To stand or not to stand that is the question!
Having just heard that the Hamilton game is off due to lack of covers on the pitches I am wondering if I should take a wee trip in the Barcelona rain and look for match!
This wee serving of paella and bovril is from last weeks match against Falkirk! A lovely 2-2 draw that sounded positive from Raith in the first half with a 2 goal advantage. But in usual style it was not meant to be and we got a 2-2 draw in the end.
PLEASE SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL MATCH DAY PROGRAMME
RAITH 2 - 2 FALKIRK
JAN 2012
Paella and Bovril
Anyone who has visited Barcelona and has taken a baby step off the tourist routes surely would have noticed that the city has a fair few football pitches, on top of car parks and “on top” of one of the main motorways round the city! Well, when I say football pitches, they aren’t the grassy fields with the massive white council goalpost that I used as a kid but purpose built artificial surfaced centres. The main reason for this being that there are no grassy fields in the centre of the city. The heat and lack of regular rainfall takes care of that. It is very difficult to keep grass lush in parts of Catalonia, but pretty easy to care for these basic centres. Them being a couple of kitted out porta-cabins, a bar/reception area and a number of multi-use 5-aside pitches.
I live within 10 mins reach of 2 of these sports centres and at least 3 are near my office so I am never far away from potential live entertainment. And you know what, there is nothing like a wee bit of live football to brighten your day, and what was the best bit, was standing to watch. Also one of our little walks along the beach my boyfriend and I heard the sound of football match, well we thought it was a football match. We went over to watch. We were surprised to find an American football game being played! It was a fun thing to see; I had forgotten how much I loved standing at the football. Even if it was American football!
During my many years as a season ticket holder I stood around Stark’s Park, behind the goal, nest to the tunnel, next to the dug out. My friends and I enjoyed getting into the ground early enough to claim your spot. You had your match day standing buddies to exchange away ground horror stories (we all remember the old Brockville and the crumbly bits, now only a turnstile next to a supermarket remains). Then we had to pick our seats, the old pitch was no more. If you wanted to play with the big boys, you had to have the seats to do it. Health and Safety was taking on football, and at the time rightly won. Even though Scotland was not bound by law to accept the recommendations of the Taylor report (post Hillsborough) it did what was right.
But now it might change. Supporter demand has made the 12 top clubs in the country to think about relaxing standing rules. Neil Doncaster (chief executive of SPL) said to BBC sport “Whenever we talk to supporters about what they'd like to see, safe standing comes up as one of the things they'd like to see.” But do they? Clubs invested in stadiums to comply with the rules. At a recent Celtic board meeting it is reported that a fan raised concerns about “ripping out” perfectly good seating, they were jeered!
So safe standing is wanted, but what is safe standing? A good example can be found at Hanover, Rail Seating, but what is rail seating Rail seats replace the current plastic seating in stadiums, with each chair having a high back which serves as a rail. Each seat folds up and is locked, with clubs able to unlock each chair when an all-seater arena is required, for example in European matches. So yes for wee clubs it sounds like a massive expense but maybe it is still a step forward, or maybe even backwards. However I do know I loved standing at the football, but in some of those old places I would still choose to sit!
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