by From Despair To Where? »
15 Jun 2020 09:59
Your point being? You mention combustible materials yet in the three disasters I namechecked, fire played absolutely no part.
It took the Bradford fire to put an end to smoking in the main stand at Elm Park and even then all you had to go was step onto the track at half time to have a cig and there was enough shit under the timbers that an errant match could conceivably start a fire. It was only 3 years before Elm Park was closed that a game was held up because of a fire in the main stand. Lets not even begin to consider the number of cigarette burns either I or my clothes got in the South Bank or the odd occassion where somebody pissed down the back of my legs rather than use the South Bank toilets.
I've been to games where a buildup on the terraces could have let to a situation similar to Hillborough. Even safe standing terraces that we have today have designated spaces.
I cannot believe that anyone who is old enough to have seen the footage from Bradford or Sheffield as it happened could reasonably conceive that something didn't need to change.
The biggest single issue with what Elm Park was that there was absolutely no scope for expansion or upgrade. The Town End was already a wreck. Staying there would have condemned us to lower league football in a 10,000 capacity stadium.
I loved Elm Park. It was a 5 minute walk from my house and there were lots of decent pubs within 10 minutes and yeah, the atmosphere was great so we have lost those elements but the facilties were appalling. Let's not kid ourselves that in every aspect it was some sort of sepia tinted footballing utopia.