A Standing Ticket, Please?

By Ross Dunbar

The last weekend of November will see Scottish Football fans participate in one of the biggest choreographed fan actions in British Football history, when more than 9 supporters groups across Scotland will express their views on the re-introduction of terracing at Scottish Football stadiums.

Celtic, Rangers, St Mirren, Aberdeen, Motherwell, Hearts, Hibernian, Livingston and Falkirk will all unite to show their support for terracing at football stadiums. Terracing was banned for Scotland, and the UK, back in 1989 after the Taylor report post-Hillsborough was published and this led to all-seater stadiums being required in the Scottish and English Premier Divisions. It was only implemented in August 1994, but it has then had a large impact on the matchday experience at British football grounds.

Last September, St Mirren opened a standing section for their supporters who wanted to give the team as much vocal backing as possible and this proved a major success. In recent years, The Blue Order(Rangers) and The Green Brigade(Celtic) have helped the atmosphere at both Ibrox and Celtic Park with their standing and singing sections that have gradually gathered support from other supporters.

The idea has come from the booming German Bundesliga which allows safe-standing sections at all of its stadiums. The modern stadia, cheap ticket-pricing, safe-standing and proper fan culture has saw the Bundesliga become the model that all leagues will want to replicate in the near future.

Recent days would show the German fans are serious about their model and do not want to be used by their clubs because over 4,000 fans marched in Berlin in support of fan culture after an increase in policing and ticket-pricing which also saw a boycott from Borussia Dortmund fans for their away trip to rivals Schalke after the '20 euro' barrier was passed.

With Scottish football at an all-time low, the revivial of terracing may just improve the attendances across Scotland as a number of supporters were driven away from games due to the consequences of all-seater stadiums. There are major problems in the Scottish game and with a major negligence from the SFA, SPL and other governing bodies it would be tough to see anything coming from this.