When Chichester City confirmed that Saturday\u2019s FA Trophy tie with Farnham Town would go ahead, they did so with a message: \u201cBilly Vigar, forever in our hearts.\u201d The match, the team\u2019s first since Vigar\u2019s tragic death a week previously, would be contested to \u201chonour Billy\u201d, the club said. \u201cWe invite you to join us in paying tribute to Billy on the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vigar, 21, died after sustaining a \u201csignificant brain injury\u201d<\/a> during Chichester\u2019s Isthmian Premier League fixture at Wingate & Finchley on 20 September. His passing was mourned by Arsenal, where Vigar had been part of the academy, and more broadly by clubs and individuals from across non-league football. There was a great sadness at the passing of a player who was well liked in a tight-knit community but had died, as Vigar\u2019s family put it, \u201cplaying the sport he loved\u201d.<\/p>\n Although the cause of the lethal injury is yet to be officially confirmed, it is expected that it will be attributed to a collision between Vigar and a concrete perimeter barrier which surrounds the Wingate & Finchley pitch. In the aftermath of the player\u2019s death, the Football Association announced it would conduct \u201can immediate review \u2026 that will focus on the safety of perimeter walls and boundaries around pitches in the National League System\u201d \u2013 from the fifth to the 10th tier.<\/p>\n Flowers are placed below a mural of Billy Vigar in a tunnel outside the Emirates Stadium. Vigar was an Arsenal youth player. Photograph: Mark Leech\/Offside\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The FA\u2019s announcement was met with astonishment in the lower levels of the football pyramid, partly because such incidents had happened before. \u201cWhen I first heard news of the incident I just felt shellshocked,\u201d says the former Bath City striker Alex Fletcher. \u201cWe will wait to see what the details and the specifics are but, obviously, it was being widely reported that it was a very similar incident in nature to mine. So it brought a lot back to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Fletcher crashed into concrete advertising hoardings at Bath City\u2019s Twerton Park during a match in November 2022. He sustained head injuries which necessitated emergency surgery and left the then 23-year-old in a coma. Eventually he returned to playing but had to relearn how to walk and is permanently deaf in his left ear. After his recovery, Fletcher spoke out about his experience and called for changes in the rules governing pitch boundaries to better take into account the safety of non-league players.<\/p>\n As far as he is concerned, nothing happened as a result. \u201cUntil now the leadership from the FA has been nonexistent,\u201d Fletcher says. \u201cI was very public and very vocal about what needed to be done. We tried to ask the people who are responsible for setting these regulations to involve players more in it because they\u2019re the ones ultimately going to be able to tell you where they don\u2019t feel safe. That consultation process hasn\u2019t happened.\u201d<\/p>\n This is especially shocking to Fletcher because his accident led to an intervention by government. In 2023 the then sports minister, Stuart Andrew, sent a letter to the FA jointly written with the Professional Footballers\u2019 Association. The letter called on leagues (the FA oversees the operation of the National League system) to \u201ctake a proactive approach in working with clubs to ensure ground risk assessments take place, that clubs engage with players and other parties who may be able to help identify areas of concern within grounds, and that all parties work to put sensible mitigation measures in place where necessary to help improve player safety\u201d. The letter continued: \u201cAs part of that process, we would also ask that leagues look at any standardised guidance they may give to their clubs on this issue to see whether it can be refined or improved.\u201d<\/p>\n Billy Vigar playing for Arsenal Under-21s in 2022. Photograph: David Price\/Arsenal FC\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The FA says that responsibility for the health and safety of \u201cparticipants and spectators\u201d at the National League system level \u201cis the responsibility of the clubs and their local authorities\u201d. It does, however, set the minimum standards any club must follow in order for a stadium to be accredited to stage a match. In 2023, after Fletcher\u2019s injury, the FA opted to conduct a broad review of safety at stadiums within the National League system and has since visited 890 football grounds. The body conducting the review said it had been commissioned in part because \u201cthere was very little information held centrally by any of the stakeholders such as the Premier League Stadium Fund, the FA and the Premier League on the facilities used\u201d. Those inspections will feed into future guidance on stadium criteria, according to sources, but currently the criteria relating to perimeter barriers, which are largely in place to stop spectators from entering the pitch or balls running far beyond it, require that they are of \u201csound construction (eg concrete and steel)\u201d.<\/p>\n The absence of any intervention from the FA has distressed many in the National League system who say the warnings of the risks to players\u2019 safety were made clearly and repeatedly. \u201cIt was a really strange one because nothing happened and you expected it to,\u201d says John Peel, a director at Lewes, another Isthmian Premier League side. \u201cSometimes it takes a long time to come up with a new decision or a new policy. So you\u2019re always kind of thinking: \u2018Well, maybe it\u2019s coming.\u2019 But it never did.\u201d<\/p>\n Describing the FA\u2019s statement in response to Vigar\u2019s death as \u201creally odd\u201d, Peel said: \u201cI thought it passed the buck a little bit when really it\u2019s their responsibility because they\u2019re the ones who set the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n Lisa Nandy, the secretary of state for culture, media and sport, said this week that government would be \u201creviewing with sporting governance bodies the safety conditions of sports venues across the country\u201d with a view to ensuring we never have another tragedy like this again.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend\u2019s action<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n A minute\u2019s silence was held in memory of Billy Vigar during the National League match between Truro and Morecambe at Truro City Stadium. Photograph: Frankie Okeeffe\/PPAUK\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n Fletcher says it is the FA\u2019s responsibility to determine what happens next and what the solutions should be to an issue that has been obvious for some time and has now claimed a human life. He suggests the distance between the boundaries of the pitch and any barrier, the so-called \u201crun off\u201d, should be looked at, alongside a move away from inflexible, hard materials.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that clubs aren\u2019t blessed in all divisions with a great deal of space around the stadium,\u201d Fletcher says, \u201cbut the [minimum] distance of [the run-offs], you\u2019re talking no longer than the length of an average male. That\u2019s not enough room for a footballer to stop when they\u2019re competing full-blooded on the pitch. The material is what I maintain is the biggest problem. I\u2019ve played at plenty of grounds where you\u2019ve got these more flexible materials that are designed to give way on impact. And what that would mean is a greater stopping distance, obviously, for the player.\u201d<\/p>\n The minimum run-off requirement in the National League system is 1.83 metres while the minimum in the EFL is 2.25m, with 2.75m preferred. The minimum for any new-build in the National League system, however, is three metres. That is the recommended minimum run-off in the Premier League.<\/p>\n Wingate & Finchley announced last weekend that they intended to install \u201crubber safety padding\u201d around their ground after the tragedy, saying \u201cthere is currently no appetite for football at the Maurice Rebak stadium\u201d. Their home match on Saturday will be hosted by their opponents, VCD Athletic.<\/p>\n Lewes, meanwhile, have offered counselling to their players and say they will not force anyone to play in grounds with perimeters which feel unsafe. These are mitigation in the face of a broader problem which has been waiting too long for a solution. Meanwhile the family of Billy Vigar will continue to grieve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Chichester City confirmed that Saturday\u2019s FA Trophy tie with Farnham Town would go ahead, they did so…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-178475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}