On the first day of the season v Derby the Eastend saw a baffling amount lot of  flyers being handed out at the turnstiles from Forza Eastend and BCFC within the Eastend. The club gave out information regarding Persistent standing and what follows here has been written with the help of the Football supporters federation and may provoke some thought.

It isn't - the Football Licensing Authority issue ground licences and one of the terms and conditions of that licence is that all grounds that are (or have been) in the top two divisions must be all seater - that is, the rules against standing are a terms and conditions on the ticket and no more.

Even so, standing IS allowed - but only at moments of excitement - the definition of what constitutes a moment of excitement is open to interpretation and the more fan friendly clubs use that freedom to advantage.

Have a cursory browse through Bristol City's official site and you will note that BCFC constantly uses images of fans stood for promotional purposes but only at "moments of excitement"! Is this not ironic? Maybe its time for the Council to draw up some guidelines and explain in detail how fans can and cannot be excited e.g. singing. They won't because it will expose the topic for the nonsense it is.

Not true - a report was commissioned by Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council who control Old Trafford to examine this - it showed both sitting the whole time or standing the whole time to be low risk and "sitting and standing in moments of excitement" (as we have now) to be medium risk. I.e. allowing standing the whole time is safer than current practices.

The pro standing organistion Stand up Sit down propose a common sense approach now where fans are allowed to stand in front of their seats in certain areas. This is eminently sensible when it has been "proven" to be safer to stand passively in front of a seat rather than constantly sit and rise which IS hazardous.

The Football Supporters Federation is not advocating a return to terraces or even for standing in seated areas and is campaigning for the introduction of specific safe standing areas for 2-3000 people in a block - where there are barriers every row along the whole length of the row - as they have in Germany - these are so safe that virtually no injuries caused by standing in these areas have ever been recorded.

There are variations of these barriers that have seats included for use in UEFA competitions where only sitting is allowed.

Not so. Firstly, the all seater requirement was introduced for reasons of crowd safety, NOT crowd control and this is only being introduced now because the authorities have lost every argument about standing.

Secondly, there is no evidence at all that seated crowds are easier to control - there aren't riots at rugby matches or concerts held in football grounds when standing is allowed - and the controls over ticket transferability and who sits where (particularly in away sections) are so lax that any impression of crowd control is illusory.

There is also the counter view that says that if a fight did break out then seats make it harder for the stewards to get there to control it.

Surely the issue here is catering for everyone's needs and making sure that sitting and standing areas are separate.

The problem at the moment is that people many fans who want to sit and those that want to stand are forced into the same areas - safe standing ensures that there is complete segregation between those who want to sit and those who want to stand - as an interim measure, some clubs have tried to introduce 'singing areas' which are really areas where standing in front of seats is tolerated.

In effect Bristol City's Eastend is a singing area where fans opt to stand and it appears that there have been no complaints regarding standing from fellow Eastenders concerning fans "selfishly" standing in this area.

The reason why Trafford Council commissioned their report was because they threatened the same thing at Old Trafford - it never happened and is not now ever mentioned. If local councils are going to close down sections of any football ground on safety grounds they need a good reason to do this. Thanks to the Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council, fans standing in seated areas can no longer be considered such a reason.

There is no evidence to back up the assertion that this is unsafe, especially so since the Football Licensing Authority has recently had to retract most of its figures in this context because, again thanks to the freedom of information act the figures they were using have been shown to be false.

Any council attempting to do this will almost certainly be forced to retract such an order at the first challenge to it.

There is no evidence to support this! Richard Caborn [Former Sports minister] used to spout similar nonsense about there being more women in all seater stadia - but when he was challenged to show the data he based those comments on by supporters organisations - under the freedom of information act  - he couldn't and was forced to withdraw them.

What we do know is that the age profile of the fans of most clubs is increasing - at Manchester United, the average age of fans in the Stretford End in the 70's was 18-19 - these days it is 42-43. The average age of a season ticket holding fan in the  premier ship is increasing  and now stands at 43!! According to the Premier League's most recent supporters' survey, last season just 9%, less than one in 10 supporters, was under 24.

At Cardiff City 35% of season ticket holders on the Grange Road terrace are under sixteen's! Using Germanys model of safe standing this clearly shows that the more options are available the more inclusive football becomes.

It is clear from reading various fans websites that there area lot of misconceptions regarding standing at Bristol City matches at Ashton Gate. Standing is not illegal and is allowed so clear and concise information regarding the matter should be provided for supporters. As already alluded to the council should provide specific guidelines for Bristol City fc to follow explaining if standing at moments of excitement include bookings, corner kicks, fouls, goals, Lee Trundle catching Soccer AM's eye, Jamie McCombe striding forth, Ivan Sproule galloping down the wing with or without the ball, sendings off, shots on goal, singing ……. Does GJ send the team out with the intention of NOT exciting the crowd?  Surely, for many fans, the entire game is exciting ... if not, what's the point of going?  Recently a representative of BCFC had this to say about the Eastend :-

The Eastend is becoming an example of what can be achieved when fans and club work together. Our traditional home end is really starting to stick out in the Championship for the passion of its support. Is the high degree of standing fans in this area of the ground NOT in part responsible for this? Bristol City Council is placing our club in a no win position which could cause a lot of bad feeling between fans and club. So it can't be asked too many times why are the Council not providing BCFC with guidelines to explain to fans when they can stand?

It is clear any case against standing has effectively collapsed, standing appears on the increase at stadiums, the Football Supporters Federation have identified 92 percent of match going supporters supporting some form of terracing at stadiums in their yearly survey, up to 150 MP's are supportive of a return to standing and one thing MP's really love is a good bandwagon to dive on.

There is going to be a change in the manner football stadia are managed and Bristol City should be looking to pre- empt this shift now. Our club can work in unison with all the supporters bodies and be right at the fore front of  something that will reinvigorate stadiums and help attract back  what is fast becoming a missing generation of fans.

Have a read of this statement from Bradford City and decide if this really is not the road Bristol City should not be pursuing?