The Away End?

[The_Green_Man]

I know the new development plans that came about during our World Cup bid were pretty impressive and would be welcomed by many however this simply won't happen until we get to the promised land and demand forces the powers to be.....

But the away end.......

The smallest stand at the lane and one that in all fairness lets down the overall style of the ground regardless of the left hand side work to tie it in with the south stand.

Was this effective enough? Did we miss an opportunity?.......

I know most would say that there is little that we can do with that stand due to a main road running directly behind the stand, but this isn't true!!......

Many a ground have been faced with the same problem because of how football stadiums were traditionally built.......The solution being to build over the road with the wonders of modern day steel structures and engineering.....

So why didn't we do it?

.......................................................................................

I don't have the luxury of photoshop therefore I am just going to have to show what I mean with the wonder that is Microsoft Paint....


View attachment upload_2017-1-27_0-2-14.png

This in my opinion is what they should have done before working joining the away end to the south stand....They should have used a steel structure to increase the overall size of the stand in some way....Bring it out over the road like they have done at other grounds......Thus adding a good few rows and making the upper tier and the stand as a whole more attractive.



It could have been quite a nice stand in it end.......

And that my friends is my microsoft paint session over........

 

[The_Green_Man]

LIKE THIS........................

 

[boo radley]

I actually think it looks good. As a 30k+ traditional ground but below 40k is there a better one?

 

[Barney]

As it is now the top of the away end aligns perfectly with the corner and the south stand.

If we renovated in such a manner as you suggest the away end would be higher than the south stand and would look ugly.

And all for a few more rows, nah.

 

[knowsnowt]

View attachment 22609
LIKE THIS........................

Jesus man lookes like you've merged the Lane and the sty!
It's a no from me.

 

[Houston_Blade]

Do we really need any more capacity?! Improving the kop to remove the pillars I agree with, adding more empty seats I don't. When we were in the PL we got 32/33k most games without it being a complete sell out, assuming we'd do the same again what we have is fine. Half empty stadiums look rubbish so why do we want one?

 

[SwissBlade]

I think there was an entire thread about this the other week

 

[ScottBlade]

It's the kop that needs sorting the rest of the ground is fine. First and foremost removal of the pillars is a must and quite frankly should have been done years ago, anything after that i guess depends on where we are at in regards to what league we are in. With all the space behind the kop we could easily add another 5-8 thousand seats if we wanted nevermind the 2/3 thousand or whatever was in those plans. Whether it's a total redevopment or just adding the extra seats on top it would look incredible, imagine something like what Dortmund have with the yellow wall but..... red. At the moment i know that's just a pipe dream but if this club does ever manage to realise it's full potential (stability in Prem at the very least) then i think an increase in capacity would be necessary imo.

 

[Rodley]

Building over a road sounds simple and cost effective.

 

[CarlMcBlade]

BL upper is still the best stand to watch football in the ground. Just look how popular the Westfield corner has become. If they opened the rest of the upper tier to Blades, The truly awful Kop stand would have 3k empty seats in a flash.
Its the kop that let's BL down. It needs raising to ground and re-building to same rake as the South stand. Thus allowing the corner to be filled in with seats, not non football entities like office blocks,

 

[S64 Blade]

I doubt the road would be built over. Bramall Lane is earmarked for Supertram extension, if the funding ever happens. This is why there's now a gap left by the side of new developments, such as the student flats on the corner of Bramall Lane and Denby Street.

Kop and South Stand would be the easiest and most logical next steps. I'd ever say John Street would be a better option, if we were to build over a road, as there would be less disruption and no impact on a main route of the centre.

 

[Rodley]

Building over the road would be a nightmare.

We don't need to increase the capacity, even in the Prem as TV money dwarves gate receipts.

 

[Boxer Blade]

Looks like a good plan to me, you were never going to win that one though greeny were yer, dont, as they say, give up the day job, unless of course you are an architect

 

[Tezza1889]

Don't know if we'd need to, there's a decent chunk of land in terms of building a new stand behind the goal and before the seating starts now, if it was completely demolished and a new steeper stand built it wouldn't need to go over the road..

The other thing is, the kop needs it first and would be cheaper, maybe we could move the pitch back a little toward shorham street when doing this... buy us a bit more room at t'other end ... know what I mean arry...

 

[finlaytheblade]

Looks like a good plan to me, you were never going to win that one though greeny were yer, dont, as they say, give up the day job, unless of course you are an architect

The one thing that will improve the lane would be a double decker stand on the kop,completely demolish it and build it in two stages so as not to cut the
Crowds too much.This would only happen when premiership status is achieved, are you listening Mr Wilder ?.
Sure Mccabe and the prince would back it from the premiership of course.A double decker looking down on the kop would suck the ball into the net,the kop as it stands now generates a good atmosphere imagine a two tear kop?.

Hope you have thawed out boxer.

 

[prince albert]

I doubt the road would be built over. Bramall Lane is earmarked for Supertram extension, if the funding ever happens. This is why there's now a gap left by the side of new developments, such as the student flats on the corner of Bramall Lane and Denby Street.

Kop and South Stand would be the easiest and most logical next steps. I'd ever say John Street would be a better option, if we were to build over a road, as there would be less disruption and no impact on a main route of the centre.

How on earth can they extend the supertram down Bramall Lane after spending all that money on the wall of steel

 

[I should coco]

a new steeper stand built it wouldn't need to go over the road..

Have you ever been in the BLUT?

'Steeper' as in vertical?

I can see everyone fitted with a harness and carabine as they scale the North West face of the Lane to reach their seat.

 

[Working Class Hero]

If we ever get back to the Prem, the logical thing for me is to extend the rows at the back of the John Street as that stand was built with far too low a capacity.

The executive suites would have to be moved to the south stand which is a more sensible place for them anyway.

 

[FTPE]

BL upper is still the best stand to watch football in the ground. Just look how popular the Westfield corner has become. If they opened the rest of the upper tier to Blades, The truly awful Kop stand would have 3k empty seats in a flash.
Its the kop that let's BL down. It needs raising to ground and re-building to same rake as the South stand. Thus allowing the corner to be filled in with seats, not non football entities like office blocks,

Whenever my dad goes to a game he likes to sit on the Westfield corner. The atmosphere is crap but I'm guessing it was wherever we had sat against Fleetwood.
The view is brilliant. Perfect height and angle, we ask for the same seats whenever he comes and it's ideal.

 

[raul]

Elsewhere, we have a 300+ post thread about whether spending £1m on The Desso was a good idea. Spending multiples of that to look at even more empty seats? I cant even imagine it.

 

[Barney]

Have you ever been in the BLUT?

'Steeper' as in vertical?

I can see everyone fitted with a harness and carabine as they scale the North West face of the Lane to reach their seat.

 

[The Crab]

I know the new development plans that came about during our World Cup bid were pretty impressive and would be welcomed by many however this simply won't happen until we get to the promised land and demand forces the powers to be.....

But the away end.......

The smallest stand at the lane and one that in all fairness lets down the overall style of the ground regardless of the left hand side work to tie it in with the south stand.

Was this effective enough? Did we miss an opportunity?.......

I know most would say that there is little that we can do with that stand due to a main road running directly behind the stand, but this isn't true!!......

Many a ground have been faced with the same problem because of how football stadiums were traditionally built.......The solution being to build over the road with the wonders of modern day steel structures and engineering.....

So why didn't we do it?

.......................................................................................

I don't have the luxury of photoshop therefore I am just going to have to show what I mean with the wonder that is Microsoft Paint....


View attachment 22607

This in my opinion is what they should have done before working joining the away end to the south stand....They should have used a steel structure to increase the overall size of the stand in some way....Bring it out over the road like they have done at other grounds......Thus adding a good few rows and making the upper tier and the stand as a whole more attractive.

View attachment 22608

It could have been quite a nice stand in it end.......

And that my friends is my microsoft paint session over........

Love the scoreboard, them were the days

 

[The Crab]

Elsewhere, we have a 300+ post thread about whether spending £1m on The Desso was a good idea. Spending multiples of that to look at even more empty seats? I cant even imagine it.

You could have it spell "Desso Folly" across those seats?

 

[ChipButtyBlade]

Leave the Bramall Lane stand as it is,its size caters for away fans perfectly,its very similar to one of the stands at Chelsea where away fans sit,and it does for them.

I want the Kop upgrading before anything else in the stadium.

 

[LS16Blade]

Do we really need any more capacity?! Improving the kop to remove the pillars I agree with, adding more empty seats I don't. When we were in the PL we got 32/33k most games without it being a complete sell out, assuming we'd do the same again what we have is fine. Half empty stadiums look rubbish so why do we want one?

I think it was McCabe himself who put an increase in capacity on the agendaduring the Premiership season, by reference to the fact that the demand for tickets for the Man U and Chelsea games, indicated to the club that they could have sold over 40,000 tickets for at least those games, and probably some of the later 'glamour' games.

As it is, home tickets were sold out for 10 of the games: Liverpool (albeit the club were caught out on the first fixture and hadn't realised that we could fill the upper tier ourselves without splitting it and losing 1500 seats to segregation), Chelsea, Man U, Man C, Arsenal, Spurs, Everton, Newcastle, Watford and Wigan. In addition, there were less than 1000 home tickets unsold for the West Ham and Villa games. It was only the Boro (on TV), Bolton, Charlton, Reading and Fulham games where where the capacity in the home stands wasn't seriously threatened.

Anyway, due to the ineffectual powers that be, the capacity of 32,600 is seemingly no longer available to us. If the club was to do anything to ground, however, I absolutely agree that they must start with the Kop. It was put up on the cheap, the facilities are dire and the rake is far too shallow. It always looked like a temporary solution. It says everything about the fortunes of the club in its recent history that we're still stuck with it over 25 years later.

I suspect, however, that McCabe's enthusiasm for developing the ground has diminished somewhat since 2007. Unfortunately for us, though, it is all probably all academic after the failures of the past decade. I fear that the chances of us ever getting back to the top flight are now incredibly slim. The ladder is being pulled up ever more rapidly, due to the current TV money, whilst we are still faffing around in the third division.

 

[I should coco]

I suspect, however, that McCabe's enthusiasm for developing the ground has diminished somewhat since 2007. Unfortunately for us, though, it is all probably all academic after the failures of the past decade. I fear that the chances of us ever getting back to the top flight are now incredibly slim. The ladder is being pulled up ever more rapidly, due to the current TV money, whilst we are still faffing around in the third division.

Thanks for the good news.

And the bad news.......?

 

[VLYDONIMIR]

Whatever architectural direction we take, we mustn't enclose the stadium.

Manchester United have and they need to (at last meeting) replace their pitch, three times a season.
Something to do with wind, speed and direction.

 

[Ben_1982]

If and when the kop ever gets done it needs to be a total redevelopment. Flattened the mound and the pukka corner thing and rebuilding as one with a much greater rake and getting rid of all those steps from the turnstiles

 

[Sheffsteel]

Do we really need any more capacity?! Improving the kop to remove the pillars I agree with, adding more empty seats I don't. When we were in the PL we got 32/33k most games without it being a complete sell out, assuming we'd do the same again what we have is fine. Half empty stadiums look rubbish so why do we want one?

Half our games in the PL were sell outs apart from restricted views.

We would easily average around 35K if we had a 40K capacity stadium. For the big games allowing for a bigger allocation to away fans we would get 40K.

Agree with others in that the Kop definately needs doing and that would raise capacity to 36K which should be fine.

 

[micksterblade]

How about replacing the kop roof, removing the pillars, building the new roof bigger and further back, allowing for additional terracing to be added at a later date.
( lets say 5k min). Just place a concourse with toilets and all into it.
When the time is right ( double promotion/big investment ) complete the job.
Keep the prices right ( low for kids/students etc ) sell it out, attract the blades of the future.