THERE are a number of football fans who would like standing terraces to return to all-seater Premiership grounds and, having listened to those fans, Sports Minister Kate Hoey has suggested a pilot scheme might be possible to see if spectators can stand in safety.

It is, superficially at least, an attractive view. Football is not like attending the cinema or the theatre where you sit back and wait to be entertained. Football is more like a pantomime where some of the enjoyment comes from participating in the songs and the chants.

Most casual observers will agree that, since the introduction of all-seater stadiums, the atmosphere at a match has quietened and the songs and the chants are not as loud.

This is what the Manchester United captain Roy Keane was complaining about when he made his notorious "prawn sandwich" remarks. He meant that many people attend a match not to actively support a team but to passively partake of the hospitality as the game unfolds before them.

But football has moved on from the days of the steepling Kops and swaying terraces. Facilities have improved and the crowds have changed - they are more family-orientated with women making up 25 per cent of what was once an almost exclusively male preserve.

And the safety issue of standing terraces has never gone away. Report after report has said all-seaters are "demonstrably safer".

What is gone is gone. Rose-tinted spectacles may suggest otherwise, but we live in a safety conscious age which is usually better than the unpleasant crush of the past.

AND finally, a last line to wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas.