By BBC (Sports) | Created at 2024-12-25 11:17:09 | Updated at 2024-12-26 01:50:34
15 hours ago
Rob Crossan is a partially sighted travel journalist who has travelled the UK visiting his favourite old-fashioned football terraces and taking photographs.
He told BBC Sport why, as a visually impaired fan, these terraces allow him to experience football in a different way, by moving around to follow the action.
Old-style terracing was phased out at Premier League grounds in 1994, a recommendation of the Taylor Report following the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 when 97 fans died following a crush.
Designated safe-standing areas were introduced in some Premier League and Championship grounds in 2022.
However, old-fashioned terraces can still be found at many smaller grounds.
Rob Crossan - as told to Ciaran Varley
I was born with ocular albinism and nystagmus which makes me almost completely blind in my left eye and severely visually impaired in my right eye. Nystagmus worsens with age. I can't drive a car and I struggle to see anything that's more than a couple of feet away with any real clarity.
When I first started to go and watch Wrexham in 1991, there was a terraced paddock area underneath the main stand. My friends and I used to follow the linesman and run up and down the terrace while the game was played so that I could keep up with the action and see what was going on.
Nowadays, I hate using seats and safe standing as it means I can't move at all to follow the action. But, in the upper echelons of the game, I have no choice.
Modern football stadiums are horribly stratified into various tiers, all depending on your wealth. Terracing is the great leveller in that regard.
Traditional terraces are like comfy old pubs in the sense that everyone is welcome, there’s no pretence and, if you don't like the person who's parked themselves near you, then you can simply move and go wherever you please. The few that are left stand as important physical reminders of a time when football was affordable to everyone.
I’m a travel journalist by profession and I think that my love for exploring began with going to Wrexham away games in the 1990s. As a teen, even places like Rochdale and Hull seemed exciting to me and my friends.
Living in London for the past 25 years, I started visiting local, smaller, clubs with friends who, like me, were happy to go and watch anyone, from Barnet to Chesham United to Enfield Town.
Going to these places made me realise how bad my eyesight had become. My enjoyment changed from watching the game on the pitch in detail, to soaking up the atmosphere and embracing the community element of these smaller clubs and grounds.
I’ve always been the kind of football fan who will watch any team, anywhere, any time. I like places near the sea; Arbroath is fantastic. At high tide, the North Sea has been known to give spectators a thorough soaking.
I remember a seagull executing a perfect dive bomb on a man's tray of chips on a terrace at Ayr United; the bird got ketchup on its feathers and the poor spectator was left with nothing!
I also remember standing on a terrace at Workington where the man next to me got out some knitting halfway through a goalless draw. He said he was making a jumper, but it looked more like a tabard for a dog to me.
The Hillsborough tragedy occurred when I was 10 years old and I have very clear memories of the aftermath. One of my closest friends, Mikey, is a Hillsborough survivor.
There's no possibility whatsoever of the huge terraces of the 1970s making any kind of a comeback. But, in smaller grounds, if managed properly, the old fashioned terrace is still safe and extant, although becoming increasingly rare.
