In other news - Man City, WHU, Reading & QPR

December 2012. While the list of clubs officially supporting safe standing trials continues to grow, media reports, meeting minutes and remarks by individual club executives suggest that other clubs too support the initiative.

Manchester City

17th December 2012Under the headline 'Manchester City back calls for safe standing at stadiums' the Manchester Evening News reported that "Manchester City will trial standing at the Etihad stadium – if the FA give it the go ahead."

The Daily Mail, ITV, ESPN and Sky also carried the story, with the Mail, for instance, saying that "Manchester City want to spearhead the campaign to bring safe standing to the Premier League", ITV.com headlining their story with "City to trial safe standing".

West Ham United

7th December 2012

The Daily Mail also ran a story on 7th December under the headline 'West Ham will consider safe standing areas in their Olympic Stadium plans'. This followed a Twitter exchange between a West Ham fan and Hammers co-chairman David Gold. Asked if there was any way of West Ham having safe standing in the Olympic Stadium, Mr Gold had responded "I hope so". Nor was it the first time that Mr Gold had made such comments. In January 2012 he tweeted "I am in favour of safe standing the key is in the title 'safe'. DG", while in November he described rail seats in some detail on a satellite TV sports show and said that he would "seriously consider" safe standing at the Olympic Stadium if West Ham moved there (as shown in the clip below from SportsTonightLive):

Hammers CEO Karen Brady has also previously said “The health and safety brigade will be against it but in this world the customer has the right to choose and if some fans would prefer to stand, fair enough.” (The Sun, January 2012), while the club's manager, Sam Allardyce praised the standing fans in Dresden at the end of a summer 2012 pre-season friendly with the words “Fantastic. We actually wish we could have fans like that back in England who stand up behind the goal and sing up all the way through. Fantastic atmosphere, I really enjoyed it”, recorded for posterity here on YouTube.

Reading

21st November 2012

Following a meeting between club executives at Reading, including CEO Nigel Howe, and STAR (the Supporters Trust At Reading) held on 21st November 2012 the minutes published on STAR's website indicate that safe standing was discussed and that the club "said that it agreed with the principle of safe standing".

QPR

18th December 2012

Another owner who has responded positively on Twitter to questions about safe standing is Tony Fernandes of QPR. Asked "Would you consider a trial for standing at rangers?", Mr Fernandes retweeted the question and replied "I would. But I am far far away from being an expert on the issue. Would be great at loftus road." He followed this up with a further Tweet, saying "As a fan and owner I would love to see standing", but that he would need to speak to 'the expert', QPR chief executive Phil Beard.

It's good to see all these positive reports in addition to clubs formally announcing their support for safe standing. If you see any similar reports suggesting that clubs support our aims, please let us know via the e-mail address shown on the contact page.