It may surprise readers to hear that safe-standing at football grounds was debated at a full party conference.
But yes, in Bournemouth, such an issue was debated by the Liberal Democrats.
All-seater stadia were introduced after the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 as a way of controlling crowds. This policy motion aimed at trying to get safe-standing terraces (as are common in Germany) at football matches.
The reasons for this being, at football matches, people like to sing, and you can only sing standing up. By standing up, the supporters increase their lung capacity and can belt out wonders, such as “Are You Tottenham In Disguise?“
But it is not only from an atmospheric point of view that this motion was introduced. Football fans have been singled out here for discrimination. If you go to a rock concert, you can stand; go to a rugby match, you can stand. You could even go down to Lords and stand (though I doubt the MCC would approve).
Regular season-ticket holders will tell you that the make-up of an average match-day crowd is getting older. Young supporters cannot afford the market price for tickets. By allowing safe-standing areas, supporters will have a lower-cost ticket to purchase, and we’ll see a greater diversity in the supporters section. Fans with young children could still go and sit in the seated areas of the ground.
A survey carried out by the Football Supporters Federation saw an overwhelming majority of 92% of fans wanting to see the terraces brought back!
Now some readers may be thinking about Hillsborough, and thus that terraces should not be brought back – in fact the families of Hillsborough victims did turn up in Bournemouth to campaign against this motion. But the fact is, Hillsborough is not a reason to ban safe-standing terraces.
Hillsborough was a tragedy, no one will deny it. But it was not the terraces that caused the problems. It was the fencing that was put up to stop pitch invasions. It was also caused by insufficient counting of fans, meaning the terraces were over-capacity. Without the escape route (blocked off by the fencing) there was nowhere for fans to escape.
No one at the conference debate had a valid reason not to introduce safe-standing at football stadia, and the motion was, therefore, carried.
It is now Liberal Democrat policy to introduce safe-standing terraces at football grounds.
