Equal access to the beautiful game

Nobody thinks about how disabled people can get equal access to follow and watch their favourite football team –until either they or a member of their family becomes disabled and has to find out the bad news for themselves. Well, it’s not all bad news, some teams have got their act together and some haven’t – despite the fact that there are supposed to be minimum standards of facilities. The problem often comes at away matches when fans in wheelchairs or with other mobility equipment are put with the home fans, often at the opposite end of the field to their own fans and sometimes directly in line with the ball, down at pitch level behind the goal. There are two problems about this – firstly it is dangerous – the ball can hit hard and someone in a wheelchair is to going to be mobile enough to get out of the way quickly – but also disabled away fans will be right next to hardcore home fans – and that can be pretty scary too. There may well be hostility between different groups of disable fans (nobody said that disabled people are any less hardcore fans). As well as actually getting viewing access there is also a problem for getting information to go to games in the first place. Information such as special tickets for disabled, parking (crucial for the disabled) and all the other things they may need to know before they decide whether to follow their team to away matches.