How I helped ensure Arsenal were forced to spend around £2 million extra in 2007 on improving their disability facilities

 

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 4^th 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 21^st 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 21^st 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.”