Stadium Development

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St Albans Blade

St Albans Blade

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It doesn’t seem likely we’d take this forward unless we’re promoted or something significantly changes on an ownership front (eg new ownership that would fund it themselves rather than via PL cash). Same applies with the Kop plans that are in place. In both cases, it seems there were some initial works done (to the drainage in both cases) to make both of these officially ‘in development’. But I wouldn’t get too excited by that – as I understand it this is less done to get cracking in completing either, and more to remove any expiry dates on the planning consents.
 
So many fans are against us expanding the stadium saying we don’t need it.

We’re averaging 28,000 in the first half of a championship season, would be 29-30k by the end of the season if we had a 36k capacity and we’re able to give the likes of Norwich 5,000 tickets for the bigger games.

The stadium is a symbol of the club and its (immensely loyal and long suffering) fanbase, if they get promoted they should be expanding the Kop this time.
 
Would rather have a state of the art training ground and/or a couple of athletic central midfielders before we consider spunking moneh on a vanity project...

I bet there's a correlation between those wanting us to expand the stadium with those who lease a car they couldn't ordinarily afford so as to appear they're doing better than they actually are...
 
We need a sustained period of selling out the current capacity in my opinion, this will only happen with promotion and then staying in the PL. The last part will never happen because we act like tourists when we're in the PL and don't have the mental fortitude as a club to stay up for more than a season or 2.
 
ReeceofBDTBL said:
So many fans are against us expanding the stadium saying we don’t need it.

We’re averaging 28,000 in the first half of a championship season, would be 29-30k by the end of the season if we had a 36k capacity and we’re able to give the likes of Norwich 5,000 tickets for the bigger games.

The stadium is a symbol of the club and its (immensely loyal and long suffering) fanbase, if they get promoted they should be expanding the Kop this time.
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and again it's the same old argument, there is no way the Kop is the right place to start from a ROI perspective. It's always the South Stand and given our finances starting on the Kop would be a ridiculous and costly decision.

derekacorah said:
We need a sustained period of selling out the current capacity in my opinion, this will only happen with promotion and then staying in the PL. The last part will never happen because we act like tourists when we're in the PL and don't have the mental fortitude as a club to stay up for more than a season or 2.
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I think it's quite evident that we're essentially selling out currently. Restricted view will only generally sell out in the PL, but our attendance will bob up and down between 26K-30K largely on the number of away fans who fill out the BLLT. It's also worth mentioning how difficult it is to get a ticket to watch us if you are a casual fan. I think a 5k increase in capacity would see at least 50% of them sold most weeks, but it would return the cost of investment at such small numbers.
The issue is, in order to expand you have to close large areas of that stand so do you limit attendance now, or when the demand is at it's highest?
 
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derekacorah said:
We need a sustained period of selling out the current capacity in my opinion, this will only happen with promotion and then staying in the PL. The last part will never happen because we act like tourists when we're in the PL and don't have the mental fortitude as a club to stay up for more than a season or 2.
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True. It’s ok banging on about needing a bigger ground we haven’t sold out a single game yet this season in home areas despite been top of league so what happens if as you say we don’t go up and we end up a mid table championship side for foreseeable, it wasn’t long ago we were averaging 17/18k a season in league 1. A bigger ground with thousands of empty seats isnt priority imo. Sustained sucsess on the pitch needs to happen first starting with promotion THIS season. It’s a poor championship No outstanding teams etc. we are easly top 4 so we have to take advantage , then stay in prem for 3-4 years THEN talk about a bigger ground.
 

It would be a good idea that if we are looking promising in say January still for a promotion to at least explore the kop improvements properly.

Personally I would quite like to see them adapt the plans if possible. IF we got promoted the requirement for the TV studio will still be in play. We currently have a makeshift scaffold structure but they could probably convert 2 of the johnstreet stands corporate boxes into this instead. So if they were able to add some boxes to a kop development and get it to add around 3k to capacity this would be a good idea.

In terms of our capacity I think if we had 36k this is probably as big as we need for the foreseeable when the goings are good. As peeps have mentioned with a bigger capacity you can give the away teams more too so it's not even just coming from a point of view of seeing more blades fans in the ground.

At the min we are averaging about 25k blades in the stadium.

Something else which needs addressing is an empty hotel.
 
I’d love to see the ground expanded and improved, however given the macroeconomic pressures at the moment, it’s probably best holding fire for now. A lot of people might not be able to afford to go to games as regularly next season and if we aren’t promoted, the attendances may well drop down to the lower 20s.
 
We have 3 projects that need doing to bring us up to good PL standard.

1: The training ground
2: The Kop
3: The South stand

It's quite a difficult decision to justify which one should be done first because they all offer different advantages and different financial cost.

Re: The training ground
The top priority is to prevent our muscle injuries. There's a theory this is down to training on one surface then playing matches on a different surface.
So it's good to hear that the club have virtually finished putting Desso pitches in most of the training ground, so we practice on the same surface as at Bramall Lane.
However at some point the whole training ground needs an overall because it's possibly not even average Championship standard never mind PL standard.

Re: The Kop
The worse stand in the whole ground is the Kop, it's not fit for this century.
The original plan was to wisely choose the cheap option because the "return on investment" would be low.
However even with the cheap option almost every criticism is covered. Our concourses would all be under cover. Toilets and kiosks would be bigger.
The poles would be removed and capacity would increase by 3,500.
From a fans point of view the Kop is the priority.

Re: The South stand
However from a club point of view the South stand is actually the priority because it represents "the face of the club".
At the moment visitors see a 20th century stadium, however as many clubs have built new stadia standards have massively improved..
The South stand isn't really about putting in an extra 6,000 seats, its about impressing visiting players, directors, media people, VIP's etc.
They would arrive via the underground car park using the lift system taking players to bigger state of the art changing rooms, taking journalists to a posh massive media centre, taking VIP's to impressive executive lounged and boxes, taking directors to an impressive directors box.
This would be more of a vanity project and would costs the most but there would also be a decent return on investment.

The issues with the Kop and South stand is that some the land is owned by McCabe.
Even though the land is of little use to him, suspect he's hoping for a big offer to sell it back to SUFC.
 
Most fans would appreciate ground improvements. That ignores the fact that the ownership now classify United as a development club. For this policy to bear fruit, it requires upgraded academy status and facilities?

Ground improvements and promotion to the PL might complicate this aspiration?
 
The training ground and academy (upgrade to CAT1) should be the first priority. Regardless of PL football this needs urgent attention.

Stadium expansion is next and is dependent on sustained PL football.
The Kop needs it most and would make most of us happy but as Flatulent_Bob says, the business case for the Kop doesn't stack up against doing the South Stand in terms of ROI.

Kop comes last. Sadly.
 
Another factor that hasn't been raised is to consider what the future attendance trend might be.

For example if Sky TV show every Saturday 3pm Championship match on the red button.
Many fans might decide to watch some or most of the games either in the pub or at home.
Suspect football will continue to grow in popularity but actually attending live matches might not be so common, basically attendances might reduce.

Also there's still the "safe standing" experiment that might see capacity increases in the same spaces
so if only capacity increases are required it might be cost effect to install rail seats instead of building a totally new stand.
 
IdLiketoRogerMoore said:
Would rather have a state of the art training ground and/or a couple of athletic central midfielders before we consider spunking moneh on a vanity project...

I bet there's a correlation between those wanting us to expand the stadium with those who lease a car they couldn't ordinarily afford so as to appear they're doing better than they actually are...
Click to expand...
At some stage though you have to develop your ground otherwise it becomes run down and dated.
Now if I could only think of an example, no sorry I can't think of one I'm sure there is one though, I'll ask my mate who's a Man City fan see if he knows one.
 
St Albans Blade said:
Was there ever any official club statement on if and when the stadium expansion plan approval would happen? And when any approved development would be completed?

View attachment 145452


www.thestar.co.uk

Sheffield United submit plans to expand Bramall Lane stadium, which could take capacity beyond 40,000

Sheffield United have submitted plans to significantly expand their Bramall Lane stadium.
www.thestar.co.uk www.thestar.co.uk
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In a parallel universe, covid never happened. Chris Wilder is in charge and United are hoping to get back to back Champions League Semi Finals appearances. Our average league attendance so far this season is 42K.
 
There is a new directive being aimed at the football authorities about stadiums on a flood plain, and clubs with stadiums on a flood plain should be given grants to either rebuild, or relocate.

I think we know who started it although I'm sure they would deny it
 
Broomhall Blade said:
At some stage though you have to develop your ground otherwise it becomes run down and dated.
Now if I could only think of an example, no sorry I can't think of one I'm sure there is one though, I'll ask my mate who's a Man City fan see if he knows one.
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Big difference between keeping it modern and fit for purpose, than spunking £50m to add 6k seats...

And for the record Manchester City Council paid for their new stadium as part of the Commonwealth Games hosting - so you might want to sit down with your mate and get your facts straight, otherwise you run the risk of looking pretty stupid...
 
IdLiketoRogerMoore said:
Big difference between keeping it modern and fit for purpose, than spunking £50m to add 6k seats...

And for the record Manchester City Council paid for their new stadium as part of the Commonwealth Games hosting - so you might want to sit down with your mate and get your facts straight, otherwise you run the risk of looking pretty stupid...
Click to expand...
Whoosh…!
 
ReeceofBDTBL said:
The stadium is a symbol of the club and its (immensely loyal and long suffering) fanbase, if they get promoted they should be expanding the Kop this time.
Click to expand...

That's what they said when they ousted YCC and built the South stand.
 

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