Liverpool fans banned at Villa Park, return of standing is a must
Over the past few weeks we have seen an issue arise on the message boards about the stewarding in the North Stand lower and this has sparked the whole debate over safe standing. As a football fan who reads this you will be aware that in polls of supporters the vast majority support Safe standing. The last one in the People and supported by the Football Supporters Federation showed 80% support (link).
The whole issue is that in our case Birmingham City Council appear after 13 years to be attacking a problem that exists because the laws are unworkable and too large a percentage of people are against it. Yes I admit I prefer to stand at games and yes at times I do it because in my view the law is there to be broken.
The issue is that this is a political descion as the law enforces the FLA (link) to actively take measures against supporters who so called persietently stand. The law is enacted by parliament and this is where I believe we should focus all our energies and thus I have sent this letter to nine Birmingham MP’s (Andrew Mitchell, Sion Simon, Claire Short, Liam Byrne, Gisela Stuart, Khalid Mahmood, Steve McCabe, Lynne Jones & Richard Burden) who have not signed EDM motion 101 (link). I have copied in the two MP’s who have signed the EDM – John Hemming and Roger Godsiff
Let the MP’s know what they think and as an open letter with their permission I will print their replies.
As an MP who represents the City of Birmingham where my team Aston Villa are obviously based you may have heard rumbles of discontent within the fan base about the activities of stewards at the club at the North Stand end of the club.
The debates on two fans forums can be found here
http://www.heroesandvillains.info/discuss/viewtopic.php?p=1336081#1336081
http://www.villatalk.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=58189&start=60
http://www.heroesandvillains.info/discuss/viewtopic.php?t=35906&start=0
We are lucky at Villa to have a member of the board (General Krulak) who speaks to us on the fourms and has explained the actions of the stewards towards people standing in seated area is being dictated by the Council as the licensing authority. This has now led to the situation where 600 tickets for the Liverpool fans for the game on the 29th December and this is simply not fair as most away fans stand at Villa Park and I believe on this matter no matter of club allegiance we should all support each other.
The point of thise-mail from a concerned fan, I represent no one but myself (but according to the last poll 80% of football fans agree with me) is to find out your point of view towards this issue which is a concern for a large number of your constituents no matter who they support. In an election year I believe this should be an issue up for debate and as you know the Liberal Democrats support the proposal for safe standing as Don Foster said in 2008
“But we cannot ignore the large numbers of fans who want to stand, and are doing so in seating areas, despite the existing regulations and the danger it causes.
“Given the seeming impossibility of policing existing regulation and recognising that some passionate fans want to be able to jump up and down when watching their teams each week then we need to look at technologies that allow them to do that safely.”
We know from the experience in Germany that the new technologies in massive standing areas like at Dortmund with 81,000 capacity that it is very safe, examples below
http://www.truststfc.co.uk/img/standing.jpg
http://bundesliga.theoffside.com/files/2007/09/1393331090_31feb1547d.jpg
http://www.stadionwelt.de/wmspecial/templates/stadionguides/dortmund/images/innen_06.jpg
You will be aware of EDM 101 which has been signed by 145 members of all parties including local MP’s John Hemming and Roger Godsiff, who realise the vital importance of this issue to many millions of football fans.
I run the Aston Villa blog www.astonvilla-views.com and this is an open letter to you and if you reply and agree I would like to print your responses on the site.
I thank you in advance for your time in reading this e-mail and await your reply in anticipation.
Yours Sincerely,
Ian Robathan
Pingback: Blues fans banned at Villa Park – Support the SUSD campaign « Aston Villa News and Views