Shropshire rail seat firm gets increased interest from football clubs

• Watch a time-lapse video of Ferco Seating's rail seats being installed at Bristol City’s Ashton Gate

It is an atmosphere they believe has been lost since the advent of all-seater stadia in the wake of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.

The campaign for what is known as "safe standing" would allow the return of standing areas in Premiership and Championship grounds. And at the heart of the movement is a firm tucked away on a business park in rural Shropshire.

Ferco Seating, based in Atcham, near Shrewsbury, has carried out work at some of the biggest stadiums in the country, including Old Trafford, the home of Manchester United, and Arsenal's Emirates Stadium.

Closer to home, the company also made the seats for Shrewsbury's Theatre Severn. But it is the firm's range of seating known as rail seats which could see the return to standing at football clubs up and down the land.

Rail seats are used in sports stadia where all-seater capacity is required but where standing is permitted under certain rules. They are used extensively in Europe where the rules state that stadia must be all-seater for Champions League, Europa Cup and international games, but standing is allowed in league matches.

The seats fit between three metal tubes. When not in use they are locked in the upright position and the tubes act as a crush barrier. And these are what the Football Supporters' Federation, which started the safe standing campaign, are using to persuade clubs and fans to get behind the idea.

Michael Burnett, managing director of Ferco, believes a return to standing at football games is not far away. He said: "It looks like it's going to happen. When the big boys get behind it it will happen.

"We did the seating for the Emirates which was the first stadium to have all padded seats. It's a wonderful stadium but, strangely, there is no atmosphere.

"I've been to matches in Germany where they've got 3,000 to 4,000 rail seats and the fans in that section will out-sing and out-shout the rest of the crowd. One analogy I use is you wouldn't see a Welsh Male Voice Choir sing sitting down."

There is currently a petition calling for safe standing at the Emirates, which says padding seating cotributes to a lack of atmosphere. Mr Burnett said: "When the FSF was looking for someone involved in rail seats they came to us. They initially wanted to know if we could do it and provide them with a few samples.

"Jon Darch from the safe standing campaign volunteered to do a roadshow to show it to fans and football clubs. He persuaded me to build him a display with seats on it. He's been doing that for over two years. He has visited almost every Premiership and Championship club in England as well as most in the SPL in Scotland."

Last month at a Football League meeting, most of the 72 clubs backed calls for the introduction of safe standing areas at Championship grounds.

Peter Daykin, safe standing co-ordinator at the FSF, said: "The FSF believes that a small number of controlled trials of safe standing areas is an excellent means of facilitating this debate.

"The 72 clubs of the Football League deserve great credit for the way they have approached this decision, as do the organisation's staff and board and we would particularly like to thank the many supporters who lobbied clubs to say 'yes' to safe standing. It's crucial that individual fans continue to make their voices heard on this issue."

One of the clubs which has publicly backed the campaign is Shrewsbury Town. The club's statement says: "While we moved into a new stadium in 2007 that provides comfortable, all-seater accommodation to supporters in four individual stands, we appreciate some of our fans do prefer to watch football standing up. We recognise that the spaces in the corners between the four stands could potentially be developed one day as standing areas.

"Should . . . trials of safe standing areas using rail seats be permitted and prove successful, that may allow us to consider building such areas in one or two corners at some point in the future. In order that we might have this freedom to consider that option one day, we therefore support the Football Supporters' Federation in its call on Government to allow a limited number of small-scale safe standing trials." Ferco, based in Shropshire since 2008 after leaving its original home in London, installed 33 rail seats at Bristol City's Ashton Gate. as part of the stadium's redevelopment. The seats will initially be used for rugby matches. Mr Burnett said: "They wanted to demonstrate it would work. They put a reasonable amount of money into it and we put the seats in for nothing. We have definitely noticed an increase in interest since the safe standing campaign gathered pace. We have run out of samples.

"All our seats are designed to the highest level of use. The rail seat is also designed to crush barrier standards, so it is much higher. There are much higher loads imposed on it during testing. For clubs to be able to offer a standing area it is believed they can get more fans into that section. For bigger clubs the logic is they can increase the atmosphere."