The South Stand...

As promised, I'm starting a thread to share progress on the issues that were posted randomly earlier this month.

There are two main issues with this topic...firstly is there enough support for the South Stand to be a home end, and secondly...and maybe more importantly...where do we put away fans.

At the moment we can have 4,000 away fans...so what ever happens, we need to be able to accommodate that number in another stand. This pretty much rules out all bar the FM Stand and the Brittania rescue Stand. Whichever location would need to be a permanent away area.

The determination of which area will be the safe access and exit by away fans..The FM Stand is more difficult as it only has a small car parking area for coaches, whereas the Kilner bank could use the existing car park behind the South Stand for coaches.

So, will a shared stand work...would it be safe...would the Police and safety officers object....?

While there is furore about missiles hurled on the pitch at the Etihad, the close proximity of Utd and City fans sharing a stand didn't seem in itself to cause any problems.

We see the same at Arsenal (sharing stands), Old Trafford, West Brom, Chelsea, Spurs, Liverpool...to name but a few. So opposing fans can safely be accommodated next to home fans in the same stand, it seems.

So what about Town.

If we pursue the desire to occupy the entire South Stand, then could the Kilner Bank Stand we a safe shared stand ?

I'm interested to hear opinions and experiences if I am going to continue to seek out what the solution is for Town fans in the South Stand, as accommodating away fans is fundamental to that.

I received the FOI response from Kirklees Council which stated there were no safety certificate issues with any of this...but the responsibility lay with the 'risk assessment' of each game undertaken by a 'committee', and the key area is having sufficient number of security staff to manage crowd safety.

This committee (known as S.A.G.) includes officers from KSDL, HTAFC, Police, Fire, Ambulance etc, but no fans representatives eg HTSA.

While I await copies of the minutes of the SAG meetings, so we can see what the 'issues' are, I have emailed the HTSA to see if they will join/support this project. HTSA has contacts, and a medium for getting it's message out, but only has around 1,000 members. To me, if we are going to try and gather enough support, then the HTSA is the ideal focal point to manage and coordinate this, otherwise we are just a random bunch of uncoordinated fans...

Hence I believe getting HTSA on 'our side' is vital...it is a recognised body by the club, and others, as the 'voice of the fans'. It needs to be stronger, with more members, then it has more influence.

If we want to push our case for an improved atmosphere at the JSS, and having the more vocal fans congregated together in one stand is the way of doing this, then we need to be prepared to gather support for it. There will be objectors, and maybe at some stage a poll will be required. But if we want to do anything about it, before next season. then we need to build up some momentum before Town start thinking about season tickets for next season.