By Dave Woodhall
There are few things in football more emotive than the subject of terracing. This week’s launch by the Football Supporters Federation of an online petition is the latest attempt to bring back standing at major grounds.
However, despite such a reintroduction having the approval of over 90% of fans according to the latest survey, it has little chance of succeeding. Terraces in the top two divisions of English football (the top flight in Scotland) were banished thanks to the Taylor Report into the Hillsborough disaster of 1989, and that one word – Hillsborough – remains the single biggest reason why the new campaign is as futile as it would have been all those years ago.
Anyone who has taken an interest in the causes of the tragedy will know that the reasons why 96 people died on that fateful day are many – fences, the unsafe design of the ground, insufficient turnstiles, poor police & stewarding and most of all, a command of the matchday operation by Chief Inspector David Duckinfield that was criminally negligent. Football supporters of the time must also take some responsibility; it was our attitudes that partly led to the introduction of fences and an approach to policing that was solely concerned with security at the expense of safety. But the fact remains that although the majority of deaths took place on a terrace, it was not terracing that caused the disaster. To say so is like blaming the M6 for a drunk driver crashing their car while exceeding the speed limit in poor weather. Unfortunately, in such cases logic usually takes second place to emotion. Every argument can be won, every point scored, but the Hillsborough Families Support Group (for whom in every other instance I have the utmost admiration) can speak out against terracing and the debate is lost.
Terraces now would be a completely different design to those which were in use in 1989. The huge expanses of concrete at the Holte End or the North Bank are a thing of the past. Today’s safe standing areas in Germany, for example, are the result of modern technology and designed with safety paramount. But however impressive they may be, and however much they add to the atmosphere of a game, I can’t imagine the time will come when they are an option at a British football ground. The clubs and the football authorities may pay lip service to the idea of standing, but they can point to increased crowds in the post-Taylor report era as justification for ultimately retaining all-seater stadia, even though such increases are down to many more factors than simply the eradication of terraces. A terrace ticket would also have to be cheaper than one for a seat. In the hyper-commercial world of English football, such a thought is tantamount to heresy.
The last word in this renewed debate was spoken by Sports Minister Hugh Robertson. Despite saying he would listen to the supporters’ case for terraces to be brought back, he later added that in the case of a further tragedy or crowd disturbance on a terrace, “The minister’s head would be on a spike on Tower Bridge before he could draft a resignation letter.” And that, sadly, is why such a move will not happen in the foreseeable future. However small the risk, no-one in authority is prepared to take it.