Popular Post canarykiller Posted September 19, 2013 Popular Post Share Posted September 19, 2013 Hi All! I've had a chat with the mods and they are happy for me to start a new thread, even though on a search I can see that you have all been talking about this quite recently. Some of you may already be aware of this from other forums/social media or from meeting me before the Newcastle game In short - if we can provide proper evidence that Villa fans want safe standing areas, the club have indicated that they are willing to step up their campaign to get it going, but as it's going to be pretty uphill for them given the significant opposition they will face from many quarters, they aren't going to do unless they know it's what we want. There's a survey at the bottom of this article - but please read the article, & look at the little video if you can, because I have had a few responses that clearly demonstrate that people haven't been paying attention! Safe Standing Supporting the choice to stand or sit Aston Villa FC have become the first Premiership club to publicly back the introduction of “Safe Standing”. However, the current facilities and ground regulations mean that Aston Villa cannot allow fans to persistently stand in seated areas during the match. In fact, the club are regularly threatened with closure of sections of the ground if they cannot control persistent standing in seated areas. Sections of The Holte are under threat, and some away allocations (both ours and away fans at Villa Park) have been reduced. Aston Villa FC know that many people want the choice to stand or sit. Currently we are in a no-mans land. The people who want to stand are told to sit down, the people who want to sit still have people standing in their way, and the stewards, who come to work to help people, find themselves locked in pointless arguments with fans who basically just want to enjoy the game. The club has no easy task taking this forward, so they want to know whether YOU, the fans, want them to invest in a continuing campaign for a “safe standing” trial area at Villa Park. I am an ordinary season ticket holder from L7, and having got pretty frustrated during the Rotherham match, when the ever lively Brigada fans were taken out from behind me, I felt the time had come for me to try and do something. So I contacted the club, and I started this survey last Saturday before the Newcastle game with their blessing. I put together an information sheet, and a short survey which sets out to show whether there are any particular groups of people who are put off by standing. I took it to Family Fun Day because its important to find out what young Villa families think about this. What I found was 100% support for safe standing. Parents don't want to stand up with their kids, but were still in favour because they want their kids to enjoy watching Aston Villa the way they did when they were younger, but of course, safely. A safe standing area is nothing like an old style terrace. It consists of barriers only 2 steps apart, with a designated, ticketed space within which you can stand safely, without being subjected to any surges or over-crowding issues. Safe standing areas have seats which are bolted in an upright position for most games, but can be released to allow seating for matches or events which require it. Of course - seated areas would still exist alongside this, just as they always did. This is what it looks like..... There is loads of further information, pictures, videos, myth busters athttp://www.fsf.org.uk/campaigns/safe-standing/ Aston Villa are proposing that the first trial is of just 256 seats, which are situated in the area by the corner flag, in the lower left Holte End, next to The Trinity Road Stand. This area has been chosen because it does not adversely impact on the sight lines of those who will remain in seated areas in the rest of the ground whilst the trial is conducted, and is small enough to be accepted and get us started. If it is successful, it could be expanded. Please let us know your views, positive and negative, I'll be in the Holte Suite doing a paper survey before the Man City game, & I'll be in other areas in the weeks to come....... or just fill this in on line for me.... Remember, this is a survey, not a petition, whichever side of the argument you're on, get your voice heard, I have already got 100 paper surveys and nearly 300 online so it's rolling - so join the debate and lets have a proper conversation.... http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5BSLL6G Thank you amfy x 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted September 19, 2013 Moderator Share Posted September 19, 2013 Filled in a form on Saturday, but I'd just like to add best wishes for this. The current situation is limiting and slightly bonkers, and anything that can improve on that, or see if it could be improved via trials is a good thing. Good on you and good on the club. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canarykiller Posted September 19, 2013 Author Share Posted September 19, 2013 Thanks Blandy! A couple of early issues raised by your mods.... It appears the is sometimes still a problem loading page 2. This is a problem - because thats the bit where you vote on the issue of standing! It has improved from the start where we lost 4 of the first 8 surveys - the data leakage is now running at about 6%. I have been told that if you keep clicking 'next' it will load eventually! If it doesn't it is best to try and go again - it'll probably work the second time, and we won't be double counting, as the surveys that don't reach page 2 don't tell us anything so we will discard any attempts which don't make the second page! I'm sorry it's not perfect, but I am just an enthusiastic amateur with a survey monkey - so roll with me if you can. Secondly - the question around client references is clearly optional as I didn't want people not filling the survey in because they couldn't be bothered to dig out their reference. However, both here and VV have raised some doubts about this that I honestly hadn't considered. We put it in place as an alternative to asking for an address or an email, to help us verify the data and show we hadn't just sat there making a load of responses up. Several of you will be in Villa supporting families, posting from the same IP address, others could post from home and work to up the vote - so the data is open to question/corruption. The client ref provides some degree of evidence that we have actually surveyed real people - especially on the paper one, where I could have just sat down and tried out 300 different styles of handwriting! It has been pointed out to me that when we are all trying to book our tickets for the FA Cup Final next year, there could be someone being told their client reference has already been used - and they will be looking at me! Someone else has pointed out that it could give me access to your Villa cash - which I really wish I had thought of before I booked my Spurs tickets! All I can say is that the data is password protected and I am the only person outside the club who has access to it. I honestly haven't even thought about your references till it was brought up with me, and if you could see all of your comments - you'd know why! Some of them are absolute poetry, nearly all of them are well thought out and argued - I would love to publish a book of the best of them! It is up to you whether you want to trust me with it or leave it. I'd genuinely not thought of all this stuff - as I say, just an enthusiastic amateur - Definitely fallible. The main thing is, I have the beginnings of something we could genuinely do something with here - so please just fill in the bits you want to - and add your voice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeyp102 Posted September 19, 2013 Share Posted September 19, 2013 Vote cast, second page had to press next about 4 times to go through. Good luck with it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brommy Posted September 19, 2013 Share Posted September 19, 2013 Vote cast, second page had to press next about 4 times to go through. Good luck with it Ditto the above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KjParton Posted September 19, 2013 Share Posted September 19, 2013 Big thumbs up for this! Done an online survey and will pop into the Holte Suite before City at home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canarykiller Posted September 20, 2013 Author Share Posted September 20, 2013 Thank you! Glad to be getting the ball rolling with Villa Talk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyBM Posted September 20, 2013 Share Posted September 20, 2013 i for one dont agree with it, sorry, in this modern age game, and the money that football clubs 'earn', they can at least provide their supporters with seating for the 2 hours being on their premises. health and safety has to play a major factor in this, us villa supporters may well be sensible and ooze class, but some clubs around the country dont, and you cant have one rule for one, and another for someone else, what would happen if an accident occured? im all for jumping up with joy/frustration or that moment when your bum leaves the seat and you slowly raise as a goal scoring opportunity is approaching, but all standing is in the past. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canarykiller Posted September 20, 2013 Author Share Posted September 20, 2013 Hi Andy! No-one is talking about taking ALL the seats away! We're talking about choice. At the moment you have a seat to sit on, but half of the time you can't sit on it because someone who prefers to stand has stood in your way. Let the people who want to stand go somewhere else in the ground and stand, so that you can sit. It's a win win! However - if you don't agree with it, please fill in the survey and say so. I do want to hear from all sides of the debate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyBM Posted September 20, 2013 Share Posted September 20, 2013 i wont be filling any survey out but i do see what youre saying, however paying customers should have a right to sit anywhere in the stadium they choose without having their view hindered by somebody who has no regard for other people, it has to be either all standing or all seating, and well, seating, is the safer and more suitable option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canarykiller Posted September 20, 2013 Author Share Posted September 20, 2013 Andy, If you would like it to stay all seating, you need to fill in the survey, because if everyone who shares your opinion does not fill in the survey, it will look like everyone wants standing. It takes 5 minutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KjParton Posted September 20, 2013 Share Posted September 20, 2013 i wont be filling any survey out but i do see what youre saying, however paying customers should have a right to sit anywhere in the stadium they choose without having their view hindered by somebody who has no regard for other people, it has to be either all standing or all seating, and well, seating, is the safer and more suitable option. I'm keen to have a debate here - i'd quite like to know why you think it has to be all standing or all seated? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugeley Villa Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 All seater staduims has killed off atmosphere at football games, hopefully one day their will be a large section of standing at grounds, its proven that you can have safe standing areas, the sooner all this red tape and health and safety bollocks is done away with the better, I stand the whole game as where my season ticket is all the people in that area stand, toilets are for sitting down not football matches 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrackpotForeigner Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 i for one dont agree with it, sorry, in this modern age game, and the money that football clubs 'earn', they can at least provide their supporters with seating for the 2 hours being on their premises. health and safety has to play a major factor in this, us villa supporters may well be sensible and ooze class, but some clubs around the country dont, and you cant have one rule for one, and another for someone else, what would happen if an accident occured? im all for jumping up with joy/frustration or that moment when your bum leaves the seat and you slowly raise as a goal scoring opportunity is approaching, but all standing is in the past. This is one of the most frustratingly rubbish posts I have ever read. Nobody is wanting to take your seat away. If you do want to sit down you can sit somewhere in the other 90% of the ground. Or do you really want to deprive people who want to stand their right, just so you can take your pick of the entire ground? Laughable. It's heartening to read about people's concern for everyone's health and safety. What would be nice is if, before deciding that there were health and safety issues involved, they actually considered evidence as to whether health and safety was of any relevance whatsoever to the proposal. And nobody is suggesting that everyone be forced to stand at football games. Even when terraces were allowed you could still choose to sit in a seat. Blimey. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theboyangel Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 I'm all for it - imagine the Holte End, all standing (how many fans could it hold?) cheering on the Villa - it would make for an immense atmosphere! 3/4 of the ground would remain seated, which is also good for those not wanting to stand. Hopefully the increase in potential capacity would lead to lower ticket prices across all stands - surely another good thing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeyp102 Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 Canary killer How long will you be running the survey? Will the results (no personal dets) be made available, would be interesting to see how the votes would go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canarykiller Posted September 22, 2013 Author Share Posted September 22, 2013 I have been putting updates out on twitter, and I am starting to bore my football supporting friends let alone those who have no interest in football, as it all also appears on my Facebook. (I am @amfy) I was going to put an update on this weekend, and then I looked and I have 396 online responses ( to go with 96 paper ones). I was thinking I would update when I hit 400 (or maybe 500 altogether. I can tell you that it currently stands at 97% in favour of standing with 76% of these actually wanting to stand themselves. there is less than 3% against. There's could be an argument that there is a bias in that people who are in favour of standing are more likely to fill it in, but to be fair, when I did the paper version on family fun day, I got the same proportion in favour, just lower on the 'wanting to stand myself'. So it does stand up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrackpotForeigner Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 Good for you CK. Every time the subject comes up I'm amazed at the fact that standing is still totally banned, and equally baffled that anyone would not be in favour of allowing people to stand safely. A lot of them probably have never seen footage from the days when there where standing areas. The atmosphere was far, far better and it's beyond me to understand why there has been no change in the law for such a long time. I'm convinced that one day the law will be changed and everyone will wonder why it wasn't done much sooner. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canarykiller Posted September 22, 2013 Author Share Posted September 22, 2013 My last post was a little disjointed because my husband had put my dinner on the table and was shouting at me to put the iPad down! (slight role reversal in our house!) As I say, I think I am driving my nearest and dearest a little mad with this at the moment - which is part of the reason it took me so long to pick up the baton, I knew it would be all consuming. I really would prefer to just be getting a few pints in pre-match, but I have to say I am finding this pretty rewarding. If Villa are satisfied that I have proved that this is what the fans want, they will pursue it. Whether they can get it or not is the next thing! I am convinced at this stage that I can get my bit done - then it is down to the club, but they have convinced me that if it's what we want, they will do everything they can to get us there. Online, things are starting to slow down, but the paper surveys do provide better evidence as I can show better evidence that there is no bias. They also provide the opportunity to engage people, and answer their concerns. I am intending to do The Holte Suite for the Man City game, because I found on Family Fun Day that it is really easy to survey people who are sitting at tables. I was able to just leave the information with them, and then come back to talk to them & answer any questions. I've got one person to help me for that game, so we should cover a good amount of ground between us. Apparently, 700 match going fans would be a statistically valid sample, so I am looking for 700-1000. I am over halfway there in a week! I haven't really publicised it more widely because it need to be Villa fans filling this in, not football fans in general. I could also do without a load of noses deciding it would be hilarious to mess it up! If anyone else would like to help me on match days - please pm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KHV Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 (edited) I watched the schalke vs munich game and the atmosphere in the vektins arena was superb especially on the terrace behind the goal. Seating is dull. I would like to sit down when im at retirement age and I think I should have the choice. Standing on seats is also rather tricky! Edited September 22, 2013 by KHV Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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