Safe standing

I was pleased to see the agreement of 13 clubs to back a pilot scheme for the reintroduction of safe standing at English football grounds.

Aston Villa were the only Premier League club to back the trial although West Ham have intimated that they would consider it for the Olympic Stadium. The Premier League themselves released a statement opposing the idea.

Other clubs backing the FSF's Safe Standing Campaign are Brentford, Bristol City, Burnley, Cardiff City, Crystal Palace, Derby County, Doncaster Rovers, Hull City, Peterborough United, Watford and AFC Wimbledon as well as the Scottish Premier League.

All-seater stadiums have been compulsory since 1994, although there are still grounds that have terraces in The Championship such as Peterborough's London Road.

The FSF aims to persuade the Government, football authorities and clubs to accept the case for introducing, on a trial basis, limited sections for standing at selected grounds in the stadiums of Premier League and Championship football clubs.

So far 52 MPs have backed an early day motion (EDM) tabled by Roger Godsiff, the MP for Birmingham Hall Green, on October 15 2012.

It calls for the introduction of a pilot of new standing technology - called rail seats - at football grounds.

Rail seats, which are widely used in Germany, are robust metal seats with a high back including a sturdy rail that fans can hold. The seats can fold up flush and be locked between the uprights creating wider clearways than along rows of normal seats.

Aston Villa and Peterborough United have already agreed to a small scale trial of the technology.

This is a safer option than what is currently happening at football grounds where swathes of fans choose to stand during matches, campaigners argue.

It could be a safer way to help manage crowds when spectators do not listen to calls by ground staff and stewards to sit down, they claim.

Football clubs, safety experts, police officers, academics and football supporters came to Westminster today to meet MPs and ask them to support a small-scale trial of safe standing areas in the Premier League and Championship.

Margaret Aspinall is chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group and her son James, 18, was among the 96 people who died at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough Stadium in April 1989,

She believes standing should be unthinkable despite the growing campaign spearheaded by the Football Supporters' Federation (FSF) for safe standing.

The Taylor Report might have made all-seater stadiums compulsory but it did not say that standing was unsafe. I remember leaning against a rail on the old East Terrace at The Valley and technology has moved on a hell of a lot since those days.

While standing is officially banned throughout the Premier League and Championship, the reality is very different.

Week in, week out football supporters stand in their thousands at top level English football, all of them in accommodation that is unfit for purpose and usually to the detriment of other fans who prefer, or are forced, to sit.

Meanwhile technology has moved on apace and we see fans across the globe - in Germany, Norway, Sweden and the USA - standing safely in properly designed and managed areas, paying lower prices and generating better atmospheres. In short, England and Wales are being left behind.