Howzat! Roadshow visits Lord's cricket ground

July 2011. The Safe Standing Roadshow stopped off at a somewhat unlikely venue on Friday 8th July 2011. Already in London in preparation for the Football Supporters' Federation Fans' Parliament the following day, the roadshow pitched up at an altogether different sort of sports ground: Lord's!

Trying to find a venue in central London where FSF chairman Malcolm Clarke and others could have a decent lunch and that also offered a suitable area to show off the roadshow to Malcolm's guests proved quite a challenge! But Lord's fitted the bill perfectly. With no match being played that day and Lord's Tavern next door, we arranged to set up for the afternoon against the backdrop of the St John's Wood pitch and the futuristic Lord's media centre.

During the course of the afternoon we explained rail seats to a number of private guests, having invited interested parties to take a look at the roadshow unit out of the glare of publicity. Media representatives were also invited along, but not until later in the day.

One interested visitor (pictured above) was stadium architect Mike Trice from Populous, one of the world's leading firms of venue architects. Having looked at a similar solution for the provision of spectator accommodation that could be converted from standing to seating and vice versa for a previous overseas project, he was interested to see our rail seats, saying that wherever possible in stadium designs he liked to "give the fans what they want".

Let's hope that Mike and all our other visitors at Lord's were bowled over by what they saw!