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Gold stands by his support for safe standing

gold_2446989bWest Ham Co-Chairman, David Gold appears to stand behind his comments of four years ago when he said he was open minded about Safe Standing and if West Ham got the Olympic Stadium he would certainly consider it there. The Chairman re-tweeted the  short video clip to his 152,000 followers on twitter this morning.

Later he added to the standing debate saying “PERSONALLY I don’t care fans standing but I care about our Licence, the young and elderly that can’t see the game dg”

In 2012, David Gold was asked by ClaretandHugh associate editor Sean Whetstone about his views on Safe Standing live on a satellite TV sports channel.

Gold answered at the time: “What I would say to you is that, I have recently seen a German model of safe standing, It actually is a seat but you leave the seat up and you can stand there and for other functions you can drop the seat down very quickly with a mechanism. So it can be done and I think we should at least take a look at it, not close our eyes to the fact” Asked whether he would consider it at

West Ham Gold replied. “If I got the Olympic Stadium I’d certainly consider it there!”

Previous messges of support for Safe Standing from David Gold

December 2011 – Twitter “I am in favour of small areas of controlled safe standing. DG”

January 2012 – Twitter” I am in favour of safe standing the key is in the title ‘safe’. DG”

December 2012 – Twitter “@Jamie_Seagrave: @DavidGoldWHU David, Is there anyway to have ‘safe standing’ at the olympic stadium? I hope so. DG

January 2013 – Twitter “We already have unsafe standing which also stops fans that want to sit from doing so. I’m in favor of safe standing. DG”

March 2013 – Twitter “I support safe standing I have done so for many years.”

March 2013 – Twitter “@DavidGoldWHU have you looked at safe standing? Yes, I support it. DG

March 2013 – Twitter “I would hope in the future to increase the capacity with safe standing.”

April 2013 – Twitter “I believe that safe standing is a viable alternative to the current unsafe and anti-social standing.”

May 2013 in e-Magazine Blowing Bubbles
“Safe standing in football stadiums will happen. I promise you it will happen.”

“I’d be stunned if we don’t have some sort of safe-standing experiment soon.”

“I think, in five years, we will see safe standing at football stadiums because, let’s face it, it’s not very expensive to install and it’s safe, very safe. In fact, it’s twice or three times safer than what we have at the moment.”

June 2015 – Twitter
Congratulations Celtic for being the first club to introduce a safe standing area I am confident that this is just the beginningPurpose built safe standings areas are considerably safer than the illegal and anti social standing we have at present.”

May 2016 – Twitter
“I support safe standing. DG”

August 2016 – Twitter
“If the experiment at Celtic is a success and I think it will, it will eventually lead to safe standing in the PL dg”

August 2016 – Twitter
“I believe that some time in the future the London Stadium will have an area of rail seats (safe standing) dg”

 

About Sean Whetstone

I am Season Ticket Holder in West stand lower at the London Stadium and before that, I used to stand in the Sir Trevor Brooking Lower Row R seat 159 in the Boleyn Ground and in the Eighties I stood on the terraces of the old South Bank. I am a presenter on the West Ham Podcast called MooreThanJustaPodcast.co.uk. A Blogger on WestHamTillIdie.com a member of the West Ham Supporters Advisory Board (SAB), Founder of a Youtube channel called Mr West Ham Football at http://www.youtube.com/MrWestHamFootball, I am also the associate editor here at Claret and Hugh. Life Long singer of bubbles! Come on you Irons! Follow me at @Westhamfootball on twitter

7 comments on “Gold stands by his support for safe standing

  1. Best thing to do is just get the ball rolling ! Something positive and then the fans will respond in tandem ! Monkeys aside lol. The longer it goes on the worse it will get ,
    Any way you look at it , safe standing should have been in at the off !
    The club knew the score but skipped around it , the blame is theirs ?
    Saying this that and the other means jack really,??
    If its not a success at Celtic and for the life of me can’t see that being the case, then what ,
    There’s no plan B ?? Just aggro ?

  2. Gold commented that he would consider safe standing should he get the Olympic stadium. Did he say that when we were trying to buy the place? he would have more control if we owned it. However, we don’t own it so I suspect its up to the stadium owners

    • You got it in1, OG. Was the practicalities of this ever raised? How could 60k people not think of, and raise it?? With hindsight, it was always going to be an accident waiting to happen. Maybe the board didn’t want to rock the boat??
      Whatever, it is a v ugly mess now.
      I don’t like to see the aspirations of any fans damaged….we are all WHU supporters….
      I would like to find a solution for all, but will the Stadium owners play ball? What is the general legal position? No party can be seen to actually cater for something illegal. Turning a blind eye is completely different from creating standing zones, should the the stadium owners prepared to do so.
      Effing mess…

  3. I’m sorry but talk is cheap. You can say all you like as many times as you like, but until you do something, it means nothing. Did they think for one minute that everyone would sit when they took it over. I doubt it. Totally take your point Oldgit, that we don’t actually own it, but surely something could have been sorted after 4 years in the planning. As johnboy says, get the ball rolling, then fans will feel there is some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. It needs to be sorted before someone gets hurt, or we all end up hating each other. I couldn’t help but think when witnessing the few fights that I did on Sunday (East lower), that you’ve got to stand (sorry sit) next that bloke all season long. That will certainly help build the tension. Come on Dave and Dave come out and say, that for next season, Bobby Moore lower and Trevor Brooking lower will be safe standing, then at least we know and won’t lose the atmosphere.

    • Saw a strange argument at the Bournemouth game. A fella physically got hold of a bloke and repeatedly shouted in his face SIT DOWN SIT DOWN!…… the bloke who was standing was in the very back row of the east stand and the fella doing the threatening was sitting in front of him. Weird. Stewards came over and let the bloke continue to stand albeit further along to row.

  4. I saw a big row between a sitter and a stander. Every time the stander started singing stand up if you love West Ham the sitter started singing sit down if you love West Ham. It was all a bit Monty Python. At the end of the day though there’s no magic wand. The club is bound by safety rules, regulations and guidelines as tenants of the stadium.

  5. Action not words
    He has constantly tweeted he supports safe standing yet West Ham did not officially endorse the safe standing roadshow
    Why not
    You ask DG and he don’t say why he didn’t put West Hams name to the campeign
    I’ll believe it when I see, not forgetting they reckon they just paid out millions to make the OS more West Ham do we think they will rip that out?

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