Blade for Sale
Well-Known Member
Hope this is relevant enough to us to be included in Blades Chat, and hopefully a change from the post mortem of yesterday and the impending arrival of a certain character....
Yesterday I took my lads to see Man City v the Millers at the Etihad for a bit of a change, and thought it might be of interest to compare a few aspects of the experience with SUFC.
- Price. Extremely reasonable £5 for kids and £12 for adults which ensured a near sell out, although this was bumped up by a £1.50 booking fee per ticket which, let's be honest, is daylight robbery. You do have to register with them to buy tickets but this was very quick and easy, and there was none of the rigmarole of having to set up and allocate separate customer numbers for every ticket purchased. You also get an image of the view of the pitch from the block you select which is useful, and you can also print off your own tickets, or have them posted.
- Getting there. Not a fair comparison but a relatively stress free tram ride across Manc drops you off 5 mins walk from the stadium. Getting back is a different matter as you have thousands vying for trams but have to say it's pretty well organised and we were on a tram within 30 mins of leaving the stadium. The benefits of a new stadium, a load of space and starting from scratch I guess. Should the Supertram ever make its way down to BDTBL it would take some major infrastucture work to get something similar set up for matchdays. BDTBL and the surrounding area is too cluttered for me to make this work well, just an observation. The stadium is surrounded by a vast external concourse which enables them to offer mutiple refreshment stalls, pop up versions of their superstore, a stage area and big screen with a live presenter....all very polished but left me nonplussed, give me BDTBL any day with the ground hemmed in, surrounded by boozers, rubbing shoulders with fellow fans.
- The view. Not great to be honest. I was in a corner stand on the lower tier. One of my pet hates for new stadia is the shallow rake of the lower tiers. Wembley, the Milennium Stadium, the Etihad all have shallow rakes low down. Spurs too from what I have seen. West Ham do as well but that's explained by the conversion from athletics to footy. I assume there must be architectural reasons for it but it makes for a poor view. That said, stadium MK looks to have a steeper lower tier so it can be done. Parts of our stadium suffer from this was well of course but it's a 160 year old facility which has evolved piecemeal over the years. This is a new stadium and there should be no excuses for anything but a perfect view anywhere.
BUT (and there are caveats atatched to this) where I was, and in the 2 blocks either side, the entire crowd stood for 90 minutes, no steward intervened and would you believe it, there wasn't 1 fatality. Not even a bruised shin. Now, I had 2 young lads with me who were therefore forced to stand on their (precarious) seats and hang on to me for support. In hindsight and with better knowledge I would have gone elsewhere, but despite the view, there was something tangibly liberating about standing up, and the atmosphere in that part of the ground was great. Clealry there is some unwritten rule between the club and the fans that stewards will turn a blind eye in that part of the ground and I would love something like that to materialise in parts of our kop (or, even better, a return to proper standing).
- Half time refreshments. In a word, shat. I rarely get anything on matchdays but my lads were gasping for a drink. Despite nipping onto the concourse 2 mins before the HT whistle, we queued for 25 mins for 2 bottles of fecking pop and a twix. It's nice to know that even the richest clubs in the world can't get this to work smoothly!
The match itself was, of course, a farce, but fair play to City for respecting the competition, Sterling, Walker, De Bruyne, Sane, Stones, Foden ,Mahrez, Jesus, Gundogan, Ederson all featured, and they play with a freedom and speed that isn't fully appreciable on the tv. I sometimes despise the modern game but for the purist, City are poetry in motion at the moment.
All in all, a fairly enjoyable day out but not a patch on a Blades matchday!
Yesterday I took my lads to see Man City v the Millers at the Etihad for a bit of a change, and thought it might be of interest to compare a few aspects of the experience with SUFC.
- Price. Extremely reasonable £5 for kids and £12 for adults which ensured a near sell out, although this was bumped up by a £1.50 booking fee per ticket which, let's be honest, is daylight robbery. You do have to register with them to buy tickets but this was very quick and easy, and there was none of the rigmarole of having to set up and allocate separate customer numbers for every ticket purchased. You also get an image of the view of the pitch from the block you select which is useful, and you can also print off your own tickets, or have them posted.
- Getting there. Not a fair comparison but a relatively stress free tram ride across Manc drops you off 5 mins walk from the stadium. Getting back is a different matter as you have thousands vying for trams but have to say it's pretty well organised and we were on a tram within 30 mins of leaving the stadium. The benefits of a new stadium, a load of space and starting from scratch I guess. Should the Supertram ever make its way down to BDTBL it would take some major infrastucture work to get something similar set up for matchdays. BDTBL and the surrounding area is too cluttered for me to make this work well, just an observation. The stadium is surrounded by a vast external concourse which enables them to offer mutiple refreshment stalls, pop up versions of their superstore, a stage area and big screen with a live presenter....all very polished but left me nonplussed, give me BDTBL any day with the ground hemmed in, surrounded by boozers, rubbing shoulders with fellow fans.
- The view. Not great to be honest. I was in a corner stand on the lower tier. One of my pet hates for new stadia is the shallow rake of the lower tiers. Wembley, the Milennium Stadium, the Etihad all have shallow rakes low down. Spurs too from what I have seen. West Ham do as well but that's explained by the conversion from athletics to footy. I assume there must be architectural reasons for it but it makes for a poor view. That said, stadium MK looks to have a steeper lower tier so it can be done. Parts of our stadium suffer from this was well of course but it's a 160 year old facility which has evolved piecemeal over the years. This is a new stadium and there should be no excuses for anything but a perfect view anywhere.
BUT (and there are caveats atatched to this) where I was, and in the 2 blocks either side, the entire crowd stood for 90 minutes, no steward intervened and would you believe it, there wasn't 1 fatality. Not even a bruised shin. Now, I had 2 young lads with me who were therefore forced to stand on their (precarious) seats and hang on to me for support. In hindsight and with better knowledge I would have gone elsewhere, but despite the view, there was something tangibly liberating about standing up, and the atmosphere in that part of the ground was great. Clealry there is some unwritten rule between the club and the fans that stewards will turn a blind eye in that part of the ground and I would love something like that to materialise in parts of our kop (or, even better, a return to proper standing).
- Half time refreshments. In a word, shat. I rarely get anything on matchdays but my lads were gasping for a drink. Despite nipping onto the concourse 2 mins before the HT whistle, we queued for 25 mins for 2 bottles of fecking pop and a twix. It's nice to know that even the richest clubs in the world can't get this to work smoothly!
The match itself was, of course, a farce, but fair play to City for respecting the competition, Sterling, Walker, De Bruyne, Sane, Stones, Foden ,Mahrez, Jesus, Gundogan, Ederson all featured, and they play with a freedom and speed that isn't fully appreciable on the tv. I sometimes despise the modern game but for the purist, City are poetry in motion at the moment.
All in all, a fairly enjoyable day out but not a patch on a Blades matchday!
