After years of lobbying by football fans across Britain The Premier League has taken a gigantic step towards endorsing the principle by announcing that is asking all 20 clubs for their opinions on safe standing. Outlawed in the top two Divisions since the Taylor Report findings in 1990 following the Hillsborough disaster, the Premier League have whenever asked always backed away from discussing safe standing as a concept that it would endorse or seek to introduce. However, it now appears to be willing to discuss the matter and has written to all 20 Premier League clubs asking for their views. The story was broken by The Mail and you can read it here.
Football fan Jon Darch who has been instrumental in running the safestanding campaign that has been at the forefront of the lobbying campaign has written an open letter to supporters, which we have reproduced below. If you would like to see areas designed for safe standing introduced at St James’ Park then please follow Jon’s advice and make your feelings known to the club.
"You may recall that a few years ago the Football League carried out a similar exercise. 77% of its clubs mandated the League's executive team as a result to lobby government for safe standing trials and to speak to the Sports Ground Safety Authority to try to get rail seating approved. It took the League a while, but a process is now in place whereby some EFL clubs can apply to install rail seats.
So these things can produce results.
That's why it's important that all EPL clubs are urged to respond positively to the letter that they've been sent by Richard Scudamore's team.
I've not seen it, so can't tell you exactly what it says. Going by that article, however, it sounds as though it asks for the clubs' views on various aspects of safe standing and also whether they would be interested in their ground acting as a pilot site.
I do know that some EPL clubs are definitely keen to run a pilot and so I'm sure that they will make that known. Whether your club is at that stage yet, or not, it would be useful all the same if you could contact them and encourage them to indicate support for safe standing in their reply (even at the most conservative level, just to say that they have no objection to other clubs running pilots and would watch further developments with interest). Hopefully, though, they will be much more enthusiastic than that!
So, that's it. Do please make contact at your club with whomever it is that you normally speak to about safe standing issues and let them know that you're hoping that they send back a positive reply.
Jon Darch"
http://www.safestandingroadshow.co.uk
http://www.fsf.org.uk/campaigns/safe-standing/what-does-safe-standing-look-like/
Football fan Jon Darch who has been instrumental in running the safestanding campaign that has been at the forefront of the lobbying campaign has written an open letter to supporters, which we have reproduced below. If you would like to see areas designed for safe standing introduced at St James’ Park then please follow Jon’s advice and make your feelings known to the club.
"You may recall that a few years ago the Football League carried out a similar exercise. 77% of its clubs mandated the League's executive team as a result to lobby government for safe standing trials and to speak to the Sports Ground Safety Authority to try to get rail seating approved. It took the League a while, but a process is now in place whereby some EFL clubs can apply to install rail seats.
So these things can produce results.
That's why it's important that all EPL clubs are urged to respond positively to the letter that they've been sent by Richard Scudamore's team.
I've not seen it, so can't tell you exactly what it says. Going by that article, however, it sounds as though it asks for the clubs' views on various aspects of safe standing and also whether they would be interested in their ground acting as a pilot site.
I do know that some EPL clubs are definitely keen to run a pilot and so I'm sure that they will make that known. Whether your club is at that stage yet, or not, it would be useful all the same if you could contact them and encourage them to indicate support for safe standing in their reply (even at the most conservative level, just to say that they have no objection to other clubs running pilots and would watch further developments with interest). Hopefully, though, they will be much more enthusiastic than that!
So, that's it. Do please make contact at your club with whomever it is that you normally speak to about safe standing issues and let them know that you're hoping that they send back a positive reply.
Jon Darch"
http://www.safestandingroadshow.co.uk
http://www.fsf.org.uk/campaigns/safe-standing/what-does-safe-standing-look-like/
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