English club Shrewsbury closer to football safe-standing landmark

London (AFP) – Shrewsbury have moved closer to becoming the first English club to install safe standing in their stadium nearly three decades after the Hillsborough disaster.

The third-tier League One team want to create a safe-standing area, which would have a capacity of around 500, in their Montgomery Waters Meadow arena and their application has now been approved by the Sports Ground Safety Authority.

Shrewsbury are looking to raise up to £75,000 (84,000 euros) to fund the cost of becoming the first all-seater stadium in England and Wales to introduce safe standing before the end of the 2017-18 season.

“We are a big step closer to our dream of becoming the first English Football League club to have a safe standing area with rail seats installed in a (currently) all-seater stadium,” read a statement on Shrewsbury’s official website.

Clubs in England’s top two divisions have been legally required to have all-seater grounds since the measure was recommended by the 1990 Taylor Report into the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, which saw 96 Liverpool fans killed in crushes caused by over-crowding in the Leppings Lane standing area.

The Premier League recently wrote to its 20 clubs asking if they would be interested in taking part in a trial to reintroduce standing sections in their grounds.

Scottish Premiership champions Celtic last season installed 2,600 rail seats at Parkhead that can be flipped down or locked into an upright position, with safety barriers separating each row, in a move that was considered a success.