If ever there was an argument for Safe standing then this is it,IMO...............
Football Supporters Federation has been contacted by irate Canary fans - don't laugh as other clubs may follow suit.

Norwich Barclay Enders received letters warning them that “persistent standing” could lose them their seat over “the wider concern of crowd safety”.

The order came from the Club Safety Advisory Group (SAG) - the body of representatives from the county council and emergency services who have the power to revoke the club’s safety certificate.

Fan group Barclay End Norwich has been attempting to improve the atmosphere in Carrow Road and said the SAG was “sanitising” enjoyment of the game.

“I have sat at the back row of the Barclay for 22 years and we have never had an issue with standing,” he said. “It is being completely and utterly sanitised.”

Canaries Trust chairman Robin Sainty added the SAG were “using a sledgehammer to crack a nut” and said the move would “kill the atmosphere completely”.

The letter from Norwich City told supporters “the wider concern of crowd safety has recently come under further scrutiny from the Club’s Safety Advisory Group”.

It says after the “proliferation of persistent standing and children standing on seats”, the club and safety stewards have been trying to resolve the problem, beginning with Block A ....... he said “Frankly there is some disgruntlement.

“They are making an example of [Block A] because we are smaller and easier to control group of people. The club know they can’t make everybody sit down. It is mild hypocrisy to threaten a small group of people for something a large group of people are doing.”

Safe standing is banned for clubs in the top two flights of English football as a result of the Hillsborough disaster and subsequent Taylor Report.But support for safe standing is growing..............


“We are in support of the club’s efforts to try to improve the atmosphere but we are being told to sit down and shut up.”

But Mr Sainty, of the Canaries Trust, said a positive could come out of the current friction.

“The club has to enforce the law as it stands but there is a growing push for safe standing areas in stadiums,” he said. “I feel the club have been put in an almost impossible situation with this and their hands have been tied.

“What is very frustrating for everybody in these blocks is we are going to see much tighter policing. I think it might turn out to be a longer term positive because it will push the whole safe standing debate forward.

“The really sad thing is just at the time we want more atmosphere this is just going to kill it completely.”

“The club’s matchday safety team has been working in recent games to try to ask a small number of supporters persistently standing in the affected area to sit down but has met with resistance and in some cases intolerable verbal abuse,” they said.

“Now the SAG has informed the club that if this continues to be an issue in Barclay Lower Block A during our Sky Bet Championship game against Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday, it will enforce a reduction of capacity in that area, starting with the game against Brentford on Friday, December 22.


Bloody hell - .... resistance & intolerable verbal abuse will pale into insignificance if the Rad has to enforce SS Elland Road to sit down and err,observe the game quietly......
MOT