It's high time for a sit-down protest over standing fans

John Inverdale
18 Sep 2009

A small paragraph in the Chelsea programme for this week's Champions League match with Porto paid tribute to a man called Roger Barnes, a steward at the club for more than 20 years, who had died recently.

I don't know how much Roger got paid for two decades and more of service, or whether watching his beloved Chelsea was reward enough , but sitting in the Shed on Tuesday was enough to make you wonder why anyone would want to be a steward for 20 minutes, never mind 20 years.

A succession of arguments between Chelsea fans caused by several hundred people standing up throughout the majority of the first half made the whole atmosphere in that section of the ground unnecessarily tetchy.

Stewards tried repeatedly to get those concerned to sit down but polite requests were met by sullen refusals or supercilious gestures - 'what you gonna do about it if I don't?'

And the answer, of course, is nothing. Short of ejecting dozens of hardened fans from the ground and causing a major incident in the process, what can the poor stewards do?

So they stand by, impotent, while many hundreds more have their view of the pitch impaired.

The lay-out of the ground is such that no matter how considerate you might wish to be to those around you, if you're going to see the match you have to get on your feet.

Porto had loads of goal-scoring chances in the second half, thwarted by a cocktail of Petr Cech saves, John Terry headers and Ricardo Carvalho challenges. I didn't see that many of them because our view of the goalmouth was minimal and, whatever the rules and reasons, in this day and age for there to be a big screen that is not visible to all is wholly unacceptable.

This, of course, is a pan-football problem - you don't pay good money to guess what's going on. So you stand up and get shouted at by the guy behind you. And you say: What am I supposed to do because the guy in front of me is standing up? And so on.

And the steward says he'd like to do something but you know how it is.

Should stewards have more power? Would they abuse it if they did? Should the police get involved? How did Roger Barnes cope in those situations?

Whatever the solution - if indeed there is one - it's just a pain to be in the middle of it because you miss large chunks of the action as a result of a) being distracted or b) the fact you just can't see.

And you can't help feeling that the whole issue might be resolved if standing areas were restored to sections of stadiums where it's either impossible or impractical to steward sitting-down rules.

I'm assuming it finished 1-0?

Del Potro threatens Andy's grand plan

It is the nature of all sports that they experience periods of boom and bust in equal measure but can any sport look forward to 2010 with quite as much enthusiasm as tennis following the events in New York over the past fortnight?

Suddenly the big two in the men's game has become the big five, with Argentina's Juan Martin del Potro joining Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic as marquee names to
sell the sport over the next 12 months. A year ago, the women's game seemed bereft of personalities and interest. Now the return of Kim Clijsters and the arrival of the stunning Caroline Wozniacki to contrast the belligerent Serena Williams offers the prospect of a golden era to rival the days of Chris Evert, Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova.

And yet one note of caution from a British perspective.

As Murray plays against Poland in the Davis Cup today, he must be more tired than anyone of the endless sages who've said that it is inevitable he will win a grand slam before too long. Those chances have been diminished by the meteoric rise of the Argentinian and, all of a sudden, inevitable' is becoming certain' and, if he draws a blank in 2010, certain' will become bound to'. So next year had better be your year, Andy.

You just don't know how many more Del Potros are queuing up behind you.

Reasons to be cheerful…

Staying with the Argentinian theme, the inclusion of their rugby team in an expanded Southern Hemisphere Tri-Nations from 2012 can only be fantastic news for the sport. It is also due reward for former Argentina rugby captain Gus Pichot, one of the most outstanding sportsmen it's been my pleasure to meet, who has been campaigning for so long to try to get the Pumas wider recognition within the game. And another reason to celebrate is that Australia's cricketers must be leaving these shores in the next few days. They've been here so long, most of us had assumed they'd applied for British citizenship. Please can we never again have such a badly-planned tour with a succession of mind-numbingly repetitious one-day games organised at the end of it. Guys, it's nearly winter here and summer Down Under. So go home.