Bramall Lane

[ShropsBlade]

That's not true is it. During both our PL seasons we'd have easily sold 35k HOME tickets for the big 6.

Even when relegated we average 25k+ with the odd sell out at this level, showing we need more seats for bums!

Ok so when we had a chance to go 4th in 2020 by beating Bournemouth in the prem.Do you honestly think we could have sold 40k tickets or even 35k that fixture ? Because I’m an optimistic blade and even I don’t think we will be operating that high in the top flight very often.

 

[Sheffsteel]

You are letting your imagination run away with you pal........
I never said more executive, banqueting or conference facilities
I never mentioned reducing car parking
I never said close the kop for two seasons

WTF are you on about????

You said "knock the lot down" and "do it right", so assumed you mean flatten the land and build a totally new stand.
If money was no object then I'd prefer it too but in practice McCabes plan has so many advantages and is very cost effective.

When making any decision it's best to understand the priorities and motivations.

Main reason to do the Kop is
1: The concourse is embarrassing, this needs enclosing undercover with better toilets, bars and kiosks.
2: The poles need removing to prevent the annoying restricted views.

Lesser priorities are
3: Increasing the capacity and
4: Improving the rake with more leg room.
These 2 factors will be effected by "safe standing", so it makes sense to wait until we see if it becomes a success.
Would love to see us try to create a wall effect like at Borussia Dortmund.

There would be no parking behind the Kop so can't see how corporate., banqueting, conference facilities under the Kop being practical.
Hence why I don't see how totally removing the hill would be viable. However a redesign of the Kop with partial removal of some earth to steepen the rake is an option.

Main reason to do the South stand
1: Improve the face of the club to impress VIP visitors, media, players etc.
Improve the directors box, improve the corporate facilities, build a new expanded media centre, improve and larger the changing rooms.
Like many PL clubs we'd even have an underground private car park for players and VIP guests.
Basically bring the stadium into the 21st century and put us in a position where we can bid for big football events.
Also corporate, banqueting, conference facilities brings in far more money from rich people and businesses
and even earns the club an income on non match days.

Lesser priority is to build a 5K upper tier to increase capacity but this is a by product of doing point 1. You can't have one with out the other.
My concern is an upper tier South stand could become like the Cardiff City stadium where it's rarely ever opened
and surely the view up there would be so high it would be like watching ants and you'd feel detached from the match.

 

[Sheffsteel]

Load o bollocks, small minded thinking like that will see us forever in the lower divisions.

Agree....I use to go in the 80's when we always had gates from 10K to 14K.
I used to think anything over 20K was an impressive crowd and hoped that one day we could average over 20K
but thought that was only possible if we reached the top flight.

Seems quite incredible that last season we averaged over 27,600 last season and we weren't even in the PL.
The PL has never been as popular and with some creative marketing even as a mid table club we should still be able to average 35K.

 

[Inter_blade83]

Ok so when we had a chance to go 4th in 2020 by beating Bournemouth in the prem.Do you honestly think we could have sold 40k tickets or even 35k that fixture ? Because I’m an optimistic blade and even I don’t think we will be operating that high in the top flight very often.

We sold out all home tickets well in advance of that game, so yes.

What you have to consider is that we rarely sell all the tickets as there's plenty of restricted view seats, that people simply refuse to sit in.

Remove those restricted view seats, increase capacity, and average attendance will increase.

 

[Sheffsteel]

Ok so when we had a chance to go 4th in 2020 by beating Bournemouth in the prem.Do you honestly think we could have sold 40k tickets or even 35k that fixture ? Because I’m an optimistic blade and even I don’t think we will be operating that high in the top flight very often.

It didn't help that there was a life threatening storm, heavy rain with 60mph winds that day with the government advising people not to travel.
Many wondered if the match would be postponed
I turned up to to the match and expected the ground to be half full but surprisingly it was actually pretty full.
No surprise that Bournmouth brought about 500, still a decent effort in the conditions though.

 

[SUFCScorecard]

Lesser priority is to build a 5K upper tier to increase capacity but this is a by product of doing point 1. You can't have one with out the other.
My concern is an upper tier South stand could become like the Cardiff City stadium where it's rarely ever opened
and surely the view up there would be so high it would be like watching ants and you'd feel detached from the match.

I've sat in the upper tier of Elland road and its not much fun. Not only does it feel like you are far from the pitch, it also feels like you are outside the stadium looking in.

I think only a modest retrofit to the south stand would work, maybe just a couple of layers of corporate boxes, and improvements generally to the game day hospitality, media and player facilities. We're known to have one of the worst dressing rooms at our level, it would nice to be on a par if it helps player retention.

 

[Champagneblade]

Another journo from the Telegraph bleating about not getting a seat. As others have said no-one was interested about the Womens Euro's and its been admitted they were struggling to get Clubs to offer their grounds. Those that did should be at the head of the queue next time round. The majority of the media have commented on the atmosphere last night and been complimentary of Sheffield. This no mark needs to put his dummy back in his mouth.

At the end of the day UEFA were the ones who stipulated things like media requirements. If the tournament was more successful than even they expected, then it’s not United’s fault. I’m sure if they thought more media facilities were required then UEFA would have insisted upon it.

It just seems a petulant article. They failed to prioritise the Women’s Euros, sounds like they therefore failed to secure a suitable slot and now rather than acknowledge there isn’t space on the bandwagon and it’s their fault they weren’t on it from the start, it’s now “they shouldn’t have that size venue anyway. If it was at Old Trafford we’d have no trouble getting a seat!”

It’s like someone turning up at a concert just as the band is about to play, when others have been there hours, and complaining they don’t have the best view.

United helped break the record twice for non host attendance. It was 22,000. The working capacity for the Euros seems to have been around 29,000.

What would the point be to having those 22,000 people in a stadium that holds 70-80,000? The atmosphere would have been shit. Let’s not pretend the attendees would have shot up, there were 7,000+ seats unused at the Lane.

Shifting one of the semis to a larger venue because the host nation just happens to reach the last 4 would have been an outrageously partisan move by the tournament hosts.

That article says far more about the Telegraph’s priorities to women’s football and about their lack of ownership and self-entitlement than it does about United.

 

[JJBlade]

It’s not small minded thinking , it’s reality.We struggled to sell out games when sat top 6 in the premier league.We have a very respectable fan base for our clubs success level.We don’t have a fanbase to to sustain an average of 40k though if you like it or not.

I’d like to see the kop modernised but a big extension isn’t necessary.

We struggle to sell "unsellable" seats

Who in their right mind would pay for some of the seats in our stadium?

Considering the tossing off of each other about our stadium, it is not good by Premier League standards

It looks OK aesthetically from the inside, but the outside of it is pure and simply ugly.

The inside only looks okay, but even that is deceiving, if you are unlucky enough to be sat behind a wall or a pole it doesn't look so good.

Even in the extreme edges of much of the stadium, or on the front three rows in any area the view is shocking

There is a spectacular number of crap seats at the Lane, some crapper than others, and some are not even worth paying a quid for.

These seats never get sold, no matter what the situation.

And that's before we get to the toilets and catering facilities, and the moronic one ticket per person policy.

Bearing in mind the 2000 - 3000 empty home seats every game are always the same ones, it stands to reason that these seats if they are going to be sold will have to be sold to people who do not usually come.

And those that do not usually come will not buy a single ticket, in an area where they can hardly see what's going on

The club has the fanbase, a hell of a lot more than many clubs, but getting them in the stadium has always been a problem at United.

A 40,000 stadium and United as a Premier League club would probably still have 2000 - 3000 crap seats, but the rest would be sold.

Some of us of a certain age have been in the stadium with more than 40,000 in it, not all that long ago, and some older than me have seen 57,000 in it.

Yet some of these clubs who have never had an attendance bigger than what they are getting now have built bigger stadiums and are selling out.

As the film says "If you build it, they will come" but it should have said, if you build it properly they will come.

 

[cahill]

Agree....I use to go in the 80's when we always had gates from 10K to 14K.
I used to think anything over 20K was an impressive crowd and hoped that one day we could average over 20K
but thought that was only possible if we reached the top flight.

Seems quite incredible that last season we averaged over 27,600 last season and we weren't even in the PL.
The PL has never been as popular and with some creative marketing even as a mid table club we should still be able to average 35K.

Something has changed since the Millenium to cause our base line crowd to increase substantially. Not sure what that is ? Obviously relative success has helped. Football has to a large extent cleaned its act up so no longer the preserve of white working class males. Perhaps the demographic of our support has changed. The decline of S6 is obviously a factor

 

[ShropsBlade]

It didn't help that there was a life threatening storm, heavy rain with 60mph winds that day with the government advising people not to travel.
Many wondered if the match would be postponed
I turned up to to the match and expected the ground to be half full but surprisingly it was actually pretty full.
No surprise that Bournmouth brought about 500, still a decent effort in the conditions though.

I know I went myself.I’m pretty sure we still wouldn’t have shifted 35k though.

 

[ShropsBlade]

We struggle to sell "unsellable" seats

Who in their right mind would pay for some of the seats in our stadium?

Considering the tossing off of each other about our stadium, it is not good by Premier League standards

It looks OK aesthetically from the inside, but the outside of it is pure and simply ugly.

The inside only looks okay, but even that is deceiving, if you are unlucky enough to be sat behind a wall or a pole it doesn't look so good.

Even in the extreme edges of much of the stadium, or on the front three rows in any area the view is shocking

There is a spectacular number of crap seats at the Lane, some crapper than others, and some are not even worth paying a quid for.

These seats never get sold, no matter what the situation.

And that's before we get to the toilets and catering facilities, and the moronic one ticket per person policy.

Bearing in mind the 2000 - 3000 empty home seats every game are always the same ones, it stands to reason that these seats if they are going to be sold will have to be sold to people who do not usually come.

And those that do not usually come will not buy a single ticket, in an area where they can hardly see what's going on

The club has the fanbase, a hell of a lot more than many clubs, but getting them in the stadium has always been a problem at United.

A 40,000 stadium and United as a Premier League club would probably still have 2000 - 3000 crap seats, but the rest would be sold.

Some of us of a certain age have been in the stadium with more than 40,000 in it, not all that long ago, and some older than me have seen 57,000 in it.

Yet some of these clubs who have never had an attendance bigger than what they are getting now have built bigger stadiums and are selling out.

As the film says "If you build it, they will come" but it should have said, if you build it properly they will come.

Tbh I agree with a lot of what you just said , and I would like to see modernisation and removal of the posts at the very least to free up some of those said seats.However I still don’t think we can average 35-40k.

City had incredible success and a naturally bigger fan base than us , yet they still can’t fill there big stadium every match.

 

[Ecco1889]

Maybe a good idea would be to sell restricted view tickets at a reduced rate instead of expecting the full amount

 

[Linz]

One thing I did see is the complaints that the wheelchair accessible spaces were all at pitch level. It's difficult as we don't have any level egress into the bowl of the stadium but it's clearly something those used to attending games elsewhere expected from a "big" ground.

 

[CPB]

Tbh I agree with a lot of what you just said , and I would like to see modernisation and removal of the posts at the very least to free up some of those said seats.However I still don’t think we can average 35-40k.

City had incredible success and a naturally bigger fan base than us , yet they still can’t fill there big stadium every match.

I think we can average 35k or so in the PL easily actually.

We averaged just over 30k last time and the time before in PL. Giving usually the away team 2,800 tickets, meaning on average we had 27,200 home fans in.
If we expanded the kop by say 3,500 seats etc. We could give away teams both tiers and in the PL this is likely to be sold more often than not. I'm not suggesting the full 7,000 inc corner.
Just BL Upper and Lower so that is 5,500 seats. Instantly that's another 2,700 on average on a gate without any extra home fans.
(We are not far off 33k at this point.)

I would say that if we improved and expanded our ground a capacity of 35-36k for when we are a PL team is about right. The proposed 44k capacity under McCabe to host WC games though seems way too big.

 

[ShropsBlade]

I think we can average 35k or so in the PL easily actually.

We averaged just over 30k last time and the time before in PL. Giving usually the away team 2,800 tickets, meaning on average we had 27,200 home fans in.
If we expanded the kop by say 3,500 seats etc. We could give away teams both tiers and in the PL this is likely to be sold more often than not. I'm not suggesting the full 7,000 inc corner.
Just BL Upper and Lower so that is 5,500 seats. Instantly that's another 2,700 on average on a gate without any extra home fans.
(We are not far off 33k at this point.)

I would say that if we improved and expanded our ground a capacity of 35-36k for when we are a PL team is about right. The proposed 44k capacity under McCabe to host WC games though seems way too big.

I don’t think a lot of the smaller prem teams like saints , Bournemouth, Brentford palaces etc would sell out both tiers.But I think 35k would be a realistic new capacity for the time being at least.I do think the kop is crying out for modernisation though.

 

[Working Class Hero]

In the Premier League 35k is more than achievable with extra home and away fans. And because the Kop quite obviously needs modernisation anyway, it makes sense to increase the capacity at the same time (without pointlessly rebuilding it).

In an ideal world the John Street stand would be expanded as well. It's far too small for a side stand. A result of it being built when expected attendances were far lower.

 

[Alan Birchenall's hair]

TBH I think we are about at 'peak Blade'. An additional 2k might be OK, 'cos then we can give the whole of Bramall Lane to away support (50% of the clubs in the Championship could sell double the tickets we give them). And speaking as someone who was one of the 7k in the 1980s, anyone old enough to have been there then, but didn't bother, that wants to come now we're in a bit better state is very welcome, but can't start stropping about facilities when they get there. Truth is though, the ravages of time means us 1980s 7K are getting few and far between these days. Most of the 'extras' have been born since then.
Personally, I go to the pub for a few, have a piss in the bogs on entering the Kop (dodging the cokehead wankers), watch 1st half, have a piss at half time, watch the 2nd half, have a piss on the way out, and go back to the pub. Always worked for me. And same plan at away games too. I think anyone wanting to buy any food and drink inside the ground must be really desperate as it's absolutely shite beer and absolutely shite food at extortionate prices. Would the standard change if you're in a posh concourse? Hmmm......

 

[WORKSOPBLADE]

If English clubs, following this trial, are allowed to have areas of standing on a more than 1:1 basis we can increase capacity fairly cheaply!

Obvious place is the Kop but this increases the crowding issue on the concourse etc. Not sure which other parts of the ground could adapt to standing, albeit partially?

Definite food for thought!

 

[CPB]

I don’t think a lot of the smaller prem teams like saints , Bournemouth, Brentford palaces etc would sell out both tiers.But I think 35k would be a realistic new capacity for the time being at least.I do think the kop is crying out for modernisation though.

Parts of the ground in general need modernising, we had to last time in PL and did the bare minimum.

Hillsborough needs even more modernising too.

Need bigger press/tv coverage facilities so incorporating that into a kop development would be wise. Just putting boxes in on the kop and converting more of the boxes on John St could work too.

 

[Houston_Blade]

The way to sell 35k+ tickets IF we ever manage to become established in the PL is to allow away fans to have the full BL end and sell the rest to home fans without the stupid restrictions we had in place last time.

 

[jt64]

If English clubs, following this trial, are allowed to have areas of standing on a more than 1:1 basis we can increase capacity fairly cheaply!

Obvious place is the Kop but this increases the crowding issue on the concourse etc. Not sure which other parts of the ground could adapt to standing, albeit partially?

Definite food for thought!

Yes, also saw this news from Frankfurt's twitter feed. If this encourages more English clubs to put this in with the idea of thinking "well if UEFA says this is fine then the PL will say this is fine in due course let's do it" then maybe it'll become more commonplace, filter down to all levels and result in finally rebuilding the Kop with more (standing) capacity and 20th century facilities

 

[Bert]

In an ideal world the John Street stand would be expanded as well. It's far too small for a side stand. A result of it being built when expected attendances were far lower.

The last time Bert looked there was a street right behind the stand.
Bert figured that building on that street might not go down well.

He also spotted one behind the Bramall Lane stand.

 

[ShropsBlade]

The way to sell 35k+ tickets IF we ever manage to become established in the PL is to allow away fans to have the full BL end and sell the rest to home fans without the stupid restrictions we had in place last time.

That would work for the bigger fixtures.However your palace’s , Bournemouths and Southamptons aren’t selling out two tiers.

 

[Stand United]

If English clubs, following this trial, are allowed to have areas of standing on a more than 1:1 basis we can increase capacity fairly cheaply!

Obvious place is the Kop but this increases the crowding issue on the concourse etc. Not sure which other parts of the ground could adapt to standing, albeit partially?

Definite food for thought!

It’s very unlikely that increasing from 1:1 on the existing Kop will be possible. By modern standards, there simply isn’t the row space to allow for it. We could adopt the type of rail seats that maximise the space, but the current Kop rows are unlikely to facilitate this. Any flexibility on the 1:1 is more likely for newer builds, where if you sit down your knees aren’t likely to get to know the back of the fan in front.

However, if you take the bolt-on Kop plans originally signed off for planning, the rows planned for that expansion would be much more spacious (85cm depth rather than the current 65cm). Those plans suggest it would cater for 2,900 seats. If the rules allowed a 1:1.5 or 1:1.8 for safe standing you’re looking at that being 4,350-5,220 extra capacity in the newly built bit. And a stand that overall holds ~15,000-18,500 fans.

 

[metalblade]

Why would you want to give away teams the advantage of 7000 fans backing them? The away fans area really should be the east end of the John st stand give them the 3000 minimum and no more sell both tiers of Bramall lane to home fans, I hate seeing away fans behind the goal everyone else puts away fans in a corner or on the side stands. How often did we get allocated more than 3000 seats in the Premier League? Not very often I'd say.

 

[bladesmanluke]

Ok so when we had a chance to go 4th in 2020 by beating Bournemouth in the prem.Do you honestly think we could have sold 40k tickets or even 35k that fixture ? Because I’m an optimistic blade and even I don’t think we will be operating that high in the top flight very often.

Wasn't that the one during a really bad storm that almost got called off?

 

[jt64]

Wasn't that the one during a really bad storm that almost got called off?

Yep, I couldn't get across for that one

 

[metalblade]

It comes down to the old argument that you look after your supporters first. After that if not all seats are sold you can then give a limited extra allocation to away fans. Look at the trouble caused when we gave Forest the upper tier of the lane end, ST holders moved & pissed off along with nearly every other United fan struggling to get tickets.

 

[bladesmanluke]

It's clear as day a successful Sheffield football club would pull in some of the biggest crowds in the country. I don't see how its even up for debate.

 

[Houston_Blade]

That would work for the bigger fixtures.However your palace’s , Bournemouths and Southamptons aren’t selling out two tiers.

I agree, I don't think we need the additional capacity at all. I get called names and shouted at when I dare to say it though.

I'd improve the facilities but we don't need a bigger stadium as it will just mean more empty seats IMO.