Safe-standing at White Hart Lane

  • The Fighting Cock is a forum for fans of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Here you can discuss Spurs latest matches, our squad, tactics and any transfer news surrounding the club. Registration gives you access to all our forums (including 'Off Topic' discussion) and removes most of the adverts (you can remove them all via an account upgrade). You're here now, you might as well...

    Get involved!

Latest Spurs videos from Sky Sports

So from the the last few pages, do working class people who drink in the pubs around the ground want safe standing because they're worried if they sit down they'll sit on a cock?
 
I was fairly young when all seater stadiums rolled out and I was absolutely delighted standing was ended. It used to be awful at times in the east stand, and when I state “at times” I mean the “bigger” games. It was fine when 17,000 were rolling in for a nothing game on a drab Wednesday night....

But, at those bigger matches the turnstile staff would only stop letting people in when they realised it was time to clock off, £10 got you in no matter what the capacity might or might not have been, there was no regard for the safety of the fans. We were cattle and many fans were happy to play the BSE cow role and they kept em coming.

You would need the good luck of a lottery winner to be standing in the same spot for 90 minutes, or at a barrier point or the end of Aisle, Christ if you got the end of the Aisle for a while game..... It was the law of the jungle back then, faced on a regular basis with bigger, meaner or more pissed than you people, move over you did!

The only thing close to that I have encountered under all seating arrangements is when we had the WHL finale last year and all kinds of absolute tossers found their way into block 31 - clearly without tickets (( That’s a disgrace by the way and something the Club did not do enough to apologise for - those that bunked in were not “fans” and i’ll never forget that dozey scouse lass standing behind us chearfully informing people she had never been to a football game before and got in for a bung on the turnstile or the hygienically challenged prick who stood in front on me in the same Row - pissed of course ))

Back in the “good old days” the drunks were awful (( all drunks are annoying unless you too are drunk)) people would literally piss on others rather than go out to the toilet, the rucks and shoving was always going on and essentially Human decency was a highly questionable concept, honestly it makes me cringe how bad it could be and most of it was driven by poor stadium management, there were simply too many people in sections and no way to verify who should be there and who should be elsewhere. Under Seating conditions you seldom have those problems.

To suggest now that we fans were all hugging each other while singing the Sideboard Song is to ignore the truth. It was unsafe on too many occasions and there is a lot of historic examples of crowd problems that have simply not been as replicated under seating conditions (although I have still seen pockets of ridiculous behaviour at various stadiums including our own)

I feel that any reversion to standing would need to find a way ensure that stewards could keep areas from being overloaded, then it has a potential to be controlled and then be “safe” but how can it be done if it’s not managed and what club will really want £8.75 an hour staff managing the issue?

I feel with a seat you are either in it or not ( in theory at least as let’s be honest we have all had the pissed Cunt on a child’s ticket bundle into our rows to “stand with me mates” despite paying 50% less than we have) the seats create the natural boundary, that’s important with huge groups of people, no seat, no boundary = problems.

So for me, drop the romantic point of view from the debate and focus on the real challenges of crowd management under standing conditions I remain completely against the “safe standing” concept as I do not believe it would be safe, but if there is a way, let’s all hear it.

Now one other and complex thing to consider is have we, as a society, moved on from loutish behaviour at football? Are the current / next generation simply more likely to have a smoothy than 6 pints of Stella and some rancid Chic King in a grease soaked box ? And could thus self govern the areas of standing ? I am not seeing it yet, although I feel cynical in saying that. Apologies if I am.
The reason you're getting panned for this post is because a lot of us feel like we've been here over and again - the same old objections about safe standing come out and every one of them is fruitless. The comments you make are the comments that everyone makes when they haven't actually looked into what safe standing really means. And it's those comments that are holding back the proper discussion over whether or not we should be bringing it in - people asserting a somewhat ignorant viewpoint rather than actually looking at the proposal.

Let me address your points though, as there will be others reading who also are unaware of what we're actually campaigning for.

Turnstile admissions allowing too many in.
Every match now is all-ticket and the automated barriers & search staff can effectively prevent those without a ticket from attending.

Standing in the same spot/being barged out of the way. This will not be different from seating, as one critical difference between terraces & safe standing is that you do have an allocated seat - it's just that it's locked upright, for you to stand in front of. In this regard it is in fact identical to the current situation whereby people stand in front of their regular seat. There is no new risk of you being pushed away from your "seat" because everyone in the area will have their own.

The average football fan's behviour. If you honestly believe that the demographic of the average fan at Tottenham hasn't changed beyond recognition over the last 30 years then I'll struggle to reason with you. Of course, there are still a decent number of loutish types who'll be tanked up before the game and cause problems - but they're a minority now and, possibly more importantly, what's considered acceptable has move on greatly. The general intention from stewards is to err towards caution; if someone was to attempt to piss anywhere other than the toilets they'd be kicked out without question. An you know what? Those "louts" will likely all be in the standing area, not the seating areas you'll be in.

In fact, I think it can all be summed up by these two points:

1. Safe standing is NOT open terraces - every person has an allocated space in front of a seat. Every single row has a rail the full length aisle to aisle.

2. Standing in rail-seat areas is much safer than the current situation of standing in seated areas.

3. Allocated standing areas will greatly reduce instances of standing in seated areas.

4. If you don't want to stand or have someone stand in front of you, don't go in the standing area...

J4cS7TF.jpg


EgdtwJK.png


DC0k2mJ.png


hEch9o3.png
 
Strange, I just left a post but it didn't register, so here goes again.

The attending football fan is someone who attends matches, unlike most forum members. You chose to replay to a post I edited which said "footballer".

The remark I made regarding transsexuals was a joke, but regrettably there is a generation who have spent so much time on Facemouth and Twatter they don't understand humour. That said, I do actually believe that transsexuals use up a lot of NHS time and money, and should either learn to live with the cards they were dealt, or finance the treatment themselves.

Forum members on some sites do not reflect the vast majority of football supporters that attend games. Pop into the Brewers post match and tell anyone in there you think multiculturalism is a workable concept, diversity is brilliant, or the LGBT community are normal, and there is a good chance you will be hung from a lamp post.
How the fuck you keep spouting your idiotic bollocks get banned and are then allowed back here, is of the great mysteries of the universe.

You're a cunt.
 
Last edited:
Why do some people not understand the concept of 'safe standing'?

You have an allocated place to stand - it's no fucking different to sitting in your allocated seat.

Only ones who'll miss out are the kids, as they're too small. Not everyone wants to stand, that's fine. But one whole stand dedicated to safe standing is fine in my book.
 
The absurdity of it all is that you go to a music gig & you have a choice of whether to stand or have a seat. As long as they don't overcrowd the standing area, everyone is safe to enjoy the gig as they would prefer. Football should be no different
 
it's not something you need to worry about. You can stay at home, watch the games on SKY, drink your Coke, eat your crisps, and go on Facebook. Sorted
I'm coming up to 70 and I too find your opinions on people who aren't the same as you to be utterly reprehensible. Don't try to associate older people with your warped philosophies. Many of us have learned humanity, acceptance and understanding through age. Clearly, you haven't yet, but there's still time. Perhaps you should save your prejudice for Mailonline, where you'll be among friends, until you find time to sit back and ask yourself why it is that you have such an irrational hatred of transgender people. I suppose in years gone by you supported 'queerbashing' and before that, your ancestors threw stones at 'witches'?

On the other hand - and less importantly - I totally agree with you on atmosphere in grounds and safe standing, if not on the general opinions of the majority of 'attending fans'. I usually find them to be normal, in my view (you'd call them something derogatory).

Like the car in your avatar. Is it yours?
 
LOL. It's the man in the street that has right wing views. Liberal views tend to be held by the middle class, who don't actually have to live amongst the people they defend, BBC employees, council management, and teachers, who are just a bunch of nut cases only
A black fella definitely knobbed your wife, didn't he?
 
Strange, I just left a post but it didn't register, so here goes again.

The attending football fan is someone who attends matches, unlike most forum members. You chose to replay to a post I edited which said "footballer".

The remark I made regarding transsexuals was a joke, but regrettably there is a generation who have spent so much time on Facemouth and Twatter they don't understand humour. That said, I do actually believe that transsexuals use up a lot of NHS time and money, and should either learn to live with the cards they were dealt, or finance the treatment themselves.

Forum members on some sites do not reflect the vast majority of football supporters that attend games. Pop into the Brewers post match and tell anyone in there you think multiculturalism is a workable concept, diversity is brilliant, or the LGBT community are normal, and there is a good chance you will be hung from a lamp post.

You're a despicable piece of shit. You DON'T speak on behalf of Spurs fans.

Fuck off and support the Chavs or Millwall, you'll feel more at home there.

:dembelefingers:
 
What really gets me, is that the Hillsborough people who cry foul whenever standing is mentioned don't realise that had safe standing been in place, the disaster would not have happened.
 
I posted in General Football about this. Just copying and pasting it over, like.

The short-sightedness around this issue continues. There is zero political appetite to introduce safe-standing, and I can't see that changing for decades in England. It's stupid though, because the current system of turning a blind eye to standing is less safe than rail seating. I don't think going to any football match in England is unsafe nowadays, but if there was going to be something that was going to cause a problem it would be areas where there is standing but the stadium isn't designed for that which would be the obvious potential flashpoint.

The negative attitude towards football fans continues to persist, and I guess things like how the England fans behaved in Amsterdam doesn't exactly help our image in the eyes of people who have never been to a football match in their life.

By the way, other than non-league grounds which allow standing I've been to games which have it in the Bundesliga and the positive effect it has on the atmosphere is obvious. (I also went to a game in Reykjavik where you could stand, although as the attendance is quite low it has the feel of a lower tier game. Not their fault though, barely anyone lives there!)
 
LFC, the Spirit of Shankly, and HFSG (who are the H'borough group) all overwhelmingly support Safe standing (the last fans vote was 88% in favour)

Understandably there are a few vocal fans who suffered loss at H'borugh who will never agree, but that's emotive and should have no bearing on a rational decision that effects millions of fans ...

The fact is the Taylor Report blamed the use of standing via a whole, now shown to be incorrect, series of spurious arguments ...

Since the Taylor Report we know now that the cause of the tragedy was 100% down to fences ... yes the police response was slow, yes there were too many standing fans in the section ... but ... if there had been no fences, there would have been no issue ...

FFS - we were there just a few years before and if the police/fans hadn't opened/broken down the fences and allowed us around the pitch, we'd be the victims ... how easily that's forgotten ...

What was the response to the near Spurs tragedy? build stronger fences .... right there lies the blame ... who was responsible for that? it's not even considered in the Taylor report ...

The Taylor report needs throwing away and a new report on the 'safety' of crowd standing commissioned, it will happen but maybe not in my lifetime ...
 
Last edited:
Blimey ... just maybe there is a chance this will happen ...

Safe-standing: Government begins talks over possible review
Major breakthrough for safe standing after government talks
Safe standing boost for Premier League and Championship teams

The press seem to be getting behind this (at last) after the daft 'nobody wants it' response two months ago suddenly Tracey Crouch is falling all over herself to hold meetings before the 'debate' on the 25th June ... I guess she doesn't want to look a complete idiot all over again ...

"The sports minister has not shut the door to fans keen on standing sections being introduced but it is important that all the evidence and viewpoints are considered extremely carefully."

Those nice shiny new seats in the South Stand could all be on e-bay soon ... lol .....
This is Labour's Shadow Sports Minister. Get your survey responses in!
 
I also post on political sites, and do my best to find one's with left wing posters. I particularly like this site because it is so totally unrepresentative of genuine supporters. Honestly, getting abuse just makes me laugh, you would probably be better off being nice to me if you want me to leave.
Genuine supporters. As categorised by your cabal of gammon in the pub.
Astonishing arrogance.
 
Back
Top Bottom