Allowed On Pitch If Promoted On Sat?

[Beezey]

Luke, going on the pitch after the last home game is traditional.

The Barnsley fans were on the pitch on Sunday even though they had nothing to celebrate.

I'm past the stage of running on the pitch, but if we go up i shall certainly hope to walk across to salute the players from the pitch in front of the Grandstand, as i have done at the end of many previous seasons. Staying in the stands and clapping is a very dull alternative.

As long as it's all good-natured there's no reason on earth why it should spoil anyone's fun - it's a CELEBRATION.

How will saluting the players in the grandstand help ? They will be sat in the dressing room !! Surely we should allow the players to do a lap of honor first ??

I dont see what the fuss is all about running on the pitch, Its against the law and it stops the players from doing a lap of honor which is something I would like to see especially if we go up.

Then theres the morons that hack up pieces of the turf costing the club money, The prats who swing on the cross bar risking bending it and it then needing to be replaced.

I can understand it from the young kids up to about 14 but surely any sane minded adult doesnt need to run on the pitch. Just imagine there was some trouble and we were docked a point or two it would really cost us then.

[lukejones2]

Luke, going on the pitch after the last home game is traditional.

The Barnsley fans were on the pitch on Sunday even though they had nothing to celebrate.

I'm past the stage of running on the pitch, but if we go up i shall certainly hope to walk across to salute the players from the pitch in front of the Grandstand, as i have done at the end of many previous seasons. Staying in the stands and clapping is a very dull alternative.

As long as it's all good-natured there's no reason on earth why it should spoil anyone's fun - it's a CELEBRATION.

A reasonable response and I shall credit it with a straight reply.

One of my best memories as a city fan was our win against someone on the last game of the season when us and the gas went up. I was very young but I remember vaguely I believe a win - 4-0? against someone - Walsall? and thousands of fans being stood around the sidelines for the last 15 minutes of the game!! cue invasion after the third goal... invasion when we heard (wrongly) that the gas were losing.... invasion when we scored our 4th.... invasion on the final whistle.

I remember the ball not being able top cross the touchline as fans were so tightly packed waiting for that whistle, I remember people playing keepy-uppy to loud cheers when the ball did come to the side of the pitch! I remember then being on the pitch with my Dad and then being picked up to the box in which the players were celebrating where I stood next to Glenn Humphries in his red and white striped Hireite shirt....

I'm smiling now just thinking of that day! Brilliant!

BUT

Now, over recent years, the club have always stated that if fans were to enter the pitch, the players would not do a lap of honour and therefore the celebrations would be ruined for "non-invaders" by any pitch invasion.

That is why I don't think it would be a particularly thoughtful or mature thing to do.

There may be no reason why it SHOULD spoil other people's fun as you say, but it WOULD.

[Nogbad the Bad]

Obviously the fans must stay off the pitch and touchline until the final whistle.

On your 2nd point, i don't see any special need for a 'lap of honour'. There wasn't one in '76, and City didn't get into any trouble after that Walsall match.

It's traditional, it's harmless and its a celebration. A chance for the fans to celebrate with the players in time-honoured fashion and much more memorable than staying in the stands applauding from afar.

The scenes after the Portsmouth and Walsall games were fantastic occasions to be involved in as a City fan, promotions (and emotions) that i will never forget. I can't remember much at all about the last time we went up when we were confined to the stands which was very much an anti-climax. I thought that was a one-off after a fan ran on the pitch earlier that season.

Should we go up, seeing City players being carried shoulder high by ecstatic fans in a cheering throng is the way i'd like to see our success celebrated.