Harrogate Town

I am a powerchair user and my husband is a white cane user, we attended the game as away fans. We travelled on an accessible coach that is part of our Club’s official away travel. This was our first visit to Harrogate Town.

Arrival and Entry to the Ground
The stadium is located on a residential road. Our fans with Blue Badges who drove to the game were able to arrange parking through the Club in a small car park adjacent to where we entered which they were pleased about. We were informed prior to the game that the coach drop-off point was a ten-minute walk from the ground but that the coaches would be allowed to drop-off disabled fans near to the stadium. As it was our Supporters Association who organise our Club’s official away travel, they arranged for the coaches to drop-off at a pub, The Woodlands, about a 5 minute walk from the ground. The pub has flat access from the car park but the accessible toilet was not big enough for my 6 wheel powerchair, otherwise staff were friendly and welcoming. A new Starbucks has been built next to the pub (with parking) but it was not open for our visit. The stadium is situated on the other side of the road to the pub (there is a pedestrian crossing outside the pub.) After dropping off at the pub, our coach carried on past the ground to the next roundabout and returned past the stadium to drop-off in front of a church entrance that gave the necessary pavement width to drop the side loading ramp. We then needed I think it was the second entrance. As there is no wheelchair access in the away end, we entered the home stand.

Seating Area
I was telephoned the day before the match by our Box Office Manager who told me she had had a conversation with her counterpart at Harrogate (Kez) who had confirmed the away wheelchair fans were in the home end but that we would all be sat together on a platform. You can imagine my shock when immediately I was in the ground I was informed that the away wheelchair fans were not all sat together! Being isolated from the rest of the away fans is one thing, to then not have all the away fans in the home end sat together I view as totally unacceptable. We are a small group of travelling wheelchair fans who all know one another and have a shared sense of unity when we are isolated from all our other away fans, as if we are modern day lepers! To then be informed we can’t even have this togetherness (when we had travelled having been told we were all together) felt like just one bit of discrimination too much! We had a birthday boy amongst us and had brought a banner and card which we just had to quickly hand over, rather than be able to enjoy celebrating together. Added to this was the fact that we found ourselves sat in the family stand, where as two adults without children we would not otherwise be seated (or why have a family stand). I resented the presumption that because we were disabled we would not use “industrial language”. I have travelled with wheelchair users who have been only too ready to tell the ref what they thought of his decisions, using language that I know all the parents in that family stand would not have wanted their children subjected to! More over, it felt like I was given the space that none of the home fans wanted, my view ahead was of the side of the goal but nearest to the back of it so I was almost beyond the side edge of the pitch. Just to crown it all, we were in the “Black Sheep” stand, yes I know it is a local brewery but the tickets don’t say Black Sheep Brewery Stand, just the Black Sheep Family Stand (probably because it is a bit difficult to associate a brewery with a children’s stand!) but we could not help being aware of how ironic it was that the name of the stand we had been put in was a well known symbol of exclusion and there we were, excluded from the away end, excluded from being sat with all our fellow wheelchair fans and side-lined to a stand designed for adults accompanied by children when we did not have children with us!

If this had been the first time we had been cut off from our own fans, then we might have taken it but as this was the 8th of the 23 Clubs we had visited this season who were sitting away wheelchair fans in the home stand, on top of this happening throughout all the past 14 years that we have been travelling to away games, we just felt we had had enough! When we asked what had gone wrong, we were told that it was because there was so many of us, they had never had so many away wheelchair fans before (there were only 4 of us!). What I could not forgive was the incorrect information that had been supplied to us. Not only had us wheelchair users been given incorrect information but one of our ambulant disabled fans had initially been told that she would be unable to enter the ground with her walking frame. This could have been enough to stop this fan attending but when someone rang Harrogate back on her behalf, arrangements were put in place for her to keep her frame with her and she subsequently reported that she was well looked after. In relation to ourselves when I expressed my unhappiness at where I was seated, I was told that there was a possibility later on I could be moved (which apparently would have been offered had we not left) but that would have resulted in me leaving another away wheelchair user and his companion on their own in the family stand which I considered unacceptable, as I would not want it done to me. (Yes, they were left by themselves when we left the ground but it was not because we had gone to sit apart from them.) For all these reasons we made the decision that we had to make a point by leaving the ground before the match had started despite travelling 173 miles to watch the game. We spent the afternoon sat in the pub waiting to travel home.

As if all this was not bad enough we had also been told by one of our mobility scooter using fans, that he had been asked to leave his scooter at the entrance gate, transfer to one of the Club’s manual wheelchairs, to be pushed to a flip down seat and transfer to sit on that for the game. Our view is that such a request should not be made of disabled fans and we were delighted he had refused but the fact that this request had been made, reinforced for us that this was not a good place for visiting disabled fans.

Audio Described Match Commentary
As far as we were aware, this is not available.

Accessible Toilet
Located just in front of where we were sat in the “Black Sheep Family Stand” in the side of the adjacent stand. Huge, not radar key locked. Clean. The biggest problem I had was that it was only when I was on the loo, I realised the toilet paper was on the opposite wall and to reach it I would need 10-foot-long arms! It would be much appreciated if the toilet paper holder was relocated to make it accessible whilst you were at the toilet without having to move some distance which when you are struggling to even stand, is a bit of a challenge!

Catering
We didn’t purchase anything but I did hear positive reports of it from someone else.

Stewards
The stewards who greeted us at the gate were friendly. Inside we were greeted by Maggie a volunteer Disabled Liaison Officer. Maggie was lovely and agreed with the points I was making, although was at a loss to understand why I had been told that we would all be sat together. Our fellow wheelchair users reported that she had really looked after them all afternoon, constantly returning during the afternoon to check they were ok and providing free drinks when one of them was not feeling well. Interestingly the stewards who welcomed us into the ground, did nothing to stop us leaving before the match started, not that we were for changing our mind by that stage. I witnessed Maggie do something that I cannot remember seeing being done by any other club official. When she said thank you to one of our fans, she also signed “thank you” which left me wondering if she was a BSL user?

Leaving the Stadium
My enduring memory of our visit to Harrogate will be that as soon as our fellow fans met us back at the coach at the end of the match, I dissolved into tears which then upset my husband. Away wheelchair fans should not be subject to repeated exclusion in this way.

Overall
If you are an away wheelchair fan planning on going to Harrogate my advice to avoid disappointment would be to get in an email confirmation of where you and other away wheelchair fans will be sat as I was clearly given incorrect information. At our away game prior to Harrogate, for the first time in 14 years of going to away games we were unable to get a ticket as the away club was only offering two tickets for away wheelchair fans. Whilst I grumbled about that, maybe if Harrogate had not tried to squeeze in more away wheelchair users than they really had room for, I would not have ended up with such a distressing experience and a total waste of money. Seating away wheelchair fans in home stands has gone on for far too long and needs to be ended. Whilst this practice is allowed to continue, inclusion remains illusory in football and I am tired of repeatedly fighting to achieve it. Would I go again to Harrogate? Not sure!