Standing

[Caley]

Clicky

[Alex MacLeod]

That is only safe standing in Germany. More so for Uefa games where terracing isn't allowed.

If a club in Scotland wants to use 'normal' terracing then I dont see why not, there is no rule or law to say what is or isnt safe. Will be interesting if County win the league and want to keep the jail end what will happen.

Id imagine Ross Co would have to have at least 6500 seats elsewhere in the stadium IF they didnt want to change the jail end from standing

According to Doncaster the 6000 covered seat rule will not change. I can see County demolishing the Jubilee terracing and building a stand similar to our north and south stands. That with some extension to their east stand would give them the required capacity and the jail end could still be used if allowed.

[jamie ictfc]

Clicky

If this did go through i can't say i would be interested in standing in the 'West Stand'.

Cold and open to the elements, if there was similar stands as the north and south, but with safe standing areas, i would be first there.

[Joe DiMaggio]

Clicky

If this did go through i can't say i would be interested in standing in the 'West Stand'.

Cold and open to the elements, if there was similar stands as the north and south, but with safe standing areas, i would be first there.

Wouldn't be overly up for that either. Unless they extended the height of the terracing a bit and out a decent roof over it which would help with the noise coming from there. Not one like they had behind the goals in the first division.

[Renegade]

I wonder if the club would be better off building a stand akin to what County have across from their main stand - albeit a standing version. In my opinion, something like that, or a standing version of the North/South stands would look pretty good - the grounds always looked kind of unfinished to me with only three sides.

[Caley]

According to Doncaster the 6000 covered seat rule will not change. I can see County demolishing the Jubilee terracing and building a stand similar to our north and south stands. That with some extension to their east stand would give them the required capacity and the jail end could still be used if allowed.

County's plans are to build a 2500 seat stand in the jubilee "away end" which will take 10-12 weeks to build, so probably the same as the ones we have behind our goals. They also plan to put about 1500 seats in the existing jail end.

[Govan Jaggie]

Love to get back to standing if you want and not have to put up with little Hitlers forcing you to sit. Wouldn't really care where it was. I used to stand in the west side anyway.

PS Was that Express report written by the THE Scott Burns as in ex Thistle sell out man?

[+DoofersDad]

I am 100% for standing but would not be keen to be herded into an uncovered corner on the west side of the ground. Given the option I would still sit in the North Stand.

Whilst it is good we are now having this debate, political correctness gone mad means we are still a long way from addressing the issue properly. The Hillsborough tragedy was not about terracing vs seating it was about allowing thousands of people into the ground when the ground was already full. There is no reason not to have terracing. There is every reason to have good systems of ticket management and crowd control. The Taylor report, aided and abetted by the TV companies, has ripped the soul out of the game - it is now time to rip the seats out and give the game back to the people.

[Charles Bannerman]

PS Was that Express report written by the THE Scott Burns as in ex Thistle sell out man?

That was Scott BYRNES and I wouldn't be surprised to see that story contradicted by tomorrow.

The question I would be asking is that, given that there would inevitably be some kind of cost implication, where is a club which is really on the tightest of budgets going to find the money to implement something which is not going to bring in any more cash, given that even the existing 7750 capacity is never filled?

[Ten4]

Although I quite like it in North Stand I also would like to go back to standing on the west side terracing.

[PaderbornCaley]

Rip out all the seats in the North Stand and make that terracing. More people would turn up i'm sure. Could be a great atmosphere in there if it was terracing. The cost of taking out the seats and building the terracing barriers can't be too much - I reckon with an increased attendance, that will more than cover the costs (that's if i'm right about more people coming back to football). Of course there may be North Stand season ticket holders who prefer to sit there, so the club would need to speak to them to gauge opinion i'd imagine

[TopSix]

I am 100% for standing but would not be keen to be herded into an uncovered corner on the west side of the ground. Given the option I would still sit in the North Stand.

I'd must rather stand where the uncovered seats are. I'd like to see the seats taken away though and replaced with terracing.

[lukemackay]

Rip out all the seats in the North Stand and make that terracing. More people would turn up i'm sure. Could be a great atmosphere in there if it was terracing. The cost of taking out the seats and building the terracing barriers can't be too much - I reckon with an increased attendance, that will more than cover the costs (that's if i'm right about more people coming back to football). Of course there may be North Stand season ticket holders who prefer to sit there, so the club would need to speak to them to gauge opinion i'd imagine

id rip out the seats for free

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

I feel that being allowed to stand would significantly depreciate my levels of anticipation, challenge and enjoyment - especially away from home. I am going to feckin sit down on any feckin terraces in protest, encourage and incite others to do so, whilst allowing Peter Paul to photograph the evidence.

[Caley]

The question I would be asking is that, given that there would inevitably be some kind of cost implication, where is a club which is really on the tightest of budgets going to find the money to implement something which is not going to bring in any more cash, given that even the existing 7750 capacity is never filled?

In a scenario where we were the only club to do this for next season, I can see us attracting a lot more away fans to experience standing at a SPL match again as most of these fans have been watching football sitting down for a decade or more. Plus we would also be looking at an extra 750 or so OF fans 3 or 4 times a season. If the non-OF games brought an extra 100 fans on average for the "standing at a match" experience then that's almost 4000 extra away fans over the season @ ?20 average price = nearly ?80000.

We'd be daft not to do this.

[CaleyD]

I have an official club statement that is in the process of being put up on the official website. It provides a bit more reality in terms of what should or should not be expected from what came from the SPL meeting.

[CaleyD]

Article now posted - http://ictfc.com/news/club-news/328-safe-standing-areas

[Alex MacLeod]

In other words its unlikely to happen in the next few seasons.

[Yngwie]

I think I know the answer to this, but is it not possible for existing seating to be left in place and simply designated as a standing area so that people can stand if they want to without getting chucked out?

[Huisdean]

That is my understanding too, County would still have to meet the minimum seeting requirement before considering terracing.

[Alex MacLeod]

I think I know the answer to this, but is it not possible for existing seating to be left in place and simply designated as a standing area so that people can stand if they want to without getting chucked out?

I think there has to be barriers that would stop crowds surging forward. The seat backs would be deemed too low for this. Not sure that the german type seats could be used in our end stands either due to the material of construction not being strong enough to hold them rigid.

[CaleyD]

I think I know the answer to this, but is it not possible for existing seating to be left in place and simply designated as a standing area so that people can stand if they want to without getting chucked out?

I don't think anyone really knows exactly what the full implications of the announcement are. A decision has been made to loosen the rules to allow it to be looked at, but not much more than that has been agreed/decided.

From what I can gather, the SPL would accept any trial involving the kind of seats shown in the article in the image (subject to police and local authority agreement). Any other proposals would need to go the SPL for consideration on a case by case basis...and again be subject to police and local authority approval.

[Charles Bannerman]

As I will be saying in my Sportsview column in the Highland News when it comes out later this afternoon, Caley Thistle's decision not to implement this for the moment is entirely predictable. (I also think it is absolutely correct.) And yes, Ross County would have to provide 6000 covered seats before they could start to provide safe standing areas so it's of little use to them either.

But to return to ICT, it is understandable that a number of fans would like to stand (although we also heard that several wanted to sing but the subsequently provided Singing Section has barely been used.) However in order to meet this demand it is unrealistic to go to the expense of providing safe standing at almost three times the cost per seat compared with those which are already there.

I am interested that "Caley" is of the view that 750 extra OF fans and 100 fans of other clubs would come in as a result of any implementation. Two questions there. How does Caley know this - could he please show us his market research? Also, in addition to the safe standing accommodation he presumably wants in the home end, what would the club do with the 650 safe standing places for visiting fans left unused for the 16 home games per season when the OF are not involved?

The bottom line has to be that Caley Thistle is finding it difficult enough to fund ordinary activities without going to considerable extra expense which is unlikely to bring in any more revenue. The current TCS crowd limit is 7750 which nowadays tends to be approached but no more, and that only for three OF visits. As a result there is also no point in creating extra capacity which would never be used. Nor is it financially realistic to rip out perfectly good seats and replace them with even more expensive safe standing for fans who already use the seats.

The fundamental problem goes back almost 20 years now to when the SPL decided voluntarily to implement what in Englald the Taylor Report caused to become law, and also to insist on a nonsensical 10,000 seats.

ICT can take much or the credit for the reduction of that pie in the sky figure to 6000 but the SPL have this week missed out on a golden opportunity to reduce this further (which would also have helped Ross County.)

So Scottish football is saddled with a gross over provision of seats and with that a number of very disgruntled clubs such as Partick Thistle and St Mirren who have had to go to a lot of expense to no purpose whatsoever.

As a result it seems to me that the SPL has painted itself into a corner on this one and even if it does in principle allow safe standing areas, a lot of clubs won't have the need, the resources or the space to implement them.

I agree that there is a significant desire among fans to stand but it seems to me that the policies of the last 20 years or so are likely to leave that desire largely unrequited.

Edited December 21, 2011 by Charles Bannerman

[Yngwie]

I think there has to be barriers that would stop crowds surging forward.

That's the answer I expected, but personally I've never seen any sort of surge in a seated area and I've never been tempted to do so due to the likelihood of falling flat on my face. In fact, in the thousands of games there have been in the UK where fans stand throughout the game, how many deaths have there been as a result?

And yet when I get on public transport, I often find myself having to stand in a fast moving vehicle without any form of restraint or barrier, an instant away from certain death.

[PaderbornCaley]

I think there has to be barriers that would stop crowds surging forward.

That's the answer I expected, but personally I've never seen any sort of surge in a seated area and I've never been tempted to do so due to the likelihood of falling flat on my face. In fact, in the thousands of games there have been in the UK where fans stand throughout the game, how many deaths have there been as a result?

And yet when I get on public transport, I often find myself having to stand in a fast moving vehicle without any form of restraint or barrier, an instant away from certain death.

If there are 2000 supporters seated behind a goal and their team scores, they all jump up and down, some hugging each other, turning around to the person behind them etc etc. Surely that could create a 'surge'. To get super politically correct, we could look at it the other way. If we are already standing and then score, there is no automatic jump up from the seats. Think of all the knee injuries that could occur from people leaping from their seats. Safe seating areas should be introduced with seat belts so that the chance of knee and back injuries are decresed. Terrible thing is, there's probably more chance of that than proper terracing coming back!