NOBODY could deny that Sixways is growing into a superb stadium and is fast becoming the envy of the land.

So far two sides have been completed providing conference facilities, executive boxes, bars, kitchens and the biggest indoor training area in Europe but there are still two stands to be completed.

Any development has been put on hold as and when the club reach Premiership One but plans have already been mooted for a 10,000 all seater stadium. But what about a terrace?

A covered standing area at the north end of the pitch would slash the cost of building works and continue to make the game affordable for the masses. It would also stop the current situation of people running for the cover of the south stand at the first sight of rain.

Perhaps the biggest factor that would come into play would be a change in atmosphere, mention Gloucester and the Shed comes immediately to mind.

But any talk of terracing cannot avoid April 15, 1989, the day 96 people went to watch a football match and finished the day as the victims of the Hillsborough Disaster.

No ounce of atmosphere can make up for the loss of a single life at a sports event and although it could be argued 8,000 people at Sixways is a world away from 50,000 people at an FA Cup semi-final things have changed for ever.

Worcester's chief executive Geoff Cooke is at the heart of Worcester's stadium development and believes terraces could be extinct within ten years.

"There a host of health and safety requirements and, in a certain period of time, clubs will be governed to convert to all seater stadiums," he said.

"It has already happened in football and you can see the problems that they would have at Gloucester. They may well have to move their ground completely.

"Certain things inevitably change and the new generation of spectators are used to all seater stadiums. People complain that the new Twickenham is not as good as the old one but it's only the older people who think that."

Sixways is not full every week so there is no rush to extend the ground, no desire at all to stand in the way of progress.

Thursday, February 17, 2000.