Blades Manifesto 2024

[BalticBlade]

What's a Matalanifesto?

 

[Sheffsteel]

They also showed their uber shrewd football knowledge by sacking the unknown manager that had got them in the playoff places and replacing him with a 'name'.
That went well.

Agree....very naive to appoint Rooney when their smalltime manager was doing so well.

However me point remains.....they had a plan/ vision from day 1. Our news owners should do too.

 

[The Fox]

Keep thinking that people are playing a football manager game.

Any plan to renovate the stadium MUST have a business case regards progression and making more profit.

So lets consider the 2 options
Option A: Knock down the Kop
This is a massive job....you need to remove the earth before you can even start.
Would take an estimate 2 years to complete, so imagine a reduced capacity of 20K for 2 years.
How would you deal with that? You would force them to move into the BLUT?
We have more ST on the Kop than parts of the ground, so probably 2000 season ticket holders would be told they can no longer attend a single home match for 2 years. How do you decide which ST holders are basically banned from the ground. How about a rota where everyone takes turns missing matches? Our home areas would be 100% season ticket older only....so new fans can come for 2 years.

A new Kop would have a steeper rake with more leg room.
So this logically means capacity would be reduced or similar to what it is now.

The cost would be massive....as the capacity wont be higher then surely prices would increase to South stand pricing.
Always think we need a cheaper area for fans with more basic conditions.
One might say we could build banqueting and conference facilities under the Kop
but not sure it's needed on 3 sides of the ground.....surely John Street and an expanded South stand would be enough.

Option B: The cheapo bolt-on design
I remember at the time feeling disappointed that it wasn't something more ambition but McCabe explained his reasons for his design and in fairness they made alot of sense. He said the Kop extension would take 1 season and 2 Summers to complete and said for most of the build most of the Kop could remain open as normal, so stadium capacity and ST holders wouldn't be effected.

He highlighted that the worse part of the Kop was the posts and uncovered concourse areas.
So his design sorted this with large toilets, large bars and modern kiosks all enclosed totally protected from wind and rain.
Some of the seats are quite cramps for tall people....so the area behind the current Kop would be at a steeper rake and offer more room.
He also said the new bolt-on design was the most cost effective option available and would increase capacity by 3,200.
A few sell outs on the Kop and we eventually get that investment money back, also think a 14K Kop,
making it one of the biggest in England improves our image.

Personally I'd prefer option A but the business case is so weak that to do it, would be financial negligence
and risk pissing off 1000's of season ticket holders and possibly having a damaging effect on our future fanbase.

Think it's important to offer fans choice.
So we need a cheap area like a Kop with basic facilities....so people who are cashed strapped can choose that area.
Then we need an area where people, businesses have plenty of money to spend and will do if they are given the best.
Corporate and exec seats is always the area that provides the greatest return on investment in any stadium.
My understand is that the motivation expanding the South stand wasn't the extra 6K seats, it was more about having fancy corporate facilities and a private underground car park to impress VIP's visitors, a fancy brand new directors box and suite to impress opposition directors, enlarged fancy new changing rooms to impress visiting players, state of the art Media Centre to impress Sky TV and national journalists.

I remember McCabe also saying that the beauty about the South stand expansion design was again it wouldn't reduce stadium capacity
because we would be building behind what's already there. I'm sure I read he preferred to do both at the same time because it cuts overall costs.

This thread is a good idea by the OP because you would think that any new owner must have a vision, a plan, a manifesto.

Id think one approach if possible would be to extend the south stand as suggested , this can hopefully be done by building behind and maintaining capacity. That may add enough capacity with the blut to accommodate the kop support whilst the kop is rebuilt .
It's all very long term and no one wants a 3 sided ground, but done right those 2 stands would be good for 50 years . We have to have long term plans.

 

[Sean Thornton]

Yeah this would probably have been next on my list. Would love to see us selling sheffield beers and have local vendors selling ‘greasy chip butties’ and hot roast pork sandwiches inside the ground. It’s a hassle to set up but a lot of fans off a certain age would love it, and it would really help to get more connection to the local community.

Have you forgotten we recently signed a long term contract with Compass?

The issue with artisan providers has been discussed at length on here. Great in theory but people continue to purchase sub par produce.

 

[Sheffsteel]

Expand the Kop (when we get back to the prem) Entire away end to be for away support only unless we can fill it. Move existing STs to the expanded Kop and other areas.

Means tested match day tickets and season tickets to help the less fortunate families attend.

Stadium wide wifi.

Safe standing areas in every stand.

24/7 SUTV.

Steel city cup Derbies again. (when not in the same division)

More prestigious pre season tours.

All of above could increase fan engagement, fan base and revenue.

Some decent suggestions there.

As memtioned earlier it's not just a case expanding the Kop.
The factors to consider is....do you use McCabe's cost effective bolt on design....by putting 3,200 seats on to back of what's already
making sure the posts are removed and the concourse area is enclosed under cover with much larger toilets, bars and kiosks
or do you flatten the site and build a stand from scratch? This would mean full stadium capacity reduces to 20,000 for at least 2 seasons
and if you give the whole 7000 away end to the away fans then that's a measly 13000 tickets available for home fans.

Agree about stadium wide wifi that works.
Not sure on the costs, wouldn't think it would be too expensive and this seems to be becoming more and more common.

Introducing safe standing costs money for no additional income.
Can understand the logic of having one large safe standing area on the Kop full of singers but not sure it would work anywhere else.

Think pre-season friendlies all depends on the situation.
Last season was incredibly bad that Im sure many of our players had forgotten how to win.
So it was important that we played some weak teams in pre-season just to build confidence.
However in general agree.....would be nice to have some a bit more high profile but I suppose that comes in the Premier League.

My suggestion and I thought about this many years ago was to improve half time entertainment
by inviting, say, 6 random Blades season ticket holders onto the pitch and giving them a chance to win say £500 by kicking a ball and making it land exactly on the penalty spot or try shooting from the centre circle and making the ball hit the crossbar and bounce back.

 

[IdLiketoRogerMoore]

They look at it in terms of £ per seat. FSG were reluctant to develop the Anfield Road end as the £ per seat return was too low. Opportunities for corporate facilities are also far more restricted behind the goals as boxes etc go for far more in the side stands. Increasing the capacity of any stand potentially reduces the £ per seat due to simple supply and demand economics: the less of an in demand product there is available, the more it's worth. FSG had no hang ups when they built the Anfield Main Stand as the return per seat was very high. It's hard to compare us with Liverpool but it gives some insight. FSG have ruled out further expansion despite a huge waiting list for tickets.

Which is why people saying expand the kop/ make it safe standing/remove the pillars - simply don't get it. What would be the ROI on that Vrs more corporate boxes, a high class hotel and a Michelin starred restaurant? The kop is probably the last stand that would be touched for the reasons you articulate excellently above .

We really do have some hard of thinking fans...

 

[wak1889]

One way or another, we should be getting new owners and (hopefully) investment in the next 12 months. If that’s the case, what would you like the priorities to be? For me, after the roller coaster of the last decade, I’m keen to see some medium-term planning and investment, even if it means less spending on the first team in the short term.

In an ideal world, and assuming stoke/brentford levels of investment (I know, I know, just humour me), my priorities would be:

1) New single-tier, steep rake Kop with significant safe-standing and decent facilities. We’ll have to put the club in significant debt to do this but raising finance for infrastructure is sensible compared with raising debt for player recruitment. Should put our capacity up above 35k.

2) Major investment in recruitment personnel and technology. We’ve started to improve on this but need way more. I’d suggest we focus on young British players first, then build up our ability to recruit in 2-3 core European markets. We should allocate a certain % of annual player recruitment $ to buy promising youngsters. We have proven capability as a club at developing players, which complements this strategy perfectly.

3) Build the new 1st team training ground at Dore If planned carefully to last us the next thirty years and I think we be a big bonus when it comes to player recruitment.

4) Develop Shirecliffe into a quality Cat 1 academy and boost the community sports facilities available, if there is space. Might even be able to nick a few extra fans from that part of town.

5) Invest to make our women’s team top 10 in the country. Women’s football is growing incredibly quickly and improving quality year on year. I think the club does a great job with its media coverage but, with our size, there’s no reason why we can’t be a leading UK club. I’d do this for its own sake, but happily it also helps the next priority…

6) Huge focus on attracting women and ethnic minorities as the next generation of fans. I’m not making a political point here (please don’t respond if you think I am) but sheffield’s population of white men isn’t growing significantly any time soon. And it’s hard to pull people away from either blades or owls families (it’s taken us 20 years of sustained success to move that needle). But there is massive untapped potential in the city. It will take a deliberate approach - maybe recruiting community leaders, changing up our food and events offerings, free tickets etc - but we only need another few thousand people to become season ticket holders and it changes things dramatically. I do think this will change the atmosphere somewhat, but I think if we build a monster new kop, there’s plenty of scope for different types of experience around the ground.

7) Appoint a Director-of-Football with a 3-7 year plan. I love Wilder and think he might succeed with us again. But he needs to our last ‘Football Manager’ boss. He’s a one off. Going forward, I’d like to see us have a stated strategy on the way we play (technical, high-pace, front foot football) and a set of player recruitment and development criteria that we work within. The DoF, Head of Recruitment, First Team Manager and CeO need to be on a committee and have some creative tension, but DoF needs to sign off. We need to build a squad that can play at least two different formations, to give us tactical flexibility and allow for new young coaches to put their stamp on things. A proper plan should avoid bloated, unbalanced squads and situations where top players let contracts expire before we cash in.

What would yours be?

I think a lot of the proposals are sound but with regards to increasing the fan base around female fans and ethnic minority fans, the premier League marketing machine has already made sure that there if you have no allegiance to a club then the premier League or EPL is the only option, I work with a fair few asian lads who love their football but they are man u , Liverpool or Chelsea, city still too new to have fans of this age yet, they would think nothing of paying the equivalent of a blades season ticket to watch Liverpool , man u , Chelsea etc 4 times a season, with regards the women's game I'd separate it completely from the mens , for 2-3 seasons, let them do their own marketing, set up their own ticket office , pay for their own kits , basically be an entire separate entity in their own right and stop piggy backing on the mens game let them stand on their own 2 feet and if they turn a profit then we can look at supporting them to develop

 

[nopigfansintown]

Bettis goes into quite a lot of detail about safe standing and redevelopment here. Start the interview at about 37 minutes:

Sheffield United - Stephen Bettis answers your questions - BBC Sounds

Hear the Sheffield United CEO, who spent an hour on BBC Radio Sheffield

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Sheffsteel]

Bettis goes into quite a lot of detail about safe standing and redevelopment here. Start the interview at about 37 minutes:

Sheffield United - Stephen Bettis answers your questions - BBC Sounds

Hear the Sheffield United CEO, who spent an hour on BBC Radio Sheffield

www.bbc.co.uk

Thanks....that basically tells us the Kop expansion is not happening any time soon.
However taking away the pillars could happen quite quickly...so at least that's a positive.

Regards expansion I think the extra 6000 seats on the South stand will be the priority before the Kop.
Makes you wonder if they should look at installing temporary roofing at the back of the Kop and around the concourse areas
so at least when you go to the toilet you don't get soaked on there way there.

The fanzone area could do with having a large undercover area too.

 

[I should coco]

If Sheffield United didn't have the vision to speculate on Shirecliffe I doubt any if the good things that happened in the next 20+ years would've happened. It was seen as lunacy at the time...

<cough> McCabe <cough>

 

[I should coco]

We spent 6 years in league one without building a new stand. I’m not sure how the south stand being built is relevant to what we should do in the future.

You made the point we lacked ambition and I pointed out how badly our ambition of the 70s had turned out.

I have no idea why you have then added the South stand (opened in 1975), into our 6 seasons stranded in League 1 (2012-2018).

 

[nopigfansintown]

Thanks....that basically tells us the Kop expansion is not happening any time soon.
However taking away the pillars could happen quite quickly...so at least that's a positive.

Regards expansion I think the extra 6000 seats on the South stand will be the priority before the Kop.
Makes you wonder if they should look at installing temporary roofing at the back of the Kop and around the concourse areas
so at least when you go to the toilet you don't get soaked on there way there.

The fanzone area could do with having a large undercover area too.

In the online fan forum during the Covid lockdown we were informed that the poles would've been removed if it wasn't for Covid, and that the club had it pencilled in the following summer providing we didn't go down (of course we did). Later that season the new building at Shirecliffe was announced (it didn't end up happening).

 

[IdLiketoRogerMoore]

In the online fan forum during the Covid lockdown we were informed that the poles would've been removed if it wasn't for Covid, and that the club had it pencilled in the following summer providing we didn't go down (of course we did). Later that season the new building at Shirecliffe was announced (it didn't end up happening).

Think it's amazing people still talk about it, as if it's the most pressing priority for the club. In the grand scheme of things, removing the poles on the kop to improve the view of a couple dozen spectators, probably features as important as the direction they cut the grass on match days....

As you say, removing the poles offers zero ROI and no impact on £ / seat, yet we witter on about it....

 

[I should coco]

Think it's amazing people still talk about it, as if it's the most pressing priority for the club. In the grand scheme of things, removing the poles on the kop to improve the view of a couple dozen spectators, probably features as important as the direction they cut the grass on match days....

As you say, removing the poles offers zero ROI and no impact on £ / seat, yet we witter on about it....

You don't sit on the kop, do you?

Everyone behind the poles has their view obscured to some degree. For 'a couple of dozen', read several thousand.

You are of course correct that this will have no effect on the pathetic leg room, which is the worst in the ground by a long way.

 

[IdLiketoRogerMoore]

You don't sit on the kop, do you?

Everyone behind the poles has their view obscured to some degree. For 'a couple of dozen', read several thousand.

You are of course correct that this will have no effect on the pathetic leg room, which is the worst in the ground by a long way.

Being honest the times I've sat on the kop, those two factors have been a pain, but the biggest issue I found was getting soaked whilst going for a piss and deciding against a half time beer because it was so frickin cold and wet...