This article is part of a Herald Sport special on disabled facilities in Scottish football, shining a light on the progress that has been made, the work that still needs to be done, the help that is available to clubs and the barriers to accessibility that disabled fans face.
A councillor and accessibility campaigner has called upon the Scottish Government to set minimum standards for disabled facilities in football stadiums, and urged them to help clubs fund vital improvements.
Scottish Greens councillor for Forth, Kayleigh Kinross O’Neill, who holds the Transport & Environment portfolio for the Edinburgh Green Councillor Group and sits on the party’s Disabled Greens representative group committee, believes that much more has to be done to improve accessibility at grounds throughout the country.
As a wheelchair user and having faced the hurdles that disabled fans encounter when attending football matches first hand, Kinross O’Neill also feels that the introduction of a ‘national sport access card’ could help ease some of the problems she herself has encountered when trying to buy tickets to attend sporting events, such as having to prove their disabled status.
Many clubs currently work to the guidelines laid down by CAFE (Centre for Access to Football in Europe) or the Scottish FA's Disability Equality Guide.
While acknowledging that these clubs are often doing the best they can under the financial limitations they are operating within, she would like to see the government helping them out by not only introducing legislation to guarantee minimum standardised facilities, but to also help the clubs to pay for them.
"Definitely,” Kinross O’Neill said.
“What I would like to see are minimum standards for infrastructure, so where folk can sit and go to the toilet, a minimum standard for staff and engagement, so that staff are all able and willing to communicate and help disabled folk, and equally, that the clubs are also able to support disabled staff as well.
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“And then finally, ticketing, having something like a national access card that reduces the barriers, but also protects disabled people in getting a fair price and support that they need.
“If you had a national sport access card, I would be supportive of that as that reduces the barriers of actually getting the ticket.
“A big thing for me, and a thing that I'm trying really hard to get the message across about, is that as a person with a disability, going to a sporting event is tied into most disabled people's experience of 'normal life,' and everything that everybody else takes for granted.
“So, when we're going to an event, we've got to ask and worry about, 'How am I going to get from the entrance to my seat?', 'What if I need to go to the toilet during the game?', 'What if I need to go to the toilet during the break when everyone's running about trying to get a drink?' and all these sorts of things.
“Disabled people make up 20% to 24% of the population. If the government is not treating this as a priority, they're neglecting a large chunk of society.
“The fan experience should be for everyone, and it should also not be an afterthought or something that is a 'nice to have.' Accessibility should be planned from the get-go. I personally would say that in a lot of stadiums, including culture and transport spaces, disability is usually an afterthought. You've got the basics, but then anything else is an extra.
“Right now, it’s the clubs themselves that have the responsibility for access and inclusion; I think that it should be higher up where that is mandated and executed, which comes to the point about government funding.
“I appreciate it's difficult when different clubs are doing different things, so I would say that we should standardise the requirements for access and have some sort of national guidance.
“If this came from the government saying every club of a certain size or club in an area would get X amount of money, and they had to spend it on updating the disabled toilet to be of a certain standard, for example, then that would really help.”
As well as competing for funding, Kinross O’Neill appreciates that the subject of accessibility is competing for space in the national consciousness, but she hopes that by shining a spotlight on the issue it can inspire a serious conversation about how to improve things for disabled fans.
After all, with so many people either directly or indirectly being impacted by disability at some point in their lives, improving such facilities is to the benefit of everyone.
"I think the subject is something of a taboo,” she said.
“It's a thing that people aren’t really as socially comfortable to discuss as maybe other things. And that's unfortunate, because everyone will have an experience with a disability at one point in their life, whether it's through a family member or themselves or old age or illness.
“I think it's just so important that everyone talks about it and stops being scared because it can be part of life, and why should that stop people from engaging in a sport that they love or engaging in a community that they've always been a part of? There's nothing more heartbreaking than being isolated and left behind for whatever reason.
“Disabled access is actually about access for everyone. It can happen to anybody.”
Through her work in Transport & the Environment, Kinross O’Neill is also keenly aware of how simple things like adequate parking can greatly impact a disabled person’s experience.
“If you make things more accessible, including parking, that's also going to help older folk that maybe can't walk as far but wouldn't say they're disabled,” she said.
“Or it would help folks that want to bring their young children, like in buggies, or just people that don't want to walk for three miles to a football game or a rugby game. So, access does so much more for people's independence, health, well-being, for their autonomy, for just general community cohesion than I think people realise.
“That community aspect of it is so important. It's a thing that's supposed to connect people and you make friends there, you make connections there, and you get out of the house.
“I know that when I go to see Motherwell, where I’m originally from, I'll see groups of people that have been coming since they were 8 or 10 years old, and that is maybe the only time that they're going to go out that week.
“So, the opportunity that has can be quite powerful, but if it's not done right, that's when it starts being quite sad and detrimental for folk's well-being and confidence.”
