This article was originally written in July 2020 – slap bang in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic…thankfully my fears were not realised. CLP

The time has come to take a fresh look at the Sports Ground Safety Act (1975). Sitting down all the time was never good for public health and now even less so.

How many EFL League One and Two clubs will make it through the pandemic and perhaps more crucially, how many of our traditional football grounds?

Bury went bust before the 2019/20 season even started. Bolton just pulled through. Blackpool having stepped out of the Oyston family shadow, have walked straight into this maelstrom. Coventry City, renting the matchday facilities at Birmingham’s St Andrew’s, was just clinging on with crowds of around 6,700. Ipswich, are just finding their feet with crowds of around 19,500 for every home game, having struggled financially since the club went full Premier League and lost control of their finances. Portsmouth have only recently been pulled out of a financial black hole by their fans, who in turn must be relieved that their local team is now under-written by a billionaire’s family trust.

And what of Sunderland AFC, once the ‘Bank of England Club’? The unluckiest Black Cats ever known, were in the middle of addressing complex fiscal arrangements and scratching up some embarrassing financial details, when the time came for us all to hold our breaths.

Every club in the lower divisions and several bigger ones higher up the ladder, are walking a precarious financial tight-rope. Player wages, contracts? Player safety? Play behind closed doors? Scrap the season? Play the play-offs? TV money paid out or paid back? iFollow? Regionalised leagues? Five substitutes (really!)? All is up for discussion, but one factor is potentially the critical one for the long-term survival of professional football; stadium design.

No one wants football without fans, it will be a disaster for viewing figures and the Premier League / SKY / BT balloon will just float away. As in the theatre industry, sitting fans, or an audience down in thigh-to-thigh proximity is not going to meet Covid-19 health guidelines. I believe that all seater regulations, brought in following the tragedy of Hillsborough in 1989, will have to be scrapped. Without a vaccine, no local authority will be able to issue Sports Ground Safety Certificates, unless clubs reorganise how they accommodate spectators.

If you can smell stale beer, exhaled cigarettes, pie belches, bad breath, or even toothpaste and chewing gum from the people sitting around you at a game; spending a couple of hours at your favourite football club could well lead you to contracting the coronavirus. When a mate next tells you, “Academicals will be the death of me!” It won’t be the basis for a jocular discussion.

Portsmouth’s Fratton Park started 2019/20 with a reputation for impregnability. By the time Arsenal came and went on 2^nd March, leaving Covid 19 to infect at least four Pompey players, League One ground to a halt. The old stadium had crammed in an average 17, 804 spectators, plus stewards, caterers, police and media for each home fixture. The team were unbeaten at home in League One and the dream of Michael Eisner’s family and his Tournate Company, to redevelop the ground to keep its famous matchday buzz, was well on the way to fulfilment. The developing plans, some of which are now with the local planning authorities, allowed for increased capacity, greater comfort and increased profit from improved match-day facilities and catering.

The Eisner (and that of most Pompey fans) ideal is to sustain the club on a better than break-even basis, using the ground’s now unique character, with its Leitch stand, as the appeal. With Everton and Burnley, there are now few such traditional feeling grounds in England and there were none available for just £5 million to buy when the Eisners came calling.

Plans to develop the very unpopular, uncomfortable and appallingly provisioned, away end on Milton Lane had just been publicised when the coronavirus Lockdown began. Now, I fear, these plans will have to be shredded, along with the concept of Fratton Park as a traditional football Jurrasic-park, complete with some real dinosaurs in the Fratton End.

How can a ground with a capacity of 19,669 and averaging 17, 804 in the third tier, ever be Covid-19 compatible within the congested confines it offers? Operating at 90.5% of attendance capacity is every Chairman’s dream. You can plan a business on that basis and enjoy the bonuses from televised games, cup games, EFL finals and if necessary, play-off matches. But such attendances cannot be sustained in a Covid-19 world, within small all-seater stadiums.

So, will football find a corner and quietly curl up and fade away? I don’t think so, because I believe “safe standing” will become the rule not the exception.

Grounds like the Stadium MK in Bedfordshire, with perfect sightlines from all positions are big and modern enough to allow supporters to spread out. MK Dons attract an average gate of 9,246 – just 30% of the 30, 500 capacity.  The Stadium of Light with over 30,000 fans at each home game, was only working at 61% of capacity. These are clubs that could distribute supporters around the ground safely. 

Bolton’s average turnout is just 11,420, but again this only fills 40% of its 28,723 potential. Even a thankfully Oyston-free Blackpool, are playing games at Bloomfield Road when it is just over half full.

How will Fleetwood Town cope at Highbury? Exeter at St James Park? Lincoln at Sincil Bank? Clubs like these, who were getting the benefit of a feisty atmosphere by packing the fans in very tightly, will really suffer. Capacity and matchday revenues will be reduced dramatically. Hopefully Lincoln can adjust their plans for their proposed ground improvements to cope; luckily, they have some space to work in immediately adjacent to the club.

Grounds that generate a good atmosphere, like these, will be forced to think again. Safe standing could potentially increase capacities by around 80% if every seat was replaced by safe standing, but only in theory. The need is for fans to keep within household groups, (impossible to police), or maintain physically distances – even if the social distance is reduced to a metre. How will accessibility for those with disability be guaranteed?

It may be feasible to get similar, or slightly reduced attendances if standing is brought back into football grounds, but not everyone is able to stand and then how will be seating be arranged to allow people to get around each other for a loo break, or if arriving late? 

Will football be like opera, where late arriving ticket holders have to wait to be seated at the interval? You can see this going down well when the police socially-distanced kettle has kept you waiting at the station for safe passage, or congestion on the M25 has held up the away fans’ coaches en route. However, on the bright side, the re-designs and new ground regulations may end the tiresome habits of those who take perverse pleasure from leaving games disruptively, five minutes before half-time and again before the final whistle.

It is going to take quite some time to resolve all these questions. Pinning the hopes for “live” football on finding a vaccine rather dodges the more immediate issues of sustaining good public health, if crowds are to return to our football grounds.

Pompey started 2019-20 with two of its iconic floodlight pylons removed. One was cut up and taken away, the other moved to the club car park as a reminder that Fratton Park was the first ground to play a Football League Division One game under floodlights in 1956. I found the asymmetrical image of the ground unsettling, but accepted that time passes and some change is inevitable. I obviously had no inkling that this season may turn out to be the very last season for the old ground. The place where my grandfather introduced me to Pompey. Missing a quartet of floodlight pylons will be as nothing, if my old home ground goes too.

CLP 01/07/2020

Martin died yesterday. We only knew each other through football. He was a stoic where the vagaries of Pompey were concerned. His amusement and occasional bemusement at the goings on at Fratton Park, on the field and behind the scenes, were always expressed with good humour.

He was a lovely man. He will be sorely missed by all who knew him.

CLP 07/10/2019

At what point does a game become pointless? An 11-0 win proves what?

Having seen the comedian Peter Kay remark that everyone asks taxi drivers, “How’s business?” I have made every effort to introduce about other topics of conversation.

The world seen from the wheel of a taxi driver must be a funny mix of static and mobile; lonely and sociable. Regular routes and time at the taxi stand allow changes in the area to be spotted and observed. The time waiting for a booking, or driving on from a drop-off allows for reflection. The interaction with passengers must give some insight into the lives of others. There is time to listen to the radio and the passing of the world beyond the place of work.

If none of the above interest you or your cabbie then there is always the economics of the taxi business; the vehicle, the licence, the trade – or you could both chose to travel in silence. It’s nice to have some peace occasionally.

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CLP 30/03/2019

Pompey’s loss of form since the start of 2019 has been associated by many with the return of midfielder Ben Thompson to Millwall, when that club called him back from loan.

The energetic displays from Thompson in midfield helped Pompey maintain a tempo of play that ensured the ball moved quickly . The ball was shifted promptly out to the flanks where Curtis and Brown, on the left and Lowe and Nathan Thompson, on the right created and scored plenty of Pompey’s goals in the first half of the season. It worked well in the main, except when Charlton Athletic came to Fratton Park and a different style of midfield play was seen, but from the opposition.

The visitors had a middle trio who switched the ball quickly between each other, keeping it away from Pompey’s tackling midfielders and then when they advanced into Pompey’s half, drawing defenders out of position, the ball was slipped through to one of two attackers who worked across the defensive line, rather than holding set positions.

Contrast this with Pompey’s formula of a central big man, two wide players, who occasionally switch wings, with ball distribution coming from a central pair in the middle. We saw it again at The Valley, where some brave defending and miscued Pompey shots in last few minutes ensured Charlton held on for a win.

Charlton looked slicker on the ball than Pompey, who play in a style that seems mechanical by comparison. Charlton’s players in most positions were also tougher in the tackle. They won the ball from Pompey players, they won 50/50 challenges, they persisted in tackling; all whilst staying upright. There was hardly a sliding tackle made at The Valley by either side, but it was astounding to see how many challenges Charlton won.

Charlton’s manager’s attitude and aggressive style of play when a footballer made him one of Pompey’s most disliked opponents. He seems to have passed on how to win tackles, (but fairly), onto his protegés at The Valients. He was one of those players who it would always be preferable to have on your side than on the opposition’s. He never played for Pompey, so he was a horrible opponent who we loved to beat – which was quite often. He seems to hold a permanent grudge against Pompey, (as it seems he does against most other clubs too, to be fair).

Bowyer is moulding a fast moving, creative team at Charlton that is good to watch – unless you are a Pompey fan.

Pompey did come back into the game, but missed the chances they had created. The change came with a super-charged Brett Pitman playing behind the attackers and spreading play and feeding through passes.

I felt that in the home game against Blackpool Pitman should have played behind Andre Green, as his lack of pace is more than compensated for by his strength on the ball. His aggression is about goals. He wants to threaten the goal, not just pass to a blue shirt.

Perhaps the Pitman Problem (i.e. why is he not picked to start every game?) could be resolved by playing him in a deeper role. He will always give Pompey goals. He has a powerful shot, he would be able to support the other big man up front, he shows fight that gets his team-mates moving, rattles the defenders and enthuses the fans. He has a domineering presence that needs focusing.

Brett Pitman ‘s future at Pompey seems to be in the balance, but if he could drop just those few yards behind Hawkins, Pompey may see the best of him yet and he could add years to his career. Teddy Sheringham did just that to great effect as he grew older and he played on until his was 42.

Pompey need a goal scoring midfielder who can fight for the ball in the final third of the pitch. Someone who has the nous to add a bit of flair and devilry to the attack. Ladies and gentlemen, we have that player…Brett Pitman.

p.s. And so it came to pass, Brett Pitman played in the “No 10” role at Walsall on 12th March and played a decisive part in a 2-3 away win. It was a relief to realise he was on the pitch when the penalty was awarded to Pompey, (he had replaced Gareth Evans in the XI, the usual penalthy taker), as it was not obvious who might have stepped up confidently at that point after Omar Bogle’s disappointing effort against Barnsley. The third goal came about from Pitman’s hard challenge, from the floor, when he regained possession on the halfway line and then passed the ball wide to set up the breakaway.

Well done Mr Jackett for working with Brett Pitman to find him a role he can thrive in! Now, about defending corners…

CLP 10/03/2019

Fuelled by oil

Citizens pursue glory

Abu Dhabi’s toy

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CLP  02/11/2018