Stadium Development

[YES Blade]

Expanding the Lane is a lovely pipe-dream which nearly all of us have , but structurally impractical and without any financial foundation.
We are at the limit of our budgets and crowds whilst in the Championship and the only way we get to be in a larger , modern stadium is to ground-share with the pigs on a new site.
As eloquently described above , Leeds have a 3m catchment and we slug it out with 5 other clubs for a share of 1.5m - the maths is easy.
Given the old-fashioned entrenched attitude of most of our fanbases , anything which smacks of "progress" over "tradition" will be roundly rejected.
And we will stay as the "nearly club" which we've been my entire life - roughly 13 seasons of the last 60 in the top league.
That said , I'm enjoying the last couple of months of our football , at our level.
Some great attacking attitude but not worrying about having to suffer in that bent PL anytime soon , once the parachutes have gone.
If you want to make progress , you have to make changes - we don't , so we won't.
Wilder & Bettis will still be here without any presence from the owners , for years to come.
Which is at least comforting when you reflect on what the happened in the summer with the owner's choice of head coach

Why would we need to ground share? When clubs such as Brentford, Derby, Leicester, Reading, Southampton etc. can all build their own stadiums without needing to share, why can’t we?

 

[Hanauer]

Ask a Palace fan

It keeps popping up on social media that the pigs will be expanding to 53,000 capacity (surely not big enough) . The 30,000 useable seats at Bramall lane is not enough we need to be closer to a 40k stadium. You can't really compare us to one club cities like Leeds and Sunderland.

Pigs have the highest number of empty seats in attendance history. They've had 50/60000 capacities but have hardly ever needed anything like that only for Internationals and Semi finals. They'd be better with a 35000 capacity which apart from the occasional game is all they'd need.

 

[Keen Blade]

Why would we need to ground share? When clubs such as Brentford, Derby, Leicester, Reading, Southampton etc. can all build their own stadiums without needing to share, why can’t we?

Same reason as why we can't do anything with Dore - our owners aren't billionaires who at the time had big money to throw at capital projects (which are not restricted by FFP).

 

[YES Blade]

Same reason as why we can't do anything with Dore - our owners aren't billionaires who at the time had big money to throw at capital projects (which are not restricted by FFP).

Owners don’t use their own money for stadiums, they also don’t pay for it in cash. It would be a long term loan.

I’m not saying saddling ourselves with a shit load of debt for a new stadium would be the way to go. All I’m saying is that we don’t need that lot from across the city in order to have a new stadium should we wish to.

 

[Keen Blade]

Big

Owners don’t use their own money for stadiums, they also don’t pay for it in cash. It would be a long term loan.

I’m not saying saddling ourselves with a shit load of debt for a new stadium would be the way to go. All I’m saying is that we don’t need that lot from across the city in order to have a new stadium should we wish to.

Big loans are a lot less daunting if you're a billionaire owner ,
Both for the owner and the bank.

Halving the risk by ground-sharing is one way it might work for us , given the nature of our owners and the likely nature of the pigs consortium.

 

[Gimli]

It was a fantastic evening that, although feels like a lifetime ago still remember it like it was yesterday. That was my team I grew up watching away with my mates, when I went to my first away games without family a couple of seasons before. I was just looking at the squads from that night and some legends in there that were shockingly bad footballers but were brilliant, probably the last generation of personalities, but used to love Kozzy, and Monty but to think they became Premier League Footballers is bananas! Although the bizarrely hilarious quote from Blackwell about the game ""Sometimes you wake up in a morning and you know it's going to be a great day, but this ended up being a dark night"

Dark night?

Night time is the best time of night!

 

[CrookesBlade]

Why would we need to ground share? When clubs such as Brentford, Derby, Leicester, Reading, Southampton etc. can all build their own stadiums without needing to share, why can’t we?

I suppose the argument for is sharing the cost puts us in a more advantageous position financially….bit like West Ham getting the Olympic stadium for nowt. Two clubs in the same city, similar size crowds etc….not an opportunity that every other club mentioned would have.

That said we should have the wherewithal to do it ourselves. A shared stadium would ultimately feel a bit soulless and unloved.

Plus given recent form I doubt our friends across the city would be good for their half. More likely to be playing future games at Concord Park rather than a new 40 odd thousand seater standout .

 

[MobileBlade]

You'll be laughing on the other side of your face when Morpeth Town turn up with a 15,000 strong backing for a 'six pointer' in April!

What about their 'Big Derby' with Stocksbridge PS as well?

utb

Actually FC United of Manchester and Hednesford Town regularly take large numbers away from home (although the latter will probably be in the National League North next season having spent more on their ground in the last 12 months than Wednesday have in the last 10 years and probably have a wage bill similar to Wednesdays).

 

[BouncinBlade]

They do and they like to let everyone know about it especially the ones that have never been to a game and didn't know we beat them 4-0 at Elland Road under Warnock (although trips to the sty have probably eclipsed that now it is definitely in my top 10 away games). When you try and have a sensible conversation about the point they are trying to hammer home they fail to understand that the Leeds area has a population of over 800,000 with West Yorkshire being 2.4 million, then on top of that they have a lion share of North Yorkshire (another 600,000 +) too despite having Harrogate Town and arguably 'Boro (some say it's North Yorkshire) on their doorstep. Granted not everyone is a football supporter and some will have other teams (like me) but when you look at the competition for Leeds, it is Bradford City, Huddersfield Town, Harrogate Town (very recently with a low supporter base of a few thousand), arguably York City at one point too and 'Boro until you reach the South Yorkshire clubs.

They also have an Irish fan base that travel over to Leeds Bradford Airport from Dublin and Belfast for games before returning the same day in the evening. When you look at the area they have to "recruit" from it is nearly 3million people. When that club is in the Premier League and being successful the backing should naturally be large from that number however if you look at stats for example 20 years ago in 2006 the average home attendance in the championship for them was just 22,355 which is less than the season ticket waiting list. 10 years ago in 2016 it was 27,699 although an increase not by much. They bang on about how great they are but if we had 1 South Yorkshire club which would be covering a population of around 1.5 million so approx half of the "recruitment fan base" with average attendances across the "big 5" clubs in South Yorkshire we would be averaging between 80-90,000 just on home support alone.

This is true... Leeds have a huge following. Not just in Ireland but in Sweden and Norway too. I live in Leeds and come across European Leeds fan's regularly

 

[BouncinBlade]

Hate the pukka pies corner (or whatever it's called). Just looking at it makes me shudder. Surely that had been built to accommodate a new Kop?