Shrewsbury set for safe seating move

English League One football team Shrewsbury Town has confirmed it will install ‘Safe Standing’ rail seating in part of its New Meadow home stadium at the end of the 2017-18 season.

The club, which sits in the play-off places in the English third tier, will work with Ferco to add 550 rail seats in the Salop Leisure stand.

Shrewsbury said the seating has now arrived in the country and work to prepare the stadium for installation will begin as soon as the current season ends.

Last night’s results meant that Shrewsbury missed out on automation promotion and will now compete in the end-of-season play-off competition for the chance to win a place in the Championship, so this will delay the process by several weeks.

The club had set an initial start date of May 17, but this has now been put back.

Mike Davis, a spokesman for the Shrewsbury Town Supporters Parliament, said: “All along it has been about finding a slot for installation. It’s been an amazing season and that has contributed to us having to move it back.”

Standing at matches was outlawed in the top two divisions of English football following the Taylor Report into the 1989 Hillsborough Disaster, which claimed the lives of 96 Liverpool fans.

However, a number of clubs have called for the laws to be changed to allow for safe standing in areas of their stadia where persistent standing is an issue.

According to the Shropshire Star newspaper, if Shrewsbury were to win the play-offs, promotion would not be confirmed until the English Football League stages its AGM on Portugal 7. The club would remain officially be a League One club until this date, meaning the laws would not apply.

Image: James Humphreys