Cappielow in Quarters

[standman]

Now that the dust has settled on a brilliant night last night, depending on the draw, it would be a nonsense if the capacity was 6700.

A couple of things could help.

Firstly the main stand could be for home fans only.

Secondly, if fans moving to the cowshed in rain  is really a concern  ( which seems mad as we have had much bigger crowds over the years without this being an issue) how about asking fanbase to have a Sinclair St option ?

They could enter via the reopened turnstiles , with maybe a metal barrier/stewards  as soon as you go through to stop moving over.

Or if fanbase can’t do this, paper tickets for Sinclair St.

Say we drew Killie at Cappielow , we’d be shooting ourselves in the foot to limit the crowd to less than seven thousand.

So, home fans only in the stand and seperate tickets for Cowshed or Sinclair St.

Thoughts?

 

[SassenachTon]

How much capacity was actually lost last night because of the gantries? As fans, we obviously just look at empty seats - I’m guessing Dale has many more administrative, safety, segregation and security balls to juggle than just that, so I’m not sure about the logistics of it because I’d just be taking a wild guess. A decent home draw in the quarters would be a golden opportunity to earn substantial revenue for the club, so you’re obviously bang-on about the club needing to find a way of packing them in.

Not an expert in these matters - but I’m guessing that adding an additional ticketing option would be an hour’s job for the Fanbase app developers.

[SpoonTon]

The smaller central gantry was a big improvement on what went there before, that was helpful last night. 

There's no ladies toilet or catering in the Sinclair Street end, that's probably the immediate issue there. But I don't see why you can't have stewards restricting the access between the Cowshed and Sinclair Street end (it has been done before). As much as fans might want to be dry on a terrible day, we've never had an issue with fans choosing to cram in too tight over getting wet. The fact of the matter is that getting a bit wet in the rain is actually far more pleasant than being too tightly squeezed under the Cowshed. I think the overall question surrounds finding the comfortable capacity to allow for a good balance. 

I mean, what happens on a beautifully sunny day when we're shooting towards the Sinclair Street end? Or if there happens to be a penalty shootout at that end. You could make plenty of cases for fans wanting to be in different parts of the ground at different times. We have to have plans in place to manage those situations. There also needs to be some trust in the fact that spectators know to choose the area which isn't full. If you go to a concert you know that you can't all rush towards the stage - there are plenty of events where you have to manage where people go and have some trust that they won't all go to the same place. As long as you don't actively funnel them all there, you'll be fine. 

[capitanus]

1 hour ago, standman said:

Now that the dust has settled on a brilliant night last night, depending on the draw, it would be a nonsense if the capacity was 6700.

A couple of things could help.

Firstly the main stand could be for home fans only.

Secondly, if fans moving to the cowshed in rain  is really a concern  ( which seems mad as we have had much bigger crowds over the years without this being an issue) how about asking fanbase to have a Sinclair St option ?

They could enter via the reopened turnstiles , with maybe a metal barrier/stewards  as soon as you go through to stop moving over.

Or if fanbase can’t do this, paper tickets for Sinclair St.

Say we drew Killie at Cappielow , we’d be shooting ourselves in the foot to limit the crowd to less than seven thousand.

So, home fans only in the stand and seperate tickets for Cowshed or Sinclair St.

Thoughts?

 

Is there 2000 Morton supporters who would 'choose' to go into the main stand as opposed to other parts of the ground?

Also,

By having away fans in the shed, this would somewhat diminish what the Cowshed can contribute overall.  The cowshed should be an intimidating place for opposition players to play, when you give a chunk of that to away support who can be in high spirits can lessen that experience.

The issues with Ticketing, Turnstiles, Stewarding, Catering are all greater priorities.

[Jamie_M]

14 minutes ago, capitanus said:

Is there 2000 Morton supporters who would 'choose' to go into the main stand as opposed to other parts of the ground?

Also,

By having away fans in the shed, this would somewhat diminish what the Cowshed can contribute overall.  The cowshed should be an intimidating place for opposition players to play, when you give a chunk of that to away support who can be in high spirits can lessen that experience.

The issues with Ticketing, Turnstiles, Stewarding, Catering are all greater priorities.

He didn't suggest away fans in the shed.

[capitanus]

1 hour ago, Jamie_M said:

He didn't suggest away fans in the shed.

Neither he did.

[dunning1874]

Even if you're not wholly separating Sinclair St and the Cowshed or bringing the space behind the pundits back into use (and you can understand the risks of doing so), you could still comfortably have fit at least another 1000 people into the Cowshed last night, maybe even closer to 2000. Even with the space not being in use for the gantry, adding another 1500 would only have made it about as busy as the 2015 game v Peterhead which was a long way away from being dangerously overcrowded.

2500 is a ridiculously conservative estimate even we have a TV gantry and every single person with a terracing ticket does go into the Cowshed and ignore the Sinclair Street end. 3500 would be a far more realistic, but still probably too low, number of Cowshed tickets. If you find a way to segregate Sinclair St and the Cowshed then you can get another 1000-1500 in Sinclair St.

I think in the past whenever we had Sinclair St separated (think we did this for the Celtic game in 2010 with 10,136 the reported attendance?) access to the main stand has been allowed for use of women's toilets there, but maybe the evolution in safety rules isn't going to allow that now?