We-ARE-Walsall wrote:tinned wrote:Super Gabor wrote:All seater stadia are there for a reason: It was called Hillsborough.
It is possible to sing from a seated position. Standing up seems to make no difference to the atmosphere generated by those who want to sing.
Have you ever taken the time to look at safe standing options? They are safer than seating in my opinion. They allow more room to exit the area than the traditional seat. People who quote Hillsborough as a reason not to look at safe standing are either lazy or just don't want the truth to hinder their prejudices (IMHO).
To right, Hillsborough is a terrible excuse. There were to many people in the end, this is easily preventable in the future. There were huge fences up, this will never be the case again, and should never have been there at the time, given what happened at Bradford, should have been a warning, far more would have died if there had been fencing up.
Safe standing is completely different too, there is no chance of surges how the barriers are set up, you have more chance of hurting yourself in a seated stand I would say, take a look at Dortmunds ground, amazing and totally safe.
I think you'll find Hillsborough is not a terrible excuse. It was a terrible tragedy.
It wasn't just due to terracing I agree - we know the reasons why and perimeter fencing played a huge part too. But fencing had been brought in to try and "control" the hooliganism blighted 70s and 80s. However, and I am not saying this would happen at Walsall, but with standing areas you bring back the potential environment that makes one set of fans "rush" another a possibility. I won't put it any stronger than that.
Say our home end and the family stand had been terraced rather than seated areas when we played Sheff Weds Boxing Day 2011. It got a bit angry towards the end of that game. If there were no seats in the way, those up for a scrap would have found it much easier and quicker to get at each other....seats effectively act as hurdles and whilst not the prime reason they were installed, they do act to stop make it less likely that those charges we had runining football in the bad old days. A kind of barrier.
Remember when we used to go to Saltergate? i enjoyed standing on their away terrace as much as anyone else, but remember that their nutters used to love walking all the way around the ground into the corner near us to taunt and flick the Vs for 45 minutes when they were kicking our way. Walsall fans are, by and large, a well behaved bunch. But that taunting then encouraged a few of our lot to move into that corner unhindered to give the verbals back. That would now have happened with an all seater ground.
Depends what atmosphere you want I guess. I like good natured banter between fans but when the aggressive lot become a side-show distraction from the football action on the field, you can count me out.
I used to stand like most of us did, til the Taylor Report enforced seating upon us. We got used to it didn't we? I get out my seat when the football warrants it - a reaction to something exciting happening on the pitch. I no longer need to stand for the entire 90 minutes and don't really get the mindset of those that do anymore.