To Sit Or Not To Sit

To Sit Or Not To Sit?

This is a new era for Swansea City Football Club. It’s a brand new stadium and the Vetch will be consigned to the (favourable) memory banks of our brains as something that was so dear to us for so many years as will hopefully White Rock become. I do not see why the club should be saying for example the East Stand is the equivalent of the North Bank. It stands to reason that it probably will be because of it’s location in relation to the dressing rooms, directors boxes and, more importantly, the bar! It stands to reason therefore that the West Stand becomes the new Centre Stand and the South Stand replaces the East Terrace and Stand.

However, this is surely not for the club to rule on. People will choose to head for whichever area of the ground that they choose to head for. If a group of mates want to have seats in the West Stand then they will do so. Similarly for the East and South stands. It’s called, I believe, Customer choice.

There have also been calls for a designated standing and singing area. Let’s take the two of them separately. A designated singing area I can see makes sense. It also makes logical sense that the majority of people who stand at the West end of the North Bank will head for the North end of the West or East stands to be nearer the away fans. This logically will end up the area that the chants tend to arise from although it is a common myth that the singing always starts on the North Bank. It may sound that way because of the numbers but it is most certainly not always the case. I also firmly believe against the common belief that White Rock will not generate the same atmosphere that this need not be the case. Sure some all seater arenas do tend to make you think you are attending a wake rather than a football match but that needn’t be the case. Swansea fans are loud and vocal at the best of times, I don’t see why that should not continue at the new stadium.

In regards to a designated standing area. Let’s make it pretty clear now that it ain’t gonna happen. It’s an all seater stadium for one purpose only. All seats. The council decided that we could not afford a safe standing area and therefore it will all be seated. Stewards will be in their rights to tell you to sit down if you stand because that is, quite simply, what the rules say. I do appreciate that it will be ignored but at the same time if the people at the back want you to sit down and complain then the club will be forced to act I would imagine to enforce the rules. What could conceivably happen as an alternative is a section of the ground be made available for non designated seating. This would basically mean that you could choose to sit wherever you wanted within this section. However, dependent on the size of the area, it could also mean that entrance into that section will obviously be limited to the number of seats in it minus the number of season tickets purchased for that section. My question on this would simply be could the club administratively wise cope with that sort of arrangement? Time will tell.

The simple factor is, the club have circa 2500 season ticket holders at the moment. It is likely that that number will increase with the move to a new all seater stadium which tend to cater more for the family enviroment. A large number of the people that buy those tickets will want their seat week in week out. (unless of course there is the non designated area above) Quite simply it means that maybe your four mates have tickets in one row but if the seats either side are required by a season ticket holder then it’s kind of tough really.

We have to accept that the club is moving forward to an arena that is far more suitable for 21st century football then the Vetch ever would have been. Things will change with the move to a new stadium and we have to change with them. I hope that the club can accommodate all their fans as they see fit with what the fans want. One of the beauties of the Vetch at the moment is the fact that there is terrace and seats, it keeps all happy. But at White Rock you won’t have that luxury. From my personal point of view, White Rock will be somewhere I am planning to take my kids. If we are there then I don’t want people standing in front of me. And I say that as someone that stood to watch the Swans for 24 years before converting to a seat for the last two seasons. I do agree with a designated area for unreserved seating but you will never get (in my opinion and I would love to be proved wrong) a designated standing area within White Rock Stadium.

I will admit that at first sitting down does not seem natural at a football ground but you get used to it. Now and again I get the pang of wishing I was back on the North Bank but not as often as I expected to.

I guess smoking areas are something else that will be considered but my gut feeling on this, as a smoker, is that the stadium will become non smoking. Whether it is enforced is a different matter. It certainly was at Pride Park a few years back but not at the Millennium Stadium.

There are questions that will be answered as time goes on and we will try and get those questions answered for you but as far as I see it the club do not have to do anything in terms of designated areas for this, that and the other – whether they choose to is a different matter.

Why not check out the latest Vetch Verdict on the BBC site?