Derby County & Nigel Clough pro safe standing

July 2012. Derby County have become the first Championship club to go public in support of safe standing at rail seats. Derby can thus be added to Aston Villa and the 12 clubs of the SPL in the list of British football clubs showing an active interest in the rail seat solution.

The formal declaration of support for the rail seat concept on the Derby County official website came after months of discussions with passionate local fan Nick Webster (known to his many followers on Twitter as @dcfc_flagman by virtue of the huge Derby County flag that he takes to every game). Nick had arranged for the Safe Standing Roadshow to make a private presentation to the football club back in January, as well as holding a public event later the same day for fans and the media in a local pub (a report on both visits can be found here).

Privately the football club declared their interest immediately after the January visit. Now, following Nick's trip with us over to Hannover on 26th June (pictured), it was mutually agreed that it was the appropriate time for the club to formally back the rail seat safe standing concept. This was done via the website story where it was confirmed that "the club had seen a demonstration of rail seats and supported the concept". The story also carried a supportive quote from manager Nigel Clough, in which he says that the club "recognise that a not insignificant number of our fans prefer to watch football standing up" and that they request that "the relevant authorities take a close look at the rail seat system with a view to defining appropriate criteria under which it could be introduced in future at grounds such as ours".

The article on the Derby County website was also picked up and run by both the Football League and the BBC on their respective websites (as seen here).