If ever there was a case for Terracing...

The next person that tells me terracing has no place in the modern game needs to get themselves down to Aldershot for a game as quickly as possible. Saturday was incredible, ok the game finished 1-1 again with us conceding an 86th minute equaliser, but this game was always going to be about the atmosphere in the stands rather than the football. There is something about a covered terrace behind the goal that brings out best (some may say worse) in the British football fan, tradtionally it was here that most vociferous fans would gather and shout, scream and generally behave disgracefully. Every club had their own 'Home end', famous old terraces that would be the heartbeat behind the matchday atmosphere for example Man Utd's Stretford end, Chelsea's Shed End, the world famous Kop and of course our own London Road. Unfortunately during the late 70's and 80's boisterous behaviour and the occasional punch up had evolved into regular serious violence. Frequent mass riots, incompetent policing and grounds resembling death traps had basically made English football a place where personal safety could not be garunteed, something had to give. In 1989 at Hillsborough it did and the fallout would change football for ever.
I have no intention of going into the details of the Hillsborough tragedy but its clear that the blame was placed almost exclusively on terracing. It has become obvious in subsequent years that there were many more factors that led to deaths of 96 Liverpool fans such as horrendous over crowding, riot fencing and a general slow reaction to the situation. Whilst a crush like this simply wouldn't happen in a seated stand it does not mean that it was the terrace that caused it. A modern terrace with properly errected crush barriers, no standing areas and a strict cappacity is a safe place to watch football. In the german Bundesliga every weekend thousands of football fans stand on huge terraces up and down the country whilst in England we are forced to sit and watch football like some kind of trip to the cinema. To say the atmosphere suffers as a result is a huge understatement.
At Aldershot it was like meeting up with an old friend. The home fans are magnificent and made much more noise than us which is how it should be (new stadia usually over police home fans letting away fans do as they wish and make all the noise) and for myself and many others it felt like football used to. For the sake of English football I hope the authorities realise that terracing was not the cause of all ill in the 80's and that they see fit to allow standing areas back into league football as soon as possible.