Supporters gather to protest over Premier League ticket prices in London on Thursday. The long-term aim is not just cheaper tickets, but standing areas and an uplift in atmosphere
In the 1970s and 1980s the supporters of Borussia Dortmund were delighted to be compared to English football fans. “Our stadium, unlike most of our rivals in Germany, didn’t have a running track,” said Uli Hesse, Dortmund fan and football author.
“Everyone said it was like an English ground and our fans were like English fans. Dortmund fans were very proud of that. We all aspired to be like the English in football back then.
“Now, when our fans go to an English game, they come back saying, ‘That’s terrible, we must never let that happen to us.’ The atmosphere has died. There are no standing areas at Premier League games. Tickets are too expensive.”
One of his fellow Dortmund fans, film-maker Marc Quambusch, agrees. “The Kop is what it was all about when I was young,” he said. “Now, when we go to English games, the stadiums are too quiet. It’s boring. If you price people out, you change the atmosphere. Everyone in Dortmund can afford to go to the stadium, not just the old and the rich. That isn't the case in England.”
English supporters will voice their opinions on Thursday at a protest in London, where the 20 Premier League clubs have a meeting. The latest TV rights deal was worth more than £5 billion and the ‘ShareTVWealth’ protest will argue for a cut in ticket prices, as well as a bigger contribution from Premier League clubs to grassroots football.
Managers and politicians are not happy, either.
Tony Pulis, manager of West Bromwich Albion, said last weekend: “There’s so much money in the Premiership that you can’t tell me clubs can’t take a little bit of that away and produce cheaper travel and cheaper tickets for supporters, and sell one full end to the away supporters. I’d love to see one end of each ground in the Premiership given to away supporters.
“This is a great league. It has been sold fantastically all over the world but they still have standing behind the goals in the German league and the atmosphere is absolutely fantastic. We have lost that with seating facilities.”
Jose Mourinho has complained about the lack of atmosphere at Chelsea, where there was even talk of playing recorded crowd noise to lift the team and the supporters. The cheapest match-day ticket for adults at Stamford Bridge is £50.
The chief executives of Arsenal, West Ham, Crystal Palace and Sunderland are among the many who would welcome ‘safe standing’ areas at the stadiums.
Perhaps the most important voices are those of the Football Safety Officers Association. Jim Chalmers, the organisation’s president, said: “The design and control measures already exist for the provision of safe standing. All that is necessary to give the fans what they want is a bold step and a leap of faith by government responding positively to the call for a return of safe standing.”
Many politicians are in favour, too, including leading Conservatives whose party was, in the past, never an ally of football fans. In the 1980s, when the Hillsborough Disaster claimed 96 lives and hooliganism was rife, Margaret Thatcher was vehemently anti-football. Now one of her own former Cabinet ministers, Ken Clarke, is among those who support a return to standing at British top-level football. Another in favour is Andrew RT Davies, leader of the Welsh Conservatives.
Technological advances mean modern terracing, as used in Germany – where the average number of standing fans at Bundesliga games is about 10,000 - is safe and reliable. Season tickets on those terraces often cost a quarter of the average season ticket price in England, and a sixth of the London clubs’ prices.
So when will the terraces return to English football, and provide an uplift in atmosphere in the world’s richest league?
Michael Brunskill, director of communications at the Football Supporters Federation, the organisers of Thursday’s protest, is confident it will happen but is not sure of the timing.
“Ten years ago clubs thought it was a losing horse and they weren’t interested in safe standing,” Brunskill told Goal. “But now they think it’s a winning horse.
“Opinions have changed. YouTube and social media has helped to spread the message around football fandom and everyone is aware about standing and ticket prices, and the atmosphere in the stadiums, in Germany.
“I could be talking in five years and still nothing has happened, but it will happen. Andrew RT Davies is a big supporter of safe standing in Wales and he put it very well recently.
“He said the safe standing movement was like a body of water battering away at a dam. There are leaks in the dam and everybody knows it’s going to burst at some point. They just don’t know when.”
