The Football Supporters Federation (FSF) met with Sports Government officials, football authorities and police to discuss the call by fans to bring back terracing into grounds in England. The use of terracing at stadiums in the top two tiers of English football was banned in 1994 on the grounds of health and safety but this latest news has seen the Premier League say they won’t encourage the government to change the laws. Is there a need for terracing to be brought back? Have the fans missed out or should it be left in the past?
My first taste of a live football game came in the early 1990s when as a 5-year-old I was taken to Loftus Road by my Uncle to see Queens Park Rangers FC. At the time I can remember being very restless having to stand on a packed terrace full of grown men for what seemed like a ridiculous amount of time. I couldn’t see much of the game and didn’t take to watching football at first, but luckily my complaints as a young child must’ve been heard and I was next taken in the seated area of the ground.
Eventually Loftus Road would become an all seated ground only a few years later and coincidentally I loved going to games. More ironic however, is that by the age of 15, when I started going to see Rangers play on my own accord, I sat in my seat for about 5 minutes of the whole 90 and purposely chose my season ticket seat for the next 5 seasons at the back of the stand which allowed the freedom for me to stand or sit.
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Although this could’ve been the result of the seats at Loftus Road being so cramped and congested, as a 6ft plus teenager, I had no choice but to sit at the back if I was to prevent the threat deep vein thrombosis if I had persisted sitting down in those awfully cramped seats at the ground over a number of years. But at the time, Rangers were relegated to the third tier of English football and I had the chance (fortunate I believe) to visit a lot of old football grounds in England.
It was there that I became very fond of grounds with terraces and it persuaded me to travel to away games where the away end would have a standing section. Despite not being old enough to have conscious thoughts on the tragedy at Hillsborough in the late Eighties, I was brought up in the aftermath and the continual documentaries that analysed the event and condemned the use of terraces in English football.
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The Hillsborough Family Support Group (HFSG) have strongly opposed the proposition of terraces by the FSF and rightly so considering what happened on that ill-fated day in 1989. However, a combination of the old fashioned fencing and poor policing contributed to the terraces failing on that day and of course, a terrace system similar to that of Hillsborough in the Eighties would and should never be considered.
However, during my experiences of using terraces, I never found it to be a problem. There wasn’t the issue of cramped seats making for uncomfortable viewing, there was freedom to move around which allowed you to see many of your fellow supporting friends from around the away end and it also felt like it made for a better atmosphere.
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It was only in a packed away end during a League game with Brentford in 2003 that I witnessed first hand that terraces can be rather dangerous. As Marc Bircham smashed home a volley in the dying minutes of the game right in front of 3,000 R’s fans, I suddenly found myself in the front row having previously been standing near the back. Luckily there were no apparent casualties in this case but it made me realise that terraces are not safe for large packed crowds.
The Bundesliga in Germany has proven that terracing can work in modern football grounds without any health and safety threats. Plus in some grounds they also have a versatile system that allows the terraces to be transformed into seats for European games so that they meet UEFA guidelines.
It’s certainly something that football grounds in this country should look into, especially for football clubs that are to be re-building new stadiums. Older grounds, like Loftus Road would have no chance in re-introducing the terrace due to a lack of space that would be needed in order to build a safe terrace environment.
Terracing would also allow cheaper ticket prices for standing that could see the attendance of football matches back in the hands of the working-class families and especially young males like myself who have been priced out of the all-seater stadiums in the last decade or two.
If a stand was purposely built to support terracing as well as the use of seats when needed it could work out safely without fences caging fans in like animals. After all, there are concerts and festivals every year up and down the country where large numbers of fans can stand to enjoy the music without any major tragedies and I can’t see why a better system can work in the future of English Football.
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