Pre-season friendly at Brighton's Amex gives glimpse into how Premier League clubs will welcome fans back
The 2,524 socially-distanced spectators at Brighton's pre-season friendly against Chelsea in August got an early glimpse of how the Premier League may now be set to welcome crowds back. Paul Barber, the club's chief executive, described the painstaking efforts that clubs must now go to ensure stadiums are safe. For the Chelsea friendly alone an operational plan ran to almost 200 pages.
One immediate hurdle for the Amex to overcome was that the stadium had been granted planning approval on the basis of limited parking as part of a sustainable transport plan by the club. "What we did was to expand the amount of parking as far as we could and we will make use going forward of more Park and Ride facilities," he said.
As it turned out, all transport networks were quiet, with some fans walking and cycling. The Amex also converted its ticket barriers to digital entry to prevent the risk of contamination. In the concourse areas, all fans wore masks, but stewards were under strict instruction to encourage rather than order fans to be vigilant over social distancing. Stewards, he said, were asked to be "as light in their touch as they possibly could in terms of 'don't bark at people'".
Fans were three seats apart from each other once in the stadium. There was also colour-coded signage to remind them of the risk. To keep bums on seats, extended pre and post-match entertainment was also put on. The managers also provided on-pitch interviews in a bid to encourage supporters not to head towards the exit in a rush as soon as the final whistle blew.
"What was really striking about the whole experience – and I think the DCMS and Sports Ground Safety Authority would 100 per cent concur with this – is just how compliant people were with the new rules and regulations that they were being asked to support," Barber said.
"There were a couple of reasons for that: One, that it was six months since most people have watched a live football match, and they were delighted to be here, albeit for a friendly match with eight per cent of the stadium capacity. Secondly, we deliberately in our communications with everybody had put the emphasis and the onus on the people attending to look after themselves, each other and our staff. We pushed a lot of responsibility to the people attending and we trusted them. And they actually supported that trust by 100 per cent complying."
Barber stresses that "football is not in any way strident when it comes to the challenges that Government are facing," but he added: "We think in the open air, with strict regulation and very significant safety measures and mitigation measures, we can have people watching football more safely than almost any other means. Clearly if you're sitting in your own living room on your own, that's going to be as safe as you can possibly be, but football fans, as we know, like to watch football together — that's one of the key reasons that we will love the game."
