25/07/2008 - Safer stadia are tempting families to see football as fun day out
Picture a die-hard football fan and you probably conjure some baying, air-punching man, his beer-bellied frame enveloped in lycra, bellowing chants that are laced with tribal menace.
But brother and sister Kirsten and Kallum Haslam, from Long Eaton, are somewhat smaller and slighter than that. Definitely less menacing. And, being seven and five respectively, they're more into fizzy pop than bottles of beer.
None of this makes them any less devoted to their chosen team, Nottingham Forest.
"We like it when they win against other teams," says Kirsten, who has been going to matches since she was just 18 months. "My favourite players used to be Jack Lester and Junior Agogo, but now I like Nathan Tyson because he scores a lot of goals."
Kirsten and Kallum get a seat in their nana Ivy's executive box at the City Ground six times a season with their mum and dad, Forest fanatics Kev, 39, and Katie, 37.
A life-long Forest fan, nana Ivy started paying for the box in 2002 to share around her seven children and their families.
"It's very nice," says Kirsten. "It's not that loud in there and they bring you food. We have chips and coke. We can do colouring-in and play with our toys. And we've had a visit from Robin the Mascot."
The children are also taken to a further four matches by their parents under the Kids for a Quid scheme, whereby Forest allow under-16s in for £1, four times a season.
Kev started going to matches as a teenager when many grounds - pre-Hillsborough - still had terraces.
"It was a lot more aggressive in those days," he says. "I used to see a few scuffles around the ground.
"If this were the 1980s, we wouldn't consider taking the kids with us. But times have changed. Since they got rid of the terraces and made the stadium all-seater, football grounds have seemed a lot safer.
"The security and management do a good job at Forest. I would definitely recommend it as a good family day out."
The only reservations Kev and Katie would have on safety would be at certain away grounds.
"We wouldn't, for example, take them to the match at Derby this season," says Katie. "Derby and Forest haven't played each other for a while and it can get a bit heated."
Even at the City Ground there are, of course, moments when Kev and Katie are tempted to cover their children's ears, as the fans embark on some of their more colourful chants.
"Sadly, bad language is part of life these days and children will hear it in the playground or walking down the street," says Kev. "It's about how you manage that as parents. We let them know there are some songs they can join in with and some they can't."
Cost is another potentially prohibitive factor when you're trying to treat your family. Season tickets for under-12s cost £63; for under-18s they rise to between £95 and £149.
"If you're going week in, week out with your family, it can be an expensive outlay," agrees Kev. "But it probably works out as not that much per game. Everything's expensive these days; price-wise it's probably not that different to going to the pictures."
A spokesman for Forest said family attendances at the City Ground had doubled over the past 15 years, from around 30% of the crowd to 60%, including over 18s. "Families have begun to attend more and more football matches since the introduction of all-seater stadia as the facilities have improved so much over the years," he said. "There are a number of different factors which have meant that families have been attending more and more.
"The sevens scheme we ran when we were last in the championship helped to bring a lot of youngsters down to the ground. We gave them a new football shirt on their seventh birthday as well as a couple of tickets to a forthcoming match here at The City Ground.
"Other club initiatives such as the mascot and community operation (recently expanded to double in size) means that a lot more youngsters are exposed to Forest in the local area."