Coronavirus and the Scottish Championship

[1320Lichtie]

17 minutes ago, Tattie36 said:

 

A minor, temporary, inconvenience to be able to get back to unlimited crowds.

Minor for who though? You? SD is obviously involved in this stuff and read what he’s saying. 
 

Also what about premiership teams? Checking 30k at parkhead is or 3000 at Tannadice is that the aim yeah? Or the standard to meet? How is that minor? I’ve been to a packed Tannadice and it’s hard enough to get in the gates when it’s ticket only never mind the pass. 
 

And once again, like so many things before, a minor (for you maybe) inconvenience that achieves absolutely nothing. We shouldn’t have to be doing things like this to get crowds into a football ground and to enjoy basic freedoms. It’s a complete waste of time 

Edited January 11, 2022 by 1320Lichtie

[Guest Flash]

30 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Whole thing isn't designed to deal with events staged on a walk up basis where you don't necessarily know the attendance beforehand. Effectively if you might have a gate between say 800 and 1,400 you are going to have to check everyone as they arrive as there doesn't on the face of it appear to be practical alternative. You can't Not check them in case the crowd does end up over 1,000.

This might not help but at the moment the guidance is based on how many the organisers planned to attend the event. So, if you expected 900 and organised it for those numbers (for example, hired the appropriate number of stewards) and 1,200 actually showed up but you didn’t have any checks, it would appear you complied with the guidance. Obviously, if it was clear you were going to get well over 1,000, they’d probably take a dim view. 
I think for games where we got under 1,000 in the first round of fixtures, we’d be ok to plan for that. Unless, something weird happens and we suddenly start winning games.

[stevoraith]

 
Again, as that stands, if we have a crowed of 1,001 in our next home match v Dunfermline we'll be required to check vaccine passports for 1,000 of them.

I stand corrected.

Presumably the press reports I read had misconstrued the original terribly worded release.

As you say- total and utter ball-ache for all championship clubs.

[Enigma]

52 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

It's not that big a deal for fans though some will either refuse to comply, not know that they need to (we still had fans rocking up at Palmerston on Saturday not aware they needed to have pre-registered for a ballot for an eticket to get in), or not understand the whole thing.

Well you did let George Galloway in…

[Hammerafc]

What's the point in a vaccine passport when negative LFT is involved and you register this yourself without actually having to take the test. Pointless

[Guest Flash]

1 hour ago, Skyline Drifter said:

The JRG update issued after the speech today is perfectly clear:

 

Again, as that stands, if we have a crowed of 1,001 in our next home match v Dunfermline we'll be required to check vaccine passports for 1,000 of them.

There is now a news item on the SG website. There is no mention of the 1,000 minimum checks. Which is maybe where the press reports are getting it from. It could be that they’ve just missed it out from this item. Need to wait for the actual guidance.

To support the lifting of capacity limits on outdoor events, COVID certification will remain for these where more than 4,000 standing or 10,000 seated are in attendance, and all other events and venues previously covered. Organisers of all events with more than 1,000 attendees will be expected to check a minimum of 50% of attendees for certification of vaccination, exemption, or negative test.

News item

Edited January 11, 2022 by Flash

[Paisley Ton]

20 minutes ago, Hammerafc said:

What's the point in a vaccine passport when negative LFT is involved and you register this yourself without actually having to take the test. Pointless

Definately the position.

Fully vac means two shots and booster now.

So lateral flows will be big part of entry numbers.

As you say 1000 Djokovic will be there.

I am all for hold Saturday games until Monday or Tuesday, why play to 500 plus 200 on the streems.

[Skyline Drifter]

1 hour ago, Tattie36 said:

I’m not sure how all clubs operate but at Arbroath it’s all online ticket sales or season tickets. These are scanned by staff at the gates with hand scanners (I’m sure we’ll change to turn-style scanners eventually but, as this is our first season doing all online ticketing, it’s being done manually). I can’t see how the Covid passports or negative LFTs can’t just be “checked” by the same staff at the same time. Don’t think there’s normally any more than 10-12 individuals doing the scanning for crowds of 1500 or so so not exactly a massive staffing issue.

A minor, temporary, inconvenience to be able to get back to unlimited crowds.

Yeah, it's not how we operate though. We have kids from the u18 squad operate turnstiles where they take a stub off a ticket already sold at a kiosk. All paper, not online. I can't see us giving 16 and 17 year olds the responsibility to check vaccine passports.

37 minutes ago, Flash said:

This might not help but at the moment the guidance is based on how many the organisers planned to attend the event. So, if you expected 900 and organised it for those numbers (for example, hired the appropriate number of stewards) and 1,200 actually showed up but you didn’t have any checks, it would appear you complied with the guidance. Obviously, if it was clear you were going to get well over 1,000, they’d probably take a dim view. 
I think for games where we got under 1,000 in the first round of fixtures, we’d be ok to plan for that. Unless, something weird happens and we suddenly start winning games.

That's interesting. I didn't consider that. I doubt it makes any real odds though. 1st time around Dunfermline crowd was 1,071. All the games were over 1,000 except for Raith (964), Inverness (942) and Ayr Utd (998). We don't play Raith again till mid March and the others in April. Even Arbroath back in September had a 1,174 crowd. I guess it may be possible to make a case that imminent games with current form, worse weather and a lot more Covid about, will have lower crowds. To be honest it would be a surprise if the guidance hasn't changed again by the time we play Arbroath in late February. We're probably only talking about that Dunfermline game.

7 minutes ago, Flash said:

There is now a news item on the SG website. There is no mention of the 1,000 minimum checks. Which is maybe where the press reports are getting it from.
It isn’t clear but I wonder if checking a minimum of 1,000 will only apply to the 4,000 standing or 10,000 seated crowds. If it is under these limits, but over 1,000, then you might only need to check 50%. Need to wait for the actual guidance, though.

To support the lifting of capacity limits on outdoor events, COVID certification will remain for these where more than 4,000 standing or 10,000 seated are in attendance, and all other events and venues previously covered. Organisers of all events with more than 1,000 attendees will be expected to check a minimum of 50% of attendees for certification of vaccination, exemption, or negative test.

News item

Again, the JRG pronouncement I quoted above was very clear. It may be they'll re-issue something too but what it says is 50% of crowd or 1,000 people, whichever is higher. It also made no distinction either for games under 1,000 though so we'll see.

[Guest Flash]

1 minute ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Yeah, it's not how we operate though. We have kids from the u18 squad operate turnstiles where they take a stub off a ticket already sold at a kiosk. All paper, not online. I can't see us giving 16 and 17 year olds the responsibility to check vaccine passports.

That's interesting. I didn't consider that. I doubt it makes any real odds though. 1st time around Dunfermline crowd was 1,071. All the games were over 1,000 except for Raith (964), Inverness (942) and Ayr Utd (998). We don't play Raith again till mid March and the others in April. Even Arbroath back in September had a 1,174 crowd. I guess it may be possible to make a case that imminent games with current form, worse weather and a lot more Covid about, will have lower crowds. To be honest it would be a surprise if the guidance hasn't changed again by the time we play Arbroath in late February. We're probably only talking about that Dunfermline game.

Again, the JRG pronouncement I quoted above was very clear. It may be they'll re-issue something too but what it says is 50% of crowd or 1,000 people, whichever is higher. It also made no distinction either for games under 1,000 though so we'll see.

Aye, I edited my post about the minimum 1,000 checks. They maybe just missed it out of that news item to keep it simple.

[Hammerafc]

Definately the position.
Fully vac means two shots and booster now.
So lateral flows will be big part of entry numbers.
As you say 1000 Djokovic will be there.
I am all for hold Saturday games until Monday or Tuesday, why play to 500 plus 200 on the streems.

Could the Spfl not just ask can we move this to Saturday. No major events planned an nobody is suddenly goinf to set up a major event this weekend.

[1320Lichtie]

1 hour ago, Hammerafc said:

What's the point in a vaccine passport 

Could’ve stopped there

[Hammerafc]

Could’ve stopped there

Biggest waste of time and effort for zero gain.

[jagsfan57]

13 hours ago, Rjc-1988 said:

This latest debacle from Sturgeon highlights just how incompetent she and her governmental advisers actually are. With the Premier clubs bringing forward their mid season break the obvious strategy was to leave the lower league clubs to continue as normal safe in the knowledge that very few matches, if any, would get crowds that were going to exceed 20% of the relevant ground capacity. The underlying risk in the open air with very low crowds was negligible. Nobody is expecting Sturgeon to understand football crowd dynamics but there are surely some football minded people in advisory roles that could have applied some common sense. At the very start of the pandemic Jason Leitch was telling viewers on Breakfast TV that his wife was going to a sell out pop concert and he didn’t see why people couldn’t go to the Rangers/Liverpool European matches!!!! 

The imposed crowd embargo has achieved nothing other than piss off football enthusiasts and worse still pile on the financial pressure to clubs by denying them valuable festive income when, as always, every penny is a prisoner. 

 

 

Didn’t the premier league clubs bring forward the break after the announcement ? Although, there is little risk outdoors, the risk was going to and from the games on public transport, which was what they said at the time. In reality, the only league that was impacted was the championship, maybe a few league 1 clubs but I doubt many league 1 or 2 clubs get over 500 regularly.

[jagsfan57]

11 hours ago, craigkillie said:

The clubs didn't vote to ban moving individual games, I don't see why anyone could have a problem with two clubs mutually agreeing to move a game, an option open to everyone.

I am surprised because there were games being postponed at the last minute which could have a knock on effect to the schedule. So to postpone a game for convenience at that point in time seemed weird to me. I guess you were “lucky” in that none ? of your games were postponed.

[jagsfan57]

11 hours ago, Hawkeye the Gnu said:

I'm not sure I've got this correct so bear with me.....

Surely if you get checked and you don't have what it takes for entry you're only going to be turned away from the turnstile/checkpoint., what's stopping you going to another turnstile and trying again.

If 50% of the crowd is checked, the more often you try the better chance of not being checked.

I'm not for a minute advocating fans do this but it does make a bit of a mockery of the whole situation.

You’re right of course. But the govts are relying on the majority of people following the guidance.

[jagsfan57]

10 hours ago, madton said:

My post was about missed revenue with games actually played with 500 crowds 

The fact you shat playing Morton( potentially Ayr too)will benefit you as it will be back to normal crowds.

 

 

I realised that as soon as I had posted it. Whether we “shat it” or our pitch is crap is another matter altogether.

[vikingTON]

1 hour ago, jagsfan57 said:

Didn’t the premier league clubs bring forward the break after the announcement ? Although, there is little risk outdoors, the risk was going to and from the games on public transport, which was what they said at the time. 

So using public transport is an acceptable risk for just about every other purpose - and no purpose at all - but not going to an outdoor football match because that's too dangerous? 

People didn't use public transport to traipse to indoor shopping centres in their tens of thousands each day either side of Christmas? 

What 'they said' and reality are in two entirely different universes by now. 

Edited January 12, 2022 by vikingTON

[1320Lichtie]

2 hours ago, jagsfan57 said:

Didn’t the premier league clubs bring forward the break after the announcement ? Although, there is little risk outdoors, the risk was going to and from the games on public transport, which was what they said at the time. In reality, the only league that was impacted was the championship, maybe a few league 1 clubs but I doubt many league 1 or 2 clubs get over 500 regularly.

Every L1 club has an average over 500 except East Fife 

 

And this risk of going to games on public transport? What? Public transport was left running and would have still been busy with everyone still using it to go and do other things. People just went into pubs and people’s houses to watch games in big groups. I don’t get how some people can convince themselves that these measures worked or had the potential to work. 

[Alibi]

14 hours ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Whole thing isn't designed to deal with events staged on a walk up basis where you don't necessarily know the attendance beforehand. Effectively if you might have a gate between say 800 and 1,400 you are going to have to check everyone as they arrive as there doesn't on the face of it appear to be practical alternative. You can't Not check them in case the crowd does end up over 1,000.

Just announce a crowd of 999 every game.

[Skyline Drifter]

27 minutes ago, Alibi said:

Just announce a crowd of 999 every game.

It's inevitable now it genuinely WILL be somewhere in the 990 - 999 range and everyone will just assume we've contrived it! Our last unrestricted home crowd was 998.