Nine clubs want football ground booze ban ended

[Voll Blau]

Quote

Nine football league clubs are calling for a 33 year old law to be overturned so fans can drink alcohol in their seats.

Legislation introduced in 1985 prohibits supporters from consuming alcohol in view of the pitch, therefore restricting them to drinking in a stadium’s concourse.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are satisfied that existing legislation is necessary and appropriate.”

League One side Sunderland told talkSPORT: “At the Stadium of Light, concert-goers can watch Kings of Leon whilst enjoying a pint, but cannot when watching their football team. This seems discriminatory to football fans.”

Ipswich Town, Doncaster Rovers, Accrington Stanley, Port Vale, Forest Green Rovers, Lincoln City, Tranmere Rovers and Northampton Town also want a pilot scheme.

Grimsby Town, Newport County and Gillingham have indicated they are open to a discussion.

The Football Supporters Federation is backing the calls. FSF Caseworker Amanda Jacks said: “When the laws were drafted they were a knee-jerk reaction to problems at the time. Nobody thought them through properly and certainly didn’t foresee that in 2018 we would be talking about football fans being singled out from the rest of society.”

A Home Office spokesperson added that football has “unique public order risks”, going on to say “many incidents of football-related disorder are spontaneous, involving offenders who have consumed alcohol, often to excess.”

 

https://talksport.com/football/efl/436860/alcohol-football-efl-clubs-stadium-ban-scrapped/?fbclid=IwAR1cgrk0UmVGJWP8YfUb0CWmRuXPjuMdeabeacg10FXJOpd8egJxpn8vt5U

 

Great to see clubs actually sticking up for their fans and common sense again, as is now often the case with standing areas. I think we can guess which club will be the last to say anything on this though... 

[Babylon]

19 minutes ago, Voll Blau said:

 

https://talksport.com/football/efl/436860/alcohol-football-efl-clubs-stadium-ban-scrapped/?fbclid=IwAR1cgrk0UmVGJWP8YfUb0CWmRuXPjuMdeabeacg10FXJOpd8egJxpn8vt5U

 

Great to see clubs actually sticking up for their fans and common sense again, as is now often the case with standing areas. I think we can guess which club will be the last to say anything on this though... 

Not sure I'd be keen to be honest, you are unlikely to get someone in Kings of Leon concert seating or at Rugby, purposely chucking drink in the air to go over others. This will absolutely happen at football, you'd have to stipulate that only certain areas can serve it... far away from the usual suspects.

[Footballwipe]

Just now, Babylon said:

Not sure I'd be keen to be honest, you are unlikely to get someone in Kings of Leon concert seating or at Rugby, purposely chucking drink in the air to go over others. This will absolutely happen at football, you'd have to stipulate that only certain areas can serve it... far away from the usual suspects.

Agreed, it absolutely will.

[RoboFox]

I have to be drunk before I could even contemplate going to Northampton, let alone watch their football club. 

 

It's contradictory: fans are indirectly encouraged to drink as much as they can before the game and at half time, to compensate for not being allowed to do so during the match, and the disparity with other sports is arguably unfair.

 

However, I do believe that you're much more likely to get problems within a football match than, say a Kings of Leon concert. The comparison is lazy. Football matches always have, and always will attract knuckle-draggers and morons. Add booze-fuelled passion (see: aggression) to that and you'll have problems. It's a sad fact.

 

Is the legislation archaic and stubborn? Maybe. Will it change? Nope.

[Voll Blau]

1 hour ago, Babylon said:

Not sure I'd be keen to be honest, you are unlikely to get someone in Kings of Leon concert seating or at Rugby, purposely chucking drink in the air to go over others. This will absolutely happen at football, you'd have to stipulate that only certain areas can serve it... far away from the usual suspects.

It's a fair enough concern, but why should a minority of twats with more money than sense be used as an excuse to stop the rest of us enjoying a pint during the game? Current legislation would mean bans etc for anyone who deliberately does that, and it's not like the club wouldn't be able to point them out anyway with the OTT cameras they've got.

 

I'd imagine local authorities/police forces would probably have something to say at licensing stage about which areas of the ground it could be served in. I hate to be a "when I've been to Germany bore" again, but when I've been to Germany it all works out perfectly fine. Yes, you get the odd beer shower for a *genuinely* exciting last-minute winner or whatever (as opposed to the banterlads pouring it down their brand new £600 jackets for Instagram we get over here), but if you're in an area where you know that could happen then you should expect it really. No reason that wouldn't be the same here.

[Babylon]

6 minutes ago, Voll Blau said:

It's a fair enough concern, but why should a minority of twats with more money than sense be used as an excuse to stop the rest of us enjoying a pint during the game? Current legislation would mean bans etc for anyone who deliberately does that, and it's not like the club wouldn't be able to point them out anyway with the OTT cameras they've got.

 

I'd imagine local authorities/police forces would probably have something to say at licensing stage about which areas of the ground it could be served in. I hate to be a "when I've been to Germany bore" again, but when I've been to Germany it all works out perfectly fine. Yes, you get the odd beer shower for a *genuinely* exciting last-minute winner or whatever (as opposed to the banterlads pouring it down their brand new £600 jackets for Instagram we get over here), but if you're in an area where you know that could happen then you should expect it really. No reason that wouldn't be the same here.

When I've been abroad to football the general vibe around the ground and cities has been that the government gives them more leeway than we get here, but they don't take the piss and play within the rules. My experience with this country is that we don't seem capable of doing that... get given an inch and the morons try and take a mile.

 

Perhaps start off only allowing halves up and see what happens, like we had in Leuven.

Edited 24 October 2018 by Babylon

[grobyfox1990]

Seriously hope not. Do not want some over-excited 21 year old 'lad' throwing his pint in the air near me and videoing it so he can get a few likes on Instagram.

[Voll Blau]

1 hour ago, Babylon said:

When I've been abroad to football the general vibe around the ground and cities has been that the government gives them more leeway than we get here, but they don't take the piss and play within the rules. My experience with this country is that we don't seem capable of doing that... get given an inch and the morons try and take a mile.

 

Perhaps start off only allowing halves up and see what happens.

Yeah, any progress would be progress.

 

I was worried the whole "give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile" thing would be proven right with the safe standing trial at Celtic, especially with the kind of support they have. But that's worked out with very few problems so far, so hopefully any trial of this would lead to some pleasant surprises too. There's also been a recent change in mentality among police in some football cities over here (Preston's a good example), where a more relaxed approach (generally) has seen them dealing with less issues of fan disorder. Treat people like grown-ups and the vast, vast majority will act like them.

Edited 24 October 2018 by Voll Blau

[goose2010]

If it was just a case of someone not finishing their pint before kick off or after half time and taking it to their seat then fair enough, but unfortunately it just wouldn't be like that you will end up with some pissed up 'lad' carrying 4 pints up to have during each half.

[spacemunky]

If the Notts players are drunk during the matches, so should we be.

[Voll Blau]

1 hour ago, grobyfox1990 said:

Seriously hope not. Do not want some over-excited 21 year old 'lad' throwing his pint in the air near me and videoing it so he can get a few likes on Instagram.

 

1 hour ago, goose2010 said:

If it was just a case of someone not finishing their pint before kick off or after half time and taking it to their seat then fair enough, but unfortunately it just wouldn't be like that you will end up with some pissed up 'lad' carrying 4 pints up to have during each half.

For every one twat like that you'll have a hundred normal fans who just quite fancy sipping a pint while they watch. Legislation and ground regs already exist to deal with incidents like that, so why deny the rest of us a right afforded to anyone watching literally any other sport in this country?

[Stadt]

But it's worth piloting, football fans are treated entirely differently to any social group in the country, in 1985 some fans basically were animals but it's completely changed now. I can't imagine people are gonna be launching £4.50 pints here, there and everywhere and even if some twats do it'll be in areas where people are standing and you'd have to half expect it.

 

If people are going to be pissed up and violent they've got plenty of opportunity to do so, selling watered down chang in the ground isn't going to make much of a difference.

[Guest MattP]

It could work in certain areas, I don't think you would have any problems in the West Stand with it now. 

 

During the World Cup I was amazed to see people spending 20 quid on a round with the sole intention of launching them in the air when we scored.

 

You will unfortunately get the Instagram/Twitter arseholes though chucking them around in the away end and our more vocal areas, ideally you let people do it but come down with a sledgehammer on anyone who ruins it for everyone else.

[Finnegan]

Currently, guys that want to drink stand in the concourse, smoke in the toilets, wreck the bogs and generally act like complete twats where there's minimal presence of stewards during the game. 

 

You'd imagine clubs would rather they be at their seats at least partially distracted by the match. 

 

For the record, I've zero idea why people pay good money for a match ticket just to do the above. Especially away. 

[grobyfox1990]

49 minutes ago, Voll Blau said:

 

For every one twat like that you'll have a hundred normal fans who just quite fancy sipping a pint while they watch. Legislation and ground regs already exist to deal with incidents like that, so why deny the rest of us a right afforded to anyone watching literally any other sport in this country?

True - I get your point, the minority spoil it for the majority in so many cases. But it only needs one pleb in a crowd of 1000s of pint drinkers to get me soaked in beer and having to go home to change after the game instead of going out. I'd be all for hammering people caught throwing pints around, but it won't happen.

 

More widely, I don't see why asking people not to drink for 90 minutes is such a big issue. Beer at any event in this country is dreadful anyway, £5ish for a pint of water in a plastic cup. But that's up to the consumer i suppose.

 

It's like when people kick off when asked not to stand in the stairway by stewards, why is it such a big deal.

[Poznan34]

I think the World Cup was a bit of a one-off for pint throwing. England doing well and great weather for weeks sent everyone a bit mad.

 

Once the novelty wears off, very few will be chucking pints I'd imagine, especially not on a cold, grey afternoon.

[Fox92]

I can't get my head around people who pay for pints and then lob them. At gigs they're expensive, minds well just chuck £5 notes in the air.

[davieG]

1 hour ago, goose2010 said:

If it was just a case of someone not finishing their pint before kick off or after half time and taking it to their seat then fair enough, but unfortunately it just wouldn't be like that you will end up with some pissed up 'lad' carrying 4 pints up to have during each half.

Agree with that plus we already have plenty of people going back and forth if they're allowed to by beer and presumably food at anytime then it'll turn into a procession especially as they wont have to buy at half time.

 

[lildave3]

20 minutes ago, Poznan34 said:

I think the World Cup was a bit of a one-off for pint throwing. England doing well and great weather for weeks sent everyone a bit mad.

 

Once the novelty wears off, very few will be chucking pints I'd imagine, especially not on a cold, grey afternoon.

Definitely not a one off, at the Kasabian king power gigs I watched a fella squeeze through the crowd to the bar, buy 6 bottles of beer which were no doubt about a fiver each, squeeze back through the crowd and then lob them up in the air. 

 

People are weird.

[Sol thewall Bamba]

Can't see this happening at all and to be honest I wouldn't be that bothered. I get too irate at the football to hold a pint and in the winter holding a beer in the stand is fvcking freezing, people will be going home with a claw for a hand after holding beer for 2 hours. 

[Guest MattP]

50 minutes ago, Sol thewall Bamba said:

Can't see this happening at all and to be honest I wouldn't be that bothered. I get too irate at the football to hold a pint and in the winter holding a beer in the stand is fvcking freezing, people will be going home with a claw for a hand after holding beer for 2 hours. 

That's the impression I get from most people these days, if you polled the ground I doubt you would see any desire to see the laws changed on this.

No idea why anyone would use the service anyway unless you were absolutely desperate, the pints are bad enough in a plastic glass in the warmth, let alone in the freezing cold, surely it's easier to take a hipflask with a drink you actually like rather than pay a fiver for?

Edited 24 October 2018 by MattP

[RonnieTodger]

Honestly, I'm not that bothered if they do bring it back. It would be great to watch the game with a pint, but there's a lot of lads now that only actually see about 60 mins of the game because they're up and down for a pint all the time.

[Lovejoy]

2 hours ago, Fox92 said:

I can't get my head around people who pay for pints and then lob them. At gigs they're expensive, minds well just chuck £5 notes in the air.

Can't remember ever going to a gig and getting a pint that cheap tbh .

[Leicesterpool]

I suppose it could ease the pressure in the concourse, cause honestly down there at half time it's impossible to move. 

[Guest MattP]

33 minutes ago, Leicesterpool said:

I suppose it could ease the pressure in the concourse, cause honestly down there at half time it's impossible to move. 

It would, watch the annoyance levels then though of people having to stand up all game to let those get past who want a pint and back.