Why the away end is first
While the Club has been looking into safe standing for years this initiative has been given impetus by external pressure. It follows a directive from the Sports Grounds Safety Authority and the Safety Advisory Group, who in recent months have been pressing the Club to deal with persistent standing at the Cottage, which is licensed as an all-seater ground.
The Putney End can be done now because away tickets are sold match by match by the visiting club, so nobody is moved out of a seat to make it happen. The Hammersmith End cannot. Fitting barriers there means deciding which rows become a standing area, and that means season ticket holders being displaced from seats some have held for many years. Doing that before anyone has been asked would be the wrong approach.
On the point supporters are making
Some supporters have argued that the away area should not be prioritised as safe standing will bolster away support. In reality, almost all away fans stand anyway, so barriers change nothing. A good number of home supporters at the back of the Hammersmith End also stand, and that is precisely the issue.
Barriers do not create standing. They make standing that already happens safe, and they are what allows it to be permitted rather than policed. Without them, the only tool anyone has is enforcement, which is incredibly difficult for stewards to achieve.
What we have pushed for, and what we will hold the Club to
We told the Club that supporters would read "away end first" as the wrong priority, and that the announcement needed to explain the sequencing rather than simply state it.
Three things now matter more than speed, and we will report back on each:
that the feasibility study is commissioned promptly and its findings are shared with supporters
that the consultation begins in early 2027 as stated, and asks season ticket holders in and around any proposed area before a decision is taken rather than after
that anyone displaced is offered a genuine choice of where they go
The Club has again asked supporters not to stand persistently. We know how that request lands in a stand where people have stood for twenty years, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
But the warning about further enforcement measures is not empty, and the supporters who would bear the cost of it are the ones in those seats. The alternative to a designed solution is an imposed one, and an imposed one will be worse. This is a change worth getting right rather than getting quickly.
If you have a view on where safe standing should go in the Hammersmith End, tell us now, before the consultation opens. It is a great deal easier for us to argue a position we already know supporters hold.
