by Alexander Litvinenko »
04 Feb 2013 15:19
Royal Lady Gordons Cumming Royal Lady We cut through the west stand concourse when leaving the stadium because it's a shorter walk for my aged father-in-law, a female steward tried to stop us yesterday, but we just ignored her I'm afraid. I've never noticed many people doing the same so I'm not sure why we shouldn't be allowed really. Any reason why we shouldn't be allowed to do this Dirk?
Maybe because it's safer to use the exits on the stand you're in?
Just a wild guess....
We do exit the East Stand Gordy - then we walk for a bit past the megastore and duck into the West Stand concourse to cut the walk around the hotel. Purely for the sake of my father in law - we're not causing any obstruction, by the time we get there, a lot of people in West Stand have left, there's just a few stragglers looking at the TVs or finishing off a pint. I cannot see any reason at all as to why we should be prevented from walking safely through there.
If you do it without hindrance, it looks like you can do it. But if you want a technical reason why they could prevent you if they felt so inclined, the Football Supporters Act 1989 makes it a legal requirement for ground safety managers to know the exact number of people within each stand or enclosure at any time - IMO that's a far more important and worthwhile provision of this Act, introduced after Hillsborough, than anything to do with standing/sitting regulations, as it takes away the risk of over-crowding.
Obviously that's less significant after the match, and I'm not sure of the exact definition of when this applies once the match has finished, but I do believe it applies whenever members of the public are in the ground, and is obviously made invalid by people re-entering the concourse areas. Although there aren't many people left, the club can't say exactly how many are there so are technically breaking the law.
So I'm not sure if you are being stopped, but there is a perfectly valid legal answer to why you legitimately could be stopped from re-entering.
