In the period between 2005 and 2007 I worked with the Sunday Express on a number of sports bases articles. One that was abandoned concerned the poor facilities for disabled fans at the new Emirates Stadium. Arsenal somehow managed to persuade the paper into abandoning this 'bad news' story, apparently promising the paper some exclusive transfer news pieces instead. I was paid for my work by the paper but it left a sour taste, Much of the the article was later run the Big Issue North magazine and on the Empower Sport website.
Disabling
Discrimination in Football Stadia
by
Mark Metcalf © Mark Metcalf
October 4th 2007
Empower Sport http://empower-sport.com can exclusively reveal that Arsenal, who
recently took over the mantle as Britain’s richest club, are being forced to
spend perhaps as much as two million pounds on bringing their facilities for
disabled fans up to standard in their new ground.
It comes after the London club ignored an
opportunity to receive advice from the National Association of Disabled
Supporters [NADS] before the incredibly expensive Emirates Stadium was built.
Meanwhile lower down the
league’s, at Shrewsbury’s new ground, the football club has failed to ensure that the facilities provided for
wheelchair disabled supporters comply with Accessible Stadium Document
regulations that govern the locations of viewing areas.
Clearly as the following
article from Mark Metcalf reveals much still needs to be done to ensure that
facilities for disabled fans enter the 21st century as soon as
possible.
Whilst facilities for
disabled football fans have been markedly improved at some – mainly new –
stadiums they still remain less than satisfactory at others. Currently, for
example, many clubs can only offer a wheelchair user a view at pitch level –
where they are at the mercy of the weather, have their view of the match
restricted by stewards and police in front of them and also occasionally having
to worry about a crowd surge from behind during moments of excitement or crowd
trouble.
Manchester United
follower Phil Downs MBE has for years been at the forefront of the struggle to
achieve improved facilities for disabled fans. Phil himself became disabled
when he suffered an accident many years ago whilst training to be a London
Metropolitan Police Officer. No jokes now about all Man Utd fans being from London; Phil had moved to
‘the smoke’ to join the police.
Until recently he was the
Chairman of the National Association of Disabled Supporters, (NADS) and whilst
he has just resigned from the post he remains as committed as ever to improving
facilities for disabled fans. It was possible to catch up with him before the
recent Man Utd – Sunderland game at Old Trafford in the highly impressive and
unique Ability Suite that he persuaded ‘The Red Devils’ to give to its disabled
fans in 2003.
“It used to be the old
ticket office. To convert it for use by disabled fans on match days where they
can watch the big plasma TV’s and get refreshments cost £150,000. On non-match
days it is equipped with computers and is used for various training courses. I
think that every ground should have similar facilities. Leeds has a
smaller version, but disabled fans at other clubs have nothing. I get a lot of
emails from visiting fans saying how good the match day experience has been,
away fans are welcome,” says Downs.
Stephen Crompton, a Man
Utd season ticket holder of many years agrees, saying, “There are a lot more
disabled people going to matches. I go to away games and facilities like these
at all grounds would be great. A few years back I was unable to go to matches
because there weren’t the facilities for disabled fans, but things have
improved.”
Downs
was hopeful that NADS was going to be in a position to find out for themselves
the exact situation facing disabled fans wanting to watch their side at all 92
Premier and League grounds this season – this followed an earlier review of
facilities when members of the group had visited and toured the grounds on
non-match days. His and other campaigners’ hope is to bring facilities into the
21st century.
“We’d done the initial
assessments when the grounds were empty. What we wanted to do was assess things
on a match day. NADS was hoping to get funding from the Football Foundation to
pay for people’s expenses. However, they hesitated because some of the people
at the Football League and Premier League had an idea it could be done
electronically, which is all very well if you’ve got access to the internet,
but if you haven’t it makes it a lot more difficult and whilst it’s important
to see what’s there in a stadium I feel that first hand experience can’t be
beaten. What you can see on a screen may look ok but it may turn out to be
totally different when there’s a game on. We should be able to benchmark the
facilities especially as at the majority of stadiums things are not quite as
good as they should be,” says Downs.
And so without the
Football Foundation, or someone else, being willing to fund what seems an
essential piece of research there is no way of knowing just how much needs to
be done to ensure that clubs are providing improved facilities for fans with
disabilities.
Clubs with older stadiums
do, of course, provide a particular challenge. Some were built many years ago –
Liverpool’s disabled fans in wheelchairs for
example are largely located at pitch level – but there are also problems in
even some of the newer ones. For example, Shrewsbury Town
opened its new ground with a prestigious friendly against Sven-Goran Eriksson’s
Manchester City side, with the 10,000 all-seater
stadium packed to the rafters. A glorious new chapter in the small Shropshire side’s history ended the club’s association
with the quaint Gay Meadow ground close to the Town Centre that offered little
in the way of home comforts for disabled supporters.
Sadly Shrewsbury either
deliberately or through ignorance misinterpreted the Accessible Stadium
Document – this forms part of the Building Regulations which apply to new
grounds, and which involve being visited by either the Football Licensing
Authority or the local authority before construction. For a 10,000 seat stadium
there should be a minimum of 100 wheelchair spaces – which at Shrewsbury there is. Downs
is still dissatisfied. “The accessible stadium document states the dispersal of
these around the stadium should be seventy-five elevated and twenty-five pitch
side,” he says. At Shrewsbury
it was initially a complete reversal with only twenty-five elevated, although
following some discussions between NADS and the Division Two side the numbers
have been increased.
Downs
however is worried that what he calls ‘the Shrewsbury Syndrome’ may be used by
other clubs saying ‘why should we be any different to Shrewsbury?’ Downs
says, “The problem is, are football clubs going to drive a coach and horses
through the accessible document after one club has manipulated the
figures?” Always determined to offer a right to reply Empower-Sport asked
Shrewsbury to
comment but to date we’ve had no luck in our enquiries. Any response from Shrewsbury will be
included as soon as practicably possible.
One ground where Downs is confident that facilities for disabled fans will
be up to scratch is at Liverpool’s proposed
new stadium to be built on Stanley
Park. Downs
“The new ground before the takeover would certainly have met all the
requirements of disabled supporters,” he says. “I saw the proposals, I went
through them with the architects and that’s the sort of response we hope to get
from the architects. It was very good and I do think in general that there is
growing evidence that the architects are taking more notice of the accessible
stadium document.”
One club that might have
done better if it had is Arsenal, where NADS tried to enter into what Downs
describes as “meaningful discussion” before the incredibly expensive Emirates
Stadium was built because by doing so they may have saved themselves a lot of
money and also just as importantly have provided up to date facilities for all
their disabled supporters and their carers/assistants.
What happened at Arsenal
is that in the Lower Tier of the ground the Gunners raised the wheelchair
platforms resulting in the positions for carers/companions being moved behind.
“This has been a big no for sometime,” Downs
says. “On behalf of NADS I tried to get in meaningful discussion with Arsenal
but it proved very difficult.”
Empower-Sport contacted
Arsenal for comment on Phil Downs’s observations. We also suggested that the
club were forcing carers who wanted to see the game to stand up which we felt
was somewhat ironic as we were aware that the Arsenal supporters long running
fanzine ‘The Gooner’ has been inundated with letters and complaints about heavy
handed stewarding forcing people to stay in their seats or face ejection in
other parts of the Stadium.
Although we’d not be so
silly to suggest that our intervention has proved crucial we are happy to
report that in their reply Arsenal has indicated publicly for the first time
that: ‘To improve this situation, we are currently awaiting local authority approval
to raise all the carer/companion seats in the Lower Tier, in order that the
views are enhanced.’ Great news all round then, but at the considerable cost we
estimate of close to £2 million, Empower-Sport has asked Arsenal to keep us
informed of developments.
Despite resigning as
Chairman of NADS Downs still hopes to see the body getting funds from the
Football Foundation; and he is keen to see the outcome of the meeting he helped
arrange with it and the All Party Football Group [APFG] in the House of Commons
that is due to take place in November and which we will subsequently report on.
Alan Keen MP for Feltham
is the chair of the Group and he told Empower-Sport that he ‘”is most concerned
to hear about the allegations re Shrewsbury Town’s ground and that he supports
the NADS objectives of disabled supporters enjoying a parity of match day
experience with able-bodied supporters”.
Alan Keen MP however
didn’t feel that it may be necessary to introduce legislation in addition to
the Disability Discrimination Act to force clubs into providing improved facilities
for disabled supporters and stated that APFG “will work with NADS to raise
their concerns and have them addressed by the football authorities” including
the Premier and Football Leagues and the FA.
Phil Downs has been
invited on to the FA Committee for Disability and Equality, whose remit is to
try and develop disabled sports facilities and participation in the game. He
says, “I am optimistic, but we need to have discussions with the footballing
authorities to discuss getting together a longer – say five year – plan. I
don’t think it’s beyond the remit to improve things. Things are not perfect by
any way and it does need some sort of structured attempt. This must be brought
in by the Leagues and the FA. I don’t think it’s in anyone’s interest to push
things further into the background; the problems that exist in grounds aren’t
going to go away simply by ignoring them.”
Downs
draws an interesting parallel to the fight against racism in football and
disability rights. “If you talk about racism I do understand that could be a
continuing problem as it may take generations to alter people’s attitudes,”
says Downs. “You’re not talking about that for
disabled fans. It will not take generations to resolve the problems facing
disabled fans that want to watch, and in some cases play football.”
And Downs
concludes by calling for all fans to support the rights of disabled supporters
to enjoy watching and participating in sport – something Empower-Sport is proud
to do. “There is moral imperative for all fans to support this, and get it
right,” he says. “Also anyone is likely to become disabled, I had an accident
and before then I didn’t know anything about people in wheelchairs.”
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