Originally Posted by
dml1954
Well the easy answer is that we do see some trouble at City away games, such as when fans wrecked the toilet's at Bristol City last year. Whilst I accept that could have happened wherever the opposing fans were located, these incidents always seem to occur at the higher profile games where the rivalry and intimidation is obviously much more intense. In our case that would be the games against Bristol City, Swansea, Leeds, Millwall, Birmingham, West Brom etc and having rival fans located close to each other especially on those occasions would only add to the problem. Some clubs are known for having a more family friendly atmosphere and don't have a big reputation for past hooliganism, so there would be less likelihood of problems arising if fans were close at those games but unfortunately you have to cater for the worst case scenario in these matters. Older people, disabled people, women and children would be much less likely to attend games if there was foul language, intimidation and the possibility of violence. The other question is - how many clubs actually allow it now ? My recollection is that there are few in the Championship. The problem at Reading was that originally the home fans were turfed out of their normal section to make room for the away fans and there were many complaints and some people stopped going, so in order to appease fans and get attendances up, Reading moved the home section back next to the away area. Reading are not a club with a particular hooligan problem that I know of, so that would explain why there would be less likely to be problems with the arrangement (plus there would be the threat of the club changing it back) but that doesn't make it the right thing to do generally.