How big can we make Bramall lane?

[vorpal blade]

In terms of making Bramall Lane a bigger stadium, its seems to me that the Police seems to lop off capacity 'willy-nilly'. Isn't the crowd for the Spurs match 3000 less than the official capacity (correct me if I'm wrong)?

Thats the equivalent of half the capacity of the Bramall Lane End isn't it? in other words you could close the top tier and still get the crowd in.]

Again, I may have got the wrong end of the stick here but aren't South Yorkshire Police, in bags of trouble over Hillsborough when Wednesday were over-stating the capacity of that ground for reasons of prestige, just over-cautious about crowd sizes at stadia in this county?

In the standing room eighties, you had to estimate the real capacity of a ground, now you can actually count the seats. Assuming the building regs and licences have been observed in terms of structural safety and sizes of escape routes etc. Isn't the number of seats the capacity of the ground, give or take a row or two taken out of the total and filled by stewards as has been observed was the way it was run at Spurs...?

 

[vorpal blade]

White Hart Lane' capacity is 36,240 as stated on wikipaedia® (although it also says 36, 282 too)

The crowd against us last wednesday was 35 323 according to the unimpeachable BBC.

That meant there were 917 fewer people there than the official capacity of the ground.

This despite that, the 'away-end' was split between Spurs and Blades with no 'physical' boundary between the two at both sides of the United supporters.

The Bramall Lane end has a complete break at one side and possibly is entirely physically isolated from home fans. Even if the Westland Corner is used by Unitedites, there is only ONE boundary to police that could involve covering up seats. What is the point of closing the first row of seats in the upper tier of the stand if its Spurs fans above and below, suicides?

The Met Police and Spurs covered over 1 or 2 rows of seats as a divider and it worked, lets see what its like at BDTBL. At Doncaster Rovers it was wider than No Man's Land at the Somme.

 

[TarquinDelouche]

Well, as the OP said that...

money were no object

... I'd suggest we invent and use five hundred thousand floating chairs and play on an invisible pitch. I bet we could boost ticket sales to close to a million.

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

Yes!

I know these local council schemes are often vacuous but the 'Creative Industries Quarter' of Sheffield, has a decent concentration of cafés of different types, various bars, a few art galleries, a river, Spearmint Rhino and a cinema.

All en route from Station to football ground.

I reckon this DOES add up to more than one thrill per minute walked,

still if you need more stimulation...........?

You wouldn't see Spearmint Rhino or any cafes.

The route I always take is straight down Shoreham.

 

[ShockingBadBuy]

We will definitely need to up size next time we reach the premiership as 32,000 was selling out most times the last time we were there. Love how the lane is close to the city centre if the supertram ran closer to the ground and public transport was better it would be perfect.
The only real downside is lack of parking close to the ground due to residents only schemes, how many students (the only residents nearby) actually run cars, plenty of parking spots nearby if you could use them. Sheffield council seem to fuck it up in every which way they can, resident parking schemes, road closures on match days public transport diverted away from the ground fuck me I could never imagine they would close Penistone road on a match day.

Residents only parking, now, right along Shoreham Street ? At 2:45pm, on any Saturday, you will sometimes struggle to see a parked resident's car for hundreds of yards. Another coup for the council ...

 

[Aston max]

I would actually hate us to have a ground like that!

yep still remember wearing wellies to have a piss at the top of the kop

 

[More Bladier than thou]

Bloody hell, assuming you meant to write 'you're', do you honestly think only Asians or Turks enjoy their own cuisine?

In the nicest possible way that is just junk of the highest order, possibly like your diet?

had alot of nice asian and turkish food, however its never on london road.my diet is well balanced, just like my thoughts on bramall lane

 

[More Bladier than thou]

Did I hear on the radio that a new China town was going to be built across to Bramall Lane? The Chinese developer has been after building it for ten years and the council have now said yes.

yes, could be good, might be crap but the important thing is the area is being rejuvenated.maybe a chengdu blades club shop aswell haha

 

[FATTYFOULKE]

Eh up FF, just a quick question if you don't mind - where did you get your avatar?

Just googled images of fattyfoulke and and it was amongst them mate.

 

[TonyAgana]

Just googled images of fattyfoulke and and it was amongst them mate.

Thanks man, how long ago?

 

[longinthe toothblade]

With Bramall Lane not having acres of space to build on, what could we build it to if money were no object and us being a regular prem team fighting for Europe.

Could we make it any bigger than this?

fucking hell, we've bought Brayford and now we are building the new Estadio Santiago Bernabeu!!!

 

[metalblade]

What I do think we should do is put away supporters on the John St stand where depending on allocation a few rows of seats covered would be good enough segregation rather than thousands of seats unused on the Lane end, get the Blades fans behind both goals so the away team don't kick towards their own fans which must surely help them at times, teams always seem to do better kicking to there own supporters may as well be us in both halves.

 

[Borbokisfreekick]

What I do think we should do is put away supporters on the John St stand where depending on allocation a few rows of seats covered would be good enough segregation rather than thousands of seats unused on the Lane end, get the Blades fans behind both goals so the away team don't kick towards their own fans which must surely help them at times, teams always seem to do better kicking to there own supporters may as well be us in both halves.

Been thinking that for years. Give away fans the half of John street towards the Lane end.

 

[vorpal blade]

Heard some stats years ago Metal that teams that give away support one end of the ground do worse than those that tuck them away somewhere in the Gods.

 

[longinthe toothblade]

What I do think we should do is put away supporters on the John St stand where depending on allocation a few rows of seats covered would be good enough segregation rather than thousands of seats unused on the Lane end, get the Blades fans behind both goals so the away team don't kick towards their own fans which must surely help them at times, teams always seem to do better kicking to there own supporters may as well be us in both halves.

Sounds like a cunning plan!

 

[wizadry]

What I do think we should do is put away supporters on the John St stand where depending on allocation a few rows of seats covered would be good enough segregation rather than thousands of seats unused on the Lane end, get the Blades fans behind both goals so the away team don't kick towards their own fans which must surely help them at times, teams always seem to do better kicking to there own supporters may as well be us in both halves.

I like the sound of this but i don't think that quite alot of fans would,especially a few on here

Derby have done it this season,moved fans over in the far corner,Sunderland did it last year,moved everyone up to the heavens,there will be many others and i'm not saying they've all been successes but it would certainly make it easier for segregation as you quite rightly say.

 

[metalblade]

I like the sound of this but i don't think that quite alot of fans would,especially a few on here

Derby have done it this season,moved fans over in the far corner,Sunderland did it last year,moved everyone up to the heavens,there will be many others and i'm not saying they've all been successes but it would certainly make it easier for segregation as you quite rightly say.

Oh I don't know I think quite a few people would welcome the chance to have a Season Ticket on the Lane upper tier it is after all the best view in the ground.

 

[S5Blade]

Oh I don't know I think quite a few people would welcome the chance to have a Season Ticket on the Lane upper tier it is after all the best view in the ground.

I would move my ST (back of south) in a heartbeat. I love the view from the upper

 

[Sirius]

we need to buy the houses on john street, floor them then build.

???

 

[Sirius]

We will definitely need to up size next time we reach the premiership as 32,000 was selling out most times the last time we were there. Love how the lane is close to the city centre if the supertram ran closer to the ground and public transport was better it would be perfect.
The only real downside is lack of parking close to the ground due to residents only schemes, how many students (the only residents nearby) actually run cars, plenty of parking spots nearby if you could use them. Sheffield council seem to fuck it up in every which way they can, resident parking schemes, road closures on match days public transport diverted away from the ground fuck me I could never imagine they would close Penistone road on a match day.

Ban the fucking students near to the lane. They should have halls of residence to prevent upsetting the populace with their fucking behaviour

 

[Dkc]

My suggestion for expansion was digging down "a la Barca", giving all sides of the ground 1500-2000 extra capacity. Someone explained to me why this was a non-starter, but I forgot why.

For me the JSS was a missed opportunity. It should have had a small upper tier with two rows of executive boxes above that. Not much can be done now, but it still looks fairly impressive when all the seats outside the executive boxes are filled. The ground would look lopsided if the kop were expanded but the JSS remained the same.

The stadium would look better on TV if the cameras were located on top of the JSS.

 

[grafikhaus]

Jeez. We buy Brayford and we're suddenly planning for a sustained future in the top flight! Apart from the very occasional game (even in the PL), 32k is fine. Sunderland always looks like a morgue and, for teams like Swansea, QPR, West Brom etc., they realistically don't need 'huge' stadia.

Looking at the vid. earlier in this thread, it's obvious the two sides where we're 'hemmed in' are John Street and Bramall Lane. As I can't see the flattening of the terraced housing on John Street (which, I think, add a certain old-school charm to the environs, rather than those shitty grounds built in the middle of an out-of-town industrial estate) any time soon, Bramall Lane is the next area for development.

Straddling the road has always seemed obvious (I drew it up in 1974 as part of a Construction project at college). The only 'businesses' standing in the way are a couple of dodgy second-hand car lots and a couple of pubs which probably don't see any punters apart from on match day.

So, apart from money, there are two stumbling blocks to our future development. The first is SYPD who would take great delight in halving the number of future extra seats as they're shitting themselves over the HD. (Totally unjustified. See Brighton v Arsenal, Spurs v Leicester etc. over the weekend? No more than 6 feet between rival fans.)

Then, as ever, is SCC. A few years ago all the businesses on the far side of BL were bought up and closed - The Railway, Cricketers, car lots etc. The aim was to build a dual carriageway and possibly a Supertram spur. Then somebody at the Council realised that it would be in United's favour so the scheme was dropped. (The only reason Supertram goes to Hillsborough is for Wednesday, why else would anybody want to got to that shitthole end of town?)

 

[Blade56]

With Bramall Lane not having acres of space to build on, what could we build it to if money were no object and us being a regular prem team fighting for Europe.

Could we make it any bigger than this?

Fekking heel ime Dyslexic an hi cain speel Bramall Lane.



Alas, not in my lifetime . Hope you younger Blades get to see it one day

 

[stringjunior]

My suggestion for expansion was digging down "a la Barca", giving all sides of the ground 1500-2000 extra capacity. Someone explained to me why this was a non-starter, but I forgot why.

For me the JSS was a missed opportunity. It should have had a small upper tier with two rows of executive boxes above that. Not much can be done now, but it still looks fairly impressive when all the seats outside the executive boxes are filled. The ground would look lopsided if the kop were expanded but the JSS remained the same.

The stadium would look better on TV if the cameras were located on top of the JSS.

I recall a mate telling me that the JJS had been built with foundations suitable for an extra tier. Was probably winding me up though

 

[FATTYFOULKE]

Thanks man, how long ago?

Feb 2009. Why?

 

[TonyAgana]

Feb 2009. Why?

Sorry to be weird, chief. It's from my old website that's been dead and buried for years so I was just interested where you'd found it

 

[FATTYFOULKE]

Sorry to be weird, chief. It's from my old website that's been dead and buried for years so I was just interested where you'd found it

No worries mate, thought it was some copyright issue or something

 

[vorpal blade]

Dkc, Digging the pitch lower to allow for more terraces of seats, it was probably me. Bramall Lane is right down close to the level of the river Sheaf and the Porter Brook, its at the bottom of the valley and tends to bogginess as it is.
One of the End stands would have to be moved back to allow for room to dig down anyhow, so I think its a tricky thing to do all round (literally).

The thing about size of BDTBL is that the Police are lopping 3700 off the official capacity on Wednesday night aren't they? This seems mad......plenty of fairly regularly attending Blades can't get tickets.

This thing about the Fatty Foulke caricature. Isn't it the image used as the wallpaper on this site anyway?

 

[FATTYFOULKE]

This thing about the Fatty Foulke caricature. Isn't it the image used as the wallpaper on this site anyway?

It is mate. I first started using it on sheffield football forum, then bladesmad. I was using it before I noticed this site had it on its wallpaper.

 

[TonyAgana]

No worries mate, thought it was some copyright issue or something

Nah, man! Spread the love!