Still standing: 20 years after Hillsborough the debate rages on

WITH the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster fast approaching, standing in making a comeback to an English football league ground for the first time since that horrendous day on April 15th 1989.
The news that Morecambe football club is to incorporate safe standing areas into their new stadium, ready for the 2010/11 season, will delight campaigners across the country fighting for the re-introduction of standing areas at all grounds.
The danger is that it will encourage more people to stand as a way of making their point to their own club’s owners.
Currently the law states that football grounds in the top two flights must be all seater but some supporters, particularly when travelling but increasingly at home too, are happy to ignore that despite the cost to fellow fans.
Those who want to sit often have no choice but to spend 90 minutes on their feet because everyone in front of them is standing. Views are ruined and tempers frayed because people cannot be considerate or bothered to observe the rules.
Clubs are either unable or unwilling to do anything about it. Stewards are outnumbered and powerless in the face of selectively deaf and often aggressive spectators and promises by clubs to crack down by penalising fellow clubs or indeed their own supporters are rarely, if ever, kept.
It seems that if people are determined to stand, there is nothing to stop them.



Groups such as the Football Supporters' Federation feel that there is a growing momentum to their campaign for standing areas to be re-introduced.
An early may motion introduced into Parliament in 2007 to bring back standing areas currently has the support of 107 MPs yet there seems little appetite from the regulatory authorities, the police or the clubs themselves to move the issue forward or even address it decisively.
The Independent Football Commission (before it changed its name last year) said it could find nothing to suggest that standing areas were inherently unsafe and with modern monitoring techniques and modern stadia, there seems little reason not to allow a section of supporters to stand if they so wish.
Greater safety at grounds and better crowd control would ensure there could never be a repeat of Hillsborough. Fences have gone and even if standing were brought back there would never be enough people allowed in to re-create the crushes experienced at grounds across the country in years gone by.
However, until that happens, the law says supports have to sit.
And for the good of everyone involved, that’s exactly what they should do.