A range of arguments are put forward in favour of all-seating and against the return of standing areas to the top divisions of football in England and Wales.
A similar survey, run by the Football Supporters Federation and reported upon on the BBC website on 17 August 2012, showed that 91.1% of fans want the choice to sit or stand.
[27] A new survey in 2015 showed that 96% of football fans in the UK backed a safe standing pilot to trial modern stadium technology.
[29] Peter Caton goes on to claim that demand is also illustrated by the many examples at lower league clubs where a greater number of supporters often choose to stand than sit (e.g. Accrington Stanley, Burton Albion, Dagenham & Redbridge, Stevenage, Torquay United).
The Taylor Report refers to capacity control, stating that seating allows those in charge to know the exact number of supporters in a particular part of a ground.
[31] He also refers to swaying and surging, stating that these cannot occur in all-seated stadia,[31] where, he says, "involuntary and uncontrolled crowd movements occasioned by incidents in the game are effectively eliminated".
[35] It is true that more families attend matches than they did in the 1970s and 1980s when hooliganism was a major problem, but this increased diversity has occurred at grounds retaining terraces[35] as well.
[55] Peterborough United FC also revealed plans to install safe standing rail seats in the Moy's End section of London Road Stadium over the summer if government regulations would allow.
[56] In July 2014, the Welsh Assembly passed a motion by 26 votes to 1 (with 20 abstentions) calling for a pilot of safe standing in Wales.
[65] In April 2018, an application for a safe standing area by West Bromwich Albion at The Hawthorns was rejected by the government who argued that "all-seater stadiums remain the best means of ensuring the safety and security of fans".
[68] In January 2018, Owen Riches founded the petition campaign, which gained 112,026 signatures over 6 months, leading to a parliamentary debate on 25 June 2018, where Tracey Crouch announced a government review into Safe-Standing.
[69][70][71] On 8 June 2018, Shadow Sports Minister Dr Rosena Allin-Khan announced formal Labour Party support for safe standing.
The installation will consist of 5,600 rail seats and will be future-proofed in readiness for potential change in legislation to permit safe standing areas in football stadia.
June 2015 saw Celtic become the first club to receive permission to move ahead with 'safe-standing' areas, using railseating,[79] after years of negotiations with supporters, football authorities and Glasgow City Council.
[19][20] The Western Sydney Wanderers planned to install German style rail seating into the Red & Black Bloc active support section of their home ground Parramatta Stadium, as part of a larger capacity and facility upgrade in 2014.
FedExField, home of the Washington Commanders American football team, had many seats removed in favor of luxury suites and standing-room only "party decks", a process that began in 2012.
[83] PayPal Park, home of the San Jose Earthquakes, was the first soccer-specific stadium in the United States to have a safe standing section, opening in March 2015.
Minnesota United FC's stadium, Allianz Field, which opened in 2019, has a safe standing area called the "Wonderwall" that has a 34.9-degree incline.
