Obviously being a follower of Devon's premier club I would be able to take advantage of the finest covered terrace in English football so the issue should be moot, similarly for two of the signees, AFC Womble and Brentford, they both still have standing, the problem is that so many clubs have had their day in the sun and are now sliding their way to oblivion that watching away is so often ruined by having to sit in some freezing cold, three quarters empty monolith to better times.
I hate sitting at a game, it's just wrong, I don't mind seats being provided for old'uns, gimps and plastics, just allow those of us who want to stand, to stand, preferably with a nice roof and a tea hut but those sort of luxuries are optional.
Terracing is not inherently dangerous so why hem everybody in with rows of barriers and seats that nobody wants ? When segregation and capacities are enforced the design of the Bank is perfectly adequate, FFS, the current capacity of the Bank is less than 4,000, back in the day you would have had twice times as many crammed in there, couldn't happen in these days of H&S and people's insistence on 'personal space', but imho football was real in them days.
I spent a lot of my week ends in the 70s and 80s trekking around many of the country's biggest and busiest grounds without ever seeing anybody seriously hurt on a terrace in the absence of hooliganism, bear in mind that back in the heady days for the hoolies there was no segregation at any level, all seater stadia was a licence to print money for certain football luminaries and was always more to do with money than safety, and therein lies the problem, well two problems actually as I have just heard on the radio that the families of the Hillsborough victims have getting their two penneth in early doors, terracing didn't kill the 96, there were plenty of reasons they died, one of them was not the lack of plastic seats. The most ridiculous part of the whole debate is that every week end, at grounds up and down the country, tens of thousands choose to stand in seating areas with the clubs accepting that they do not have the ability to make them sit, that can be a problem for those stuck in the middle who wish to sit, if the standers had another place to be the problem would go away.
The argument will not be made, too many people in power have too much of a vested interest in the status quo, can you boys actually see JB incorporating standing into the Mayflower rebuild so that the wide open swathes of empty green plastic in the rest of the ground becomes even more pronounced than it is now ? I remember well spending some pretty hairy 90 minutes on that particular piece of real estate back when the "Real Devon Derby" was not segregated, never saw anyone get seriously hurt mind.
On a positive note I should wish you boys well as you get your annual opportunity to partake of the fine standing facilities for visiting fans at Sid James on Saturday.
