Should the Bridge be made safer?

Jon Darch from the Football Supporters Federation, runs the Safe Standing campaign, championed by the FSF. If you want to know the arguments for safer standing at the ground, there is no one better to explain it, as he does very eloquently in this article. Jon will be coming on the Chelsea FanCast on September 17th to tell us all about Safe Standing at first hand, but until then, have a read of this…

Let’s face it, Stamford Bridge, like most other grounds in the Premier League, is an all-seater stadium in name only. There may be seats in the Matthew Harding Lower and Shed Lower, but few, it seems, actually get used during the game. The fans have literally voted with their feet and turned both those sections of the ground into unofficial standing areas. Yet is standing behind shin-high plastic seats with no means of supporting yourself if you lose your balance actually safe? Should the Bridge be made safer?

The law of the land says that Chelsea 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 MHL or Shed Lower aren’t breaking the law, but they are breaking ground regulation number 13, which states that spectators may not stand persistently in seated areas.

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! 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 Chelsea 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.

What on earth, I hear you cry, are ‘rail seats’ and how would they make standing at the Bridge safer? Let me show you in this video, starring the Peterborough United mascot Peter Burrow, filmed on location at the home of Hannover 96:

Chelsea are aware of rail seats and agree that they work well in Germany.

In many situations 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 Bridge, unfortunately, that would not be possible. The ground capacity is already maxed out and the exits couldn’t cope with any more fans trying to escape quickly in an emergency. So gaining the benefit of increased capacity and gate receipts is not open to Chelsea while the club remains at the Bridge.

However, there is, of course, the issue of ‘customer care’.

If a business truly cares about its customers, it does all it can to provide the products that they want. In safety terms, it also does everything possible to ensure that its customers can enjoy its services in the safest way possible. If Chelsea FC truly believed in ‘customer care’, it would therefore seek a change in the relevant regulations so that it could provide those of its customers who want to stand with the appropriate ‘safe standing’ product and would ensure that its customers partaking of this service did 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 lost their balance in celebrating the latest Chelsea goal.

And they would do it even if it made them no extra money.

A safer Bridge need not, therefore, be a pipedream, much like cashing in on your Betfair promotion code. Standing safely behind rail seats in the MHL and Shed Lower can be achieved. Pressure merely needs to be put on Chelsea FC 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 wanton disregard of spectator safety.

Jon Darch

www.safestandingroadshow.co.uk

If you believe that fans ought to have the choice to sit or stand, please sign the Football Supporters’ Federation’s safe standing petition: http://www.fsf.org.uk/petitions/safestanding.php