Eagles eye up safe standing at Crystal Palace
On a bitterly cold morning in December 2011, the roadshow rolled up at Selhurst Park to show Crystal Palace CEO Phil Alexander the rail seat demonstration. There to help set up was Chris Dixon, a Palace fan and presenter on local radio station Resonance 104.4FM.
After the demonstration, Chris interviewed Phil Alexander for his 'Cafe Calcio!' football fanzine show, when the Palace boss agreed that the rail seat concept was indeed worth looking at:
"We're happy to look at it. Obviously there is a demand for standing at the stadium... and if that's what people want then we're doing our duty to at the very least explore it and see if it's possible.
"We know there's a demand, we know that some of our fans like to stand all game, and I suspect there might be a few more perhaps given the choice. If we can give fans an option to do that and we can configure it so that we can work within the ground and, of course, if there is a cost/benefit analysis done so that it doesn't actually cost us too much to do as an investment, then it's something we'll seriously look at.
"It's about choice. It's about choice for both home and away fans. And if we can give more fans what they want, they're more likely to come. It's as simple as that."
The full show can be heard via podcast from the Cafe Calcio! website.