Andy Burnham has reopened the debate about allowing football supporters to drink alcohol in the stands, and I have to say I think it would be a bad idea.
As reported by the BBC, Burnham has described the current restriction as “discrimination” and suggested that a change could be trialled. This is not an announcement that the ban is being lifted, with the report making clear that no wider consultation is currently planned, but it has certainly got people talking.
I understand the argument about treating football supporters differently: I have often said football fans are demonised because of the few. Piling up cans on a train at 7 am in the morning isn’t everyone. Police turning up en masse and sending fans home because they look like hooligans (South Yorkshire, I’m looking at you) is criminalising a look, a style and not behaviour, and it’s been wrong for years. Being allowed a pint in a particular seat for one event, then being told you cannot have one in that same seat for another, is an inconsistency people are entitled to question.
However, my first thought is what lifting the restriction would actually mean for those of us trying to watch a game at Sincil Bank.
My objection is not built around hooliganism. Drunks are going to drink, and troublemakers are going to fight, and I am not convinced that making somebody leave their pint on the concourse fundamentally changes either of those things. The guy on Saturday had a few, got himself on the pitch, and that’s not because he could have an extra pint during the game, is it? If he wanted a drink, he could head into the concourse, drink and come back, so the thought of beer in the stands isn’t fundamentally a problem. Someone determined to arrive at football steaming is hardly going to be defeated by the prospect of spending the first half without a plastic cup in their hand. I wasn’t at Stevenage a few years ago; I managed to drink plenty during the game.
I can also see the argument that allowing people to take a drink back to their seat might mean they stop trying to get through it at ridiculous speed before the second half. That is a reasonable point, and I don’t think everyone who wants a beer while watching football needs to be treated as a potential criminal. My concern is considerably more mundane: I think it would make the experience worse for the people around them.
The beer throwing is the obvious place to start. Somewhere along the line, launching your drink into the air when a goal goes in seems to have become part of the performance of being a football supporter. You know what I mean: the practice of celebrating a goal and making it about you. The wide-angle boxpark videos of beer being launched into the air, driving the purchase of DHGate shirts because they’re cheaper if they get ruined. Those clips of ‘limbs’ disappearing beneath a cloud of lager are apparently supposed to make us wish we were there, whereas they mainly make me grateful I am somewhere else.
People will say the majority would behave perfectly well, and I agree. The problem is that it only takes one person with a full pint to spoil things for several people nearby, and punishing them afterwards does not get anybody’s coat dry. I would rather not introduce the problem and then spend the next few seasons arguing about how to stop it.
The other issue is one we already have at Sincil Bank: constantly getting up and down to let people past. This is more an issue based purely on our situation, on our ground. I go to watch games in Germany a bit: Signal Iduna Park, Borussia-Park, Merkur Spiel-Arena and even Sportpark Höhenberg all allow drinking in the stands, and it works. There is plenty of room; you can buy stacked glasses to carry, and they have a great system where they have branded plastic glasses which you can either return for a deposit, or take home as a memento. Their grounds are nicely set up for it, and at Viktoria, there are so many empty seats you don’t get in anyone’s way!
At Sincil Bank, somebody leaves before half-time, somebody else follows, then you have the return journeys after the restart. There are already passages of football you watch through a shifting arrangement of coats, backs and people apologetically shuffling along the row. You couldn’t have beer sellers in the aisles, as they’d block views. Our ground just isn’t built for incessant ingress and egress. In the front rows, you probably only see minutes one to 35, and then 55 onwards, due to the steady, incessant stream of half-time drinkers.
Of course people need the toilet, and nobody should have to justify that. People have children to look after, health conditions and perfectly ordinary reasons for leaving their seat. That is part of sharing a football ground, but I cannot see the attraction of adding regular trips to the bar to the existing traffic. My Dad, God bless him, would huff and puff if the family, along from us, needed the loo before 30 minutes, and he hated anyone getting up after 60 for any reason at all.
If beer is allowed in the stands, one person goes for a round, comes back carrying it, then somebody else decides they want another. Add the inevitable extra toilet trips, and the people near the aisle end up doing half a fitness class while trying to follow the match. It’s not like we have aisles in regular spaces in the GBM Stand either, is it? If you choose to miss five minutes to buy a pint, that is your decision, but everybody you have to squeeze past gets involved in it as well.
One answer might be you can’t move alcohol between the stands and the bar while the game is on. If you want a pint, buy it before kick-off, take it into the stands, great. If you want another, you can go to the bar and drink, as some do at half-time, but you can’t take it back to your seat until the game has stopped for half-time.
Alcohol-free sections would be another possible compromise, although I would object to existing season-ticket holders being expected to move to avoid a change they never wanted. People build their matchdays around where they sit and who they sit with. If a trial ever happens, I would much rather see a clearly designated drinking area than make everyone else apply for somewhere they can watch the football without it. I could live with two blocks being designated as drinking blocks, but policing that would be a nightmare, wouldn’t it? It would spread – let’s say Block 7 was a drinking block, but then those on the edge of Block 6 decide they want in, and it creeps across.
There is already plenty of opportunity to have a drink before the game, at half-time and afterwards. I am obviously happy for that to remain part of people’s matchday, even though the ‘new’ me doesn’t drink much at all. I just don’t think every part of the afternoon needs to accommodate it.
I’m not against drinking in the stands. In fact, I am for anything that dampens the demonisation of the average football fan, who isn’t a Stone Island-clad thug with white powder dripping from his nose and a conviction for domestic abuse, like many seem to think. The average fan is like you and me, normal, law-abiding, wanting to enjoy a game, and probably quite respectful to their spouse. Even when we lose.
However, when the football starts, we want to watch it, and when we score, we want to celebrate without coming home smelling like somebody else’s pint. If we can find a way to accommodate this and allow drinking in the stands at the same time, great. If not, it’s a no from me.
Comments Welcome!