Last Saturday, me and my good friend Rob took a trip to the Hawthorns Stadium to see Manchester City vs. West Bromwich Albion. The first thing that struck me was my ticket; it had ‘persistent standing not allowed’ written on the bottom. Now I understand the thinking behind this – thousands of excited people sitting down in close proximity to each other is generally safer than thousands of excited people standing up in close proximity to each other – but I wish they would piss off with this insistence on trying to make the away fans sit down.
I’m a season ticket holder at the City Of Manchester stadium, and I’ll sit down there – I don’t like it, but I’ll do it because I’m near the front, and standing up throughout the game would be inconsiderate to those behind me. At away games however, we’re all standing up. We have to because we’re the minority and we’re trying our best to make our support known. Anyway, besides that, I don’t travel round the country to sit down for those 90 minutes; I’ve been sitting all the way to the game and I’ll sit all the way back. I’ve taken to just ignoring the stewards altogether now, and I will continue with my outright refusal to sit down. I don’t care if it gets me kicked out, I’m not sitting down at away games.
Inside the stadium, West Brom even had the phrase ‘Sit Down If You Love Football’ displayed periodically on the screen. Fuck off West Brom, no-one likes you anyway.