Back in the 1980's a certain Jimmy Hill, then Chairman of Coventry City, decided to combat escalating football hooliganism by introducing Britains first all-seater football stadium. Local protest led to a partial fan boycott and a media outcry which eventually resulted in Highfield Road reverting to a mixture of seating and terracing.

Today of course even those who hanker for a return to terracing can't truely imagine football without all seater stadia and the atmosphere they have created. The days of working class men and their weekly punch-ups has largely disapeared from top-class football. Seating then repulsed the traditional fan. Chairs were for the wealthy, a symbol of social status when attending a game. Seats got in the way of the fan and his weekly fun. The climate for all seater stadia just did not exist.

Since the Taylor Report and the introduction of television money, along with the general fashionability of football, a new generation of fans has emerged which not only finds seating preferential but essential. To them the idea of standing on crumbling concrete - often un-covered - is as repulsive the '80's attempt to make fans sit down.

Coventry were unlucky. Some would say it was a good idea at the wrong moment in time. Whatever your view, don't forget it happened here first...

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