Stand or Sit??

RE: Stand or Sit?? I was that man

Hi Judd, nice talking to you and please be assured I didn't like falling out with a fellow barnsley fan, however, a couple of points on this incident specifically and then in general on your discussion.

The man was standing up everytime the ball went down the right wing, strange as he was sat on the halfway line at the front of the east stand upper and had a perfect view. Five mins prior I quietly tapped him on the shoulder and asked him politely to sit down. He tutted and stared at me. When he did it again I shouted at him to sit down, but was not threatening and did not swear as he had young children with him. As in fact I had, with my son and nephew both 12 yrs. Not only had he blocked my view but theirs aswell. Also with me was my cousin who is partially sighted and follows the game with the aid of the club's commentary earphones. If he loses track of the game it can take him some time to get back into it and this man was in his way also. My cousin pays a significant premium to sit in those (exec) seats for that reason and I know that man does not, he sits in an empty seat. This is fine as long as he respects others, hence i declined your suggestion to have the stewards throw him out. I'm 6'2" and if I stood up to see round him that would affect others behind me, one of which i know to ill. If we were in the Ponty or north side of east end lower I would expect people to stand up as they obviously like to generate an atmosphere, no probs but it has got to be horses for courses.

On a more general point, I am (sadly) a good bit older than you and can remember why we've finished up with all seater stadia. I started watching barnsley in early 70's but started going away in 1979 promotion season, no probs. but by 1981 we were in the old 2nd division and football grounds were very different places. I remember watching reds at norwich and leicester inside a cage, having been frog marched around by cops outside. remember being squashed by police horses at bramhall lane and millmoor (that was not far off our own mini hillsboro). Me and a mate being Chased by 2 dozen Charlton fans across a railway track, barnsley fans being knived at anfield. Saw it coming and in one spell at end of 1985 season, millwall riot at luton, bradford, heysel and birmingham disasters (15 yr old killed by falling wall in leeds riot) prompted lord justice popplewell report by government, probably as an alternative to shutting grounds altogether, which gathered pace after (sadly inevitable) hillsboro. in 1989. We still have the hooligans but rarely get trouble in grounds which are much more pleasant places. The irony is that man probably wouldn't take his grandkids if it weren't all seater.
That's my view anyway, if standing came back, what else would we unleash on ourselves?
Ps. I did stand up for ian hulme, but only when ball had gone dead---some exceptions are needed!!!1 take care mate

 

Tis true.... nt

 

My original post was not meant to be a dig or anything... was just meant to start as discussion for stand or sit?? i luved standing on the crates in the ponty end wen i 1st started goin down 2 the well!!

On reflection now i can defo see your point & i knew i should av kept my mouth shut at the time!! but all i heard was u shouting at a 'old fella' with his grandsons (or thats wot it looked like) n i wud not like that 2 have happened 2 my grandad if he was still around!!

Lesson learnt 4 me - ignore wots goin on in the stand n concentrate on the game!! After all its none of my business!!

Probably cu down at the well again sumtime!!

 

Sit while I'm shitting, stand to wipe it.

Hope that helps.

 

I can also remember the 70s

But I have to disagree with you about bringing back standing at football. I can remember the cages and the fighting etc, but times have changed. I think it is time now to bring back safe standing areas, particularly the Ponty End - where you rightly say that people tend to stand anyway. The Ipswich game just before the FA Cup semi-final on a tuesday being a prime example, the whole Ponty stood up for the majority of the match and the atmosphere in there was electric - and there was no trouble.

Hillsbrough and Bradford were both tragic events but were completely unrelated other than that they occurred in old stadia which had serious (but completely fixable) structural problems. Neither of these were the result of crowd misbehaviour - except for some contribution maybe from some Liverpool fans arriving late and some apparently without tickets. Neither of these events were caused by standing areas, in fact the Bradford fire was in a seating area. It could be argued that Haysel was caused by standing fans, but in reality it was again caused by a crumbling old statdium and a handful of nutters bent on causing trouble.

Remember that before the East Stand was rebuilt, Oakwell was 90% standing and there were very few occasions when there was trouble even with 30,000 people in there. Leagues 1 and 2 have standing areas and as far as I know (Millwall excepted) there is never any trouble.

Going back to the incident you were involved in, it sounds like you acted responsibly and the other bloke was a t*sser - you're always going to get them - I had one almost in the back of my car this morning on the M42. That's life.

 

I agree that like minded fans should be able to find a way to get together but the sulking bit is a ridiculous comment. How would you like it if you were getting on a bit or for other physical reasons were not as agile as some and you had no choice but to sit and then every 2 minutes some feckers in front are up and down all the time and you were missing key moments of the game.Theres some poor old guy near us and by the time hes up unless its a prolonged attack he has invariably missed whats happening. I agree that certain parts of the game you are naturally out of your seat but some do take it to ridiculous extremes. Like it or not at ther moment its an all seater stadium and like it or not fowk should be considerate to fellow fans. And yes I was there in the standing days and enjoyed it.