July 1 2001

Crystal Palace

Jamesey, a Palace supporter since the 1950s, gives his view on the great standing debate...

I was recently asked by a young fan (19 years old), writing a story, to give my views on the sitting versus standing debate which has long occupied acres of space on this website's boards.

He said he couldn't actually find anyone to support the sitting lobby because all his sources of material came from fans in his own age group.

So, admirably, Sam sought my view with the aim of giving fair-mindedness and objectivity to his article for Palace Echo fanzine.

I don't intend to be objective here because there isn't any logical argument for standing in a stadium designed for a seated audience.

It is dangerous, uncomfortable and utterly pointless and the safety authorities were quite right to threaten closure of the areas where supporters with a dinosaur mentality flout the regulations.

I stood on the terraces in the cold and rain when I was a youngster because I couldn't afford to sit.

Now it seems that teenagers, who seem to acquire expensive season tickets without any problem, wish to go marching backwards.

It also shows extreme rudeness to spectators behind you who may not be so young or nimble and who wish to see a game without having to stand or bob up and down every couple of minutes.

At the Watford away game in April, I was sitting happily in the Vicarage Road away end. Just after the start of the second half, three idiots arrived from nowhere and without any concern for my view stood in front of me.

My first reaction was to tell them to **** off before I banged their heads together.

But my brawling days are long gone - never were, in fact - so I politely asked them to move which, to their credit, they did.

One of the most miserable experiences I have endured in the past 20 years was standing on the open-to-the-weather away terrace at Fulham last season - a rotten view and frozen in the sleet.

Talk about back to the bad old days. And Craven Cottage a Premiership ground?

Why does football have to be so backward-looking? It is a branch of the entertainment industry.

People don't go to the theatre, cinema, opera, ballet, or practically anything I can think of and stand. Or if you want to be specifically sporting, not many people stand and watch tennis, athletics, cricket.

Even big golf tournaments have massive stands at every green. And, in my view, the increase in all-seated stadia, combined with better CCTV technology and more sophisticated policing, has been a big influence in the decline of the plague of hooliganism during the '90s.

I have personally seen the game I love nearly destroyed by thuggery and destructiveness in the '70s and '80s.

In my book, anything that helped cut out that cancer deserves our full support.

Email Jamesey with any of your comments to Jevans3704@aol.com