Star comment: Standing plan great for club

There has been an unending clamour to return standing areas to football stadia since they were banned many years ago, following the Hillsborough disaster.

And while it was entirely understandable that the authorities should take that move following the deaths of Liverpool FC fans, now is the right time to make a change.

Shrewsbury Town fans are responsible for the advancement of safe standing areas through a crowd-funding scheme. And it may well be that other fans from clubs across England will also chip-in, in the hope that the scheme will lead to similar schemes at their clubs.

The horrors of Hillsborough live on and a generation later the families of those affected are still unpicking the events of that day in their tireless fight for justice.

Clearly, no circumstances must arise in which public safety is at risk. Everything that can be done must be done to make sure people can enjoy watching matches safely. No expense can be spared as planners and developers rip up seated areas and replace them with terracing.

There is something utterly unique about standing to watch a football match. An atmosphere that cannot be replicated in a seated stadium makes football an almost other-worldly experience.

The fans and directors of Shrewsbury will earn the gratitude of millions of football fans around England if the scheme is a success – and it almost certainly will be.

They will view it as a test bed for their own clubs.

They will hope it will spread to other small grounds and, perhaps, eventually be extended to medium-sized and large clubs.

Indeed, research suggests that pioneering Shrewsbury Town could radically alter the face of English football. More than half of Premier League clubs are understood to be open to the idea of safe standing, which have been banned in the top tiers of English football since the 1990 Taylor report.

Elsewhere, safe standing has worked. Celtic, the Scottish champions, have introduced a scheme that has proved popular.

And the £50,000-£75,000 that Shrewsbury fans now need to raise could be transformative for our county’s leading team as well as many others.

Standing areas may, in fact, be safer than seated areas in which fans already stand. We wish Shrewsbury Town well as it moves forward.