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Welcome to this week's photo focus which looks at something every football fan will have passed through; the turnstile. It's an area of ground infrastructure seldom talked about, but something all football fans have to pass through to get into the ground. Whilst the telephone was invested by Bell, and association football came about in England, is is hard to define who exactly has a patent on the invention of the
turnstile. Certainly the first football turnstiles originated in
Britain at traditional grounds such as Wembley and Hampden Park. Some
suggestions are that one US company Perey
Turnstiles Inc.
produced the original patents in the 1920's which laid the
foundations of the modern turnstile industry as we know it today.
Turnstile inventions came about through the increased need in society for
crowd management. Due to the growth of urban transportation and mass
attendance sporting events extra crowd management was required. Included in these 'original inventions'
were the three wing full height turnstile - also known as the
Roto-Gate - and the three arm waist high turnstile, otherwise known
as the Passimeter.
The
turnstile is also known as a baffle
gate; a
form of gate which allows one person to pass through at any one time.
In football its usefulness was recognised with the growth of large
crowds congregating outside stadiums and its use helped enforce a
one-way traffic of people or a 'right of passage' to people who
presented a coin or a ticket to a turnstile man. With clubs recognising the value of
income, the turnstile was rightly recognised as a means of paid
access with which clubs could depend upon.
In
the modern game the turnstile has both financial and safety aspects
to its usage. From a business/revenue standpoint, they enable a
venue to have an accurate, verifiable count of total attendance
needed for statistical purposes. From a security standpoint, they
lead patrons to enter single-file, so security personnel have a clear
view of each patron. This format enables security to efficiently
isolate potential fans or to confiscate any prohibited materials.
The
most popular type of turnstile is the 'half-height' turnstiles, this
fixed swing arm style has traditionally been the most popular type of
turnstile used at football grounds. There are many variations of this
style available, including one which is designed to be accompanied by
a matching ticket box, and one with a ticket box built in. This
styles was designed to allow entry only after a payment was provided.
Today, many of these early turnstiles have been adopted to others
allowing fans access only after a valid bar code on a ticket or swipe
card has been electronically read.
More
common abroad is the the High Entrance/Exit Turnstile or HEET
turnstile system. This format of access provides a larger version of
the turnstile, commonly 7-foot or 2.1m high and is similar in
operation to a revolving door in a corporate office, prison outer gate or department
store. This type of system eliminates the possibility of anyone
jumping over a turnstile unit. Many stadiums in mainland Europe
currently have a format where fans will initially access through a
high entrance turnstile which will be integrated with a barcode
scanning system. A trend in some leagues, such as in Italy, is that
grounds does not have turnstiles at all, merely managed gateways into
the relevant stands. After passing through the gates the stewards
check fans for items such as bottles and flares.
Modern
integrated access control systems are found at nearly all new build
stadiums. Building on early turnstile infrastructure these operate
as Security solutions and are one of the main aspects of providing a
turnstile monitoring and stadium fan count management system. Each of
the turnstiles give an output signal each time a spectator enters
through a turnstile. Specialised software then provides data on whom
has entered into screens in the control room.
On
match days the control room will keep a record of the number of
spectators entering via each turnstile and calculates the level of
occupancy in each of four stands as well as the stadium total. This
information is displayed in the control room of the stadium. The
information may be displayed as the number of spectators, the number
of available seats or the percentage occupancy.
The
system is primarily used by the Police to ensure that the stadium is
filled to capacity in a controlled and safe manner. The data
provided by the system is also used to verify the total attendance on match
days so that it can be made available to the media.
The
fans part in this comes by way of the ticket or increasingly at more
modern grounds the use of smart cards or credit card devices that are
scanned upon entry. Each fan will be issued with their own personal
smart card with a client number correlating to a name and
address.
A newer turnstiles
will be equipped with a smart card scanner, which reads a chip
embedded in the card. Each card has the added advantage of being
contact less, so it often doesn't even need to be removed from your
wallet or purse to be scanned to gain entry. Next week: The Dugout
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