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.
When Heather Richardson goes to watch Motherwell, she wears many metaphorical hats.
First and foremost, she’s a fan. But as the volunteer chairperson of the club’s Disabled Supporters’ Association, she feels a responsibility to her fellow fans who may have accessibility issues, and to help push, prod and direct the club in improving the Fir Park facilities.
“We’ve made a lot of progress,” Richardson said.
"We’ve built a disabled toilet block at the Memorial Garden [near the disabled shelter], because before that we just had one toilet. There are more toilets now.
“We’ve extended the shelter so we can get more wheelchairs in, and so that you can sit with your carer beside the wheelchair instead of sitting behind you, as it used to be. This is a big thing, for me. Before, you’d be sitting by yourself.”
An important point, because another hat Richardson wears is that of a wife, newly married to her partner, Henry. Who also, as luck would have it, is a massive Motherwell fan.
But when it comes to the matchday experience, Richardson says that because of her disability, it can sometimes feel as though she isn’t viewed as someone’s wife at all. Or even viewed as an individual, someone who may have similar needs and wants to the average fan in any other part of the stadium.
“You don’t go to the football to sit by yourself, and your loved one's going to be sitting somewhere else, or they have to sit behind you,” she said.
“In some places, there's nowhere for the carer to sit, and my husband can’t sit beside me. It makes you feel like you're just a burden. I don't get to be his wife when we go to places like that, there's a definite carer aspect to it.
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“Not all carers are strangers from a care company. They are family, friends, partners. You want to still do life with them. And just because you're disabled, there are certain things that aren’t deemed necessary for you.
“What also gets my goat, and in fairness, this isn’t exclusive to football, is that if you go into a disabled toilet, there's never a mirror, because disabled people don't care if their hair's a mess. You don't want to check your makeup.
“You don't have sanitary protection or condoms because disabled people don't have periods or have sex. That's how it feels. It's in all the men’s or the women's toilets, but not the disabled toilets. I have never, ever seen a condom machine in a disabled toilet, because the attitude is, ‘why would disabled people want these things?’
“It can be dehumanising. I would just like to be treated as a person. I feel like sometimes clubs will put in the minimum number of toilets they have to, for example, but they don’t then consider that it is a person who will be using those toilets.
“But there’s an attitude sometimes as if you should just put up with it. Just accept it. It can feel like as you're only paying a concession or you're only paying for one ticket, therefore you've not got a right to complain.”
Some of these issues may seem small to the able-bodied, but they can massively impact the experience of disabled fans going to a match.
And an overlooked aspect of the disabled fan experience in Richardson’s view isn’t really to do with the disabled fan at all, but the family members or loved ones who may be going to the game alongside them.
"We went to a game at Hamilton once,” she said.
“My son's autistic and he was about 12 at the time, and they wanted him to go into the stand by himself and not sit with me and Henry. So disabled people aren't allowed to have children either, because you're allowed a carer and that's it. You're not allowed to have any children around you to sit with you.
“Siblings of disabled children, who can get pushed aside at the best of times despite the best of intentions, can’t sit beside them either. Apart from the stress that puts on the parent, who knows what impact that could have on the children too.
“It's not fair. It's not fair at all.”
Large-scale investments in seating platforms and other facilities are welcome, of course, and may potentially help in that regard, but as Richardson explains, less showy gestures can also go a long way to maintaining the dignity of these supporters, and avoiding a knock-on effect to their mental wellbeing.
“Take food kiosks, for instance,” she said.
“It can be a long time at half-time for somebody to walk up to the snack bar and leave somebody who needs care, especially.
“I'd need Henry to go and do that. We both then know that he is going to miss some of the game, but bless him, he doesn’t moan. And if I then had to go to the bathroom, I need to text him and say I need the toilet, because I can't get myself to the toilet. I can't self-propel my chair, I don't have an electric chair.
“And my needs are very, very basic compared to some of the people who come into the shelter. You can't just go away and leave them.”
The compromise the DSA have made at Fir Park, as in many other venues, is to have a member of staff take orders before the game and then deliver the refreshments at half time, but Richardson wonders if there is a way to not only make that process easier, but to allow disabled fans the opportunity to see what is actually on offer.
“One of the best experiences we had was when we went down to a game at Wrexham,” she said.
“You buy your ticket online like a normal person, and you get an email, 'do you want food and drink?' and you order and pay for your food upfront and then it gets delivered to you. You can see the menu and choose what you want.
“From the club’s point of view, it also means that if they know they've got 60 people who want a hot dog at half-time, they're going to have 60 hot dogs at half-time.
“Bringing the pad and pen down and taking the order off you before the game is all well and good, but sometimes it’s like, ‘well, what do you sell?’”
The focus of what disabled facilities club offer often also falls on the home end, but Richardson believes that more has to be made of the offering when disabled fans travel to support their team.
Experiences vary greatly from ground to ground, and very often, from within the same stadium.
“Killie is a good example,” she said,
“They have got a new platform in the home end and that's great for them. But as an away fan, you're still in the little bunker down at the front of the stand, away from the rest of the support and behind the players warming up.
“And while their new platform is lovely, they don't have enough space for all their season ticket holders, so they're in the away end with you as an overflow.
“You wouldn't have ‘normal’ Motherwell fans sitting in the Kilmarnock end next to their fans, would you? But because you're disabled, you're supposed to put up with it, and just behave yourself."
What Richardson would like to see ultimately is a situation where disabled fans have a choice of seating, and have the same autonomy as any other supporter when it comes to the experience they wish to have.
"I'm torn,” she said.
“Everybody always goes on about how they want a raised platform, you get a great view and all that. But see when you go to Hampden, my tickets are always for the new one.
“The view is amazing, but this is just my own view…I feel so removed from the game. It's a million miles away from me.
“At Fir Park, I'm in that shelter and we're on the touchline. When the players are taking a throw in, they're bum's nearly on my knee! We can hear the players talking to each other and stuff that I could never hear before when I was sitting in the stadium.
“We have architect drawings for a raised platform in the Davie Cooper Stand, and that will be great for some fans if it goes ahead. But if we do get that, I'll probably stay in the shelter. But that's another key thing, it’s about having a choice.”
One other key issue that Richardson would like to highlight is a lack of disabled parking bays at some stadiums, which often preclude her from attending midweek fixtures.
“We went to a game at Easter Road last season, and there was no disabled parking, so we had to drive to George Street and then get the tram, which presents its own issues,” she said.
“Henry then had to push me from the tram to the stadium. But if it's a mid-week game, that's a non-starter because by the time Henry's finished work and we get up to George Street and get the tram then the game has started.
“Again, these are things that have a huge knock-on effect to disabled fans, and clubs could fix these issues if they really wanted to.”
