Given the increasing aptathy that pervades most elections nowadays I hope that the Lib Dems recognise the potential vote winner that they have here if they adopt safe standing as party policy.

http://www.fsf.org.uk/WannastandupatyourgroundGetwritingtotheLibDemsthen.php

I am Aide for the debate so won’t comment on its merits at this stage – but could I ask, does anyone know a bar near to the BIC that might be showing the City-Chelsea match?

Whilst in reply to Mr Boyce, please can you show a bit of respect to people who chose to go to football matches, it’s clear you don’t like to, so don’t go, just please respect those of us who do. The standing issue is about choice and freedom.

The benefits
- Both standers and sitters will benefit. Standers can stand and sitters won’t have the annoyance of standers getting in their way.

- Increased atmosphere in stadiums. A lot of fans only tend to stand up and sing. And all the fans who want to sing can be spread out across the stadium. If they are all in the same area, the atmosphere will definitely and notably increase (as will the fans’ enjoyment).

- One standing space would take up less room than a seat, therefore more fans can attend and prices could be reduced.

- Increased attendances. Thousands of fans for ‘smaller clubs’ do not go because they don’t enjoy it. Teams like Boro, Blackburn, Bolton will never regularly sell-out. Offering cheaper, standing tickets will bring back some fans who are against modern day football as they don’t enjoy it (because they can’t stand with friends and watch the game).

- It is much more dangerous to stand in a seated area but tens and tens of thousands do this every week in England.

- Reduced arrests/ejections from football stadiums. Every week throughout the country hundreds of fans will get ejected and tens will be arrested because of persistently standing up.

- No need for reduced allocations. Fans, especially of Manchester United, Liverpool and Leeds have had thousands of tickets taken away in recent years because of standing. Clubs lose money, match has reduced atmopshere and fans don’t get to see the team play – nobody is a winner besides the safety inspector having an easier day.

The disadvantages
- It will cost the club money and a small amount of time to introduce these areas (although the costs will be very small compared to the amount they receive).

- Crowd trouble will increase – This is not true. 99% of crowd trouble happens outside the stadium or is between fans and stewards because of standing. If it is brought back then very little, if not no trouble between fans and stewards will occur.

If the standing areas for away and home fans are not right next to each other then there is no evidence that crowd trouble will occur more than it currently does (which is very, very limited).

For me, it needs to be brought back for football’s sake. Bring back the atmosphere, the passion and the love for football and stop treating all fans like animals.

Peter – may well be worth contacting my local PPC David Ward on this in order to drum up more support; he’s another keen lower-league football fan.

Aye, they have confused me for a long while, too.

Noise is only a distraction if it interrupts silence (yes, I can see the tautology here – but you know what I mean) so if all crowds were permitted to chat and shout and move and eat (and so on) there shouldn’t be a problem.

Furthermore, in football the fans are allowed to actively try to put off the other team, especially at set-pieces like penalties.

Even in a Hillsborough type situation standing wouldn’t have been unsafe had it not been for the fences the dangers of which were apparent after the Bradford fire (where fortunately there were no fences)

A recently discovered one called Ultra-troll

Though the conventions about silence at sporting events do confuse me. It isn’t the done thing to make a noise as a tennis player is serving as you’ll distract the reciever. However it is quite OK to do so at cricket which is functionally almost the same.

Was that the first or the second time round? It’s all such a blur. What division are we in now as a matter of interest?

I will be supporting this!

* swells with Yorksher pride *

Jennie – I’ve been to Huddersfield. Great place, stood up the whole game, of course there was no trouble at all.

Laurence – very helpful comments, thank you. You are being sarcastic, aren’t you?

Peter C – it’s not about the prices. Though it’s worth noting that in Germany ticket prices tend to be lower that in England, crowds are as high if not higher, and they allow ‘safe standing’ in many stadia.

Good motion though, and depending on the timing, I’ll be there to vote it through.