West Brom open to pilot scheme of safe standing at The Hawthorns

Mark Miles, who is responsible for crowd safety at the ground, travelled to Celtic Park last week to look at the safe standing area the Scottish champions opened at the start of this season and was impressed with what he saw.

He believes railed areas could be safer than seats in places where supporters stand for the duration of the match because the barriers stopping people falling forwards would be higher.

"While standing in seated areas isn't inherently unsafe, it's far from ideal, and as a club, we have to recognise that there are potential risks," he said.

"One is the possibility of a potential crowd collapse where there is a surge or something similar at the back and everybody dominoes forwards from the top of the stand. Clearly that is a worst case scenario, but we must accept it exists.

"In comfort terms, the only protection you have in front of you if you stand is a plastic seat which is something like 30cm above the concrete, and you can get pressure into the legs if you stand into that. Again, should you fall forward, that poses a risk of injury."

Government legislation requires all grounds in the top two divisions of English football to be all-seater stadia, and there are currently no plans to change the Football Spectators Act of 1989 that was drawn up after the Hillsborough disaster.

But Miles said: "If it could be demonstrated that in fact, it can actually create a safer environment and address the issue that, whether we like it or not, supporters want to stand, then I think government would take notice.

"If it could be demonstrated that safe standing makes grounds safer than they currently are, then I think it opens the doors for amending that legislation.

"The lessons of Hillsborough were well learnt and football stadia have become immensely safer environments because of that," he added.

"Nobody would countenance a development that would put at risk those advances, but equally, nor should we be blind to new ideas that might make stadia safer still."

Miles believes that Premier League football clubs will soon be invited to pilot safe standing, and he's open to the idea of trialling it at The Hawthorns.

The most likely venue would be at the back of the Smethwick End where supporters currently stand for the duration of the match.

"The Premier League issued a statement last month that pointed out some clubs are for, some are against, and it remains an emotive and divisive issue, but my opinion is that some clubs will be allowed to run a pilot at some time in the coming years," he said. "Maybe that could be done here?

"I think the simple fact, looking up and down the country, is that people do want to stand at games and we do have to take that reality on board."

However, Miles stressed that any potential safe standing would not increase the capacity of The Hawthorns in any way.

"You simply cannot put more people into the Smethwick End or the Birmingham Road End without rebuilding the stands - full stop," he said.

"You would need more turnstiles to cope with more people, you'd have to have more concourse space, more toilets, more catering outlets, more exit gates, bigger vomitories, bigger gangways and you physically cannot do that here. We cannot create those extra facilities within the stands that we have."

Although Albion are open to trialling safe standing, Miles said supporters would probably have to wait patiently before it was introduced.

"I'm not talking about a scheme that is going to come in next week," he said. "This is months if not years away, if it happens at all.

"It took Celtic the best part of six years from start to finish to actually put this into operation, though I don't think it would take that long here.

"There are a lot of questions to be answered on this, there is an awful lot to digest and to look at but I do think that as a game, we are starting to move down that road."