Off Topic Bob Murray

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polyphemus said:
At the time I was all against flattening MY Roker Park.
It was bloody sacrilege and unnecessary as the old lady could have had a facelift.

I changed my mind reasonably quickly.
I was determined to dislike The SSoL but after a few games, it grew on me and now it seems just as much a home as Roker used to.

That we have the cheapest Stadium of it's size in The UK, in terms of building costs, is ALL down to Bob.
He used every trick you could think of to keep the costs down and it worked a treat.

If you recall around the same time Sir John, up the road, was re-inventing the Scrapyard that they RENT from the local council.
Sir John is a builder.
It cost them something around £80mil I believe.
The SSoL cost a net £16mil in it's original form.
Sir Bob is a accountant.

The man is a genius and he is one of us.
I can not thank or praise him enough.
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My boy's names are imprinted in a couple of bricks. Can't remember how much they cost back then.

It was just one method of income generation to help raise funds for the SoL.
 
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gelders pie said:
£16m is incredible, when you think that Wembley was about £800m. Ok it's bigger , but not 50x as big. You can't help but think that the contractors were allowed to bill what they wanted in return for ''an envelope''. Same for the Olympic stadium and subsequent conversion.
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Or that it was in London, on 6 Times the land with huge access issues and took 4 Times as long to complete.....

I do scratch my head at £800 million mind.
 
Nads said:
Or that it was in London, on 6 Times the land with huge access issues and took 4 Times as long to complete.....

I do scratch my head at £800 million mind.
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Appreciate those points , but again, 6 times the land, not 50 times. If it was a case of it being even say £200m for the stadium , and £600m for access roads and local infrastructure, then fair enough but we’ll never know the costings. But I still question the Olympic conversion. The stadium already there , nearly as much quoted to alter it, and then they later ask an extra £150m or so to finish. Did someone really cost it so inaccurately , or am I right to be suspicious ?
 
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gelders pie said:
Appreciate those points , but again, 6 times the land, not 50 times. If it was a case of it being even say £200m for the stadium , and £600m for access roads and local infrastructure, then fair enough but we’ll never know the costings. But I still question the Olympic conversion. The stadium already there , nearly as much quoted to alter it, and then they later ask an extra £150m or so to finish. Did someone really cost it so inaccurately , or am I right to be suspicious ?
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Oh the Olympic project 100%, that was a black hole that nobody ever explained, with the Wembley project it was unique, to this day Wembley has things that no other stadium has, and the work around the stadium was far more difficult.
 
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Nads said:
Oh the Olympic project 100%, that was a black hole that nobody ever explained, with the Wembley project it was unique, to this day Wembley has things that no other stadium has, and the work around the stadium was far more difficult.
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Yes, I would love smug Mr Coe to explain a few costings.
 
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At various times when the Wembley Project hit well publicised construction and costing snags, various national papers suggested that Bob should be brought in as a sort of consultant/Overseer. This was based on his work on The SSoL and his subsequent developments around Leeds.
The FA naturaly ignored this claiming everything was going as expected. I honestly can not remember exactly how much the cost over-run was but £200mil is in the back of my mind.

I believe that Bob was brought in by The FA when they eventually decided to go ahead with the St George's Park project where by coincidence (?) the architects were the same as designed The SAFC Academy of Light, The Sunderland Aquatic Centre, and Durham CC Riverside Ground.
I understand that unlike the Wembley project this one ran as smoothly as you could hope for.
 
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Burly Hurley said:
My boy's names are imprinted in a couple of bricks. Can't remember how much they cost back then.

It was just one method of income generation to help raise funds for the SoL.
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25 quid a brick it was and we sold 25,000. That's 602,500. roughly guessing engrave and admin costs it must have been a good half million the fans chipped in on building the SoL. Further testament to Bob and his costing on the SoL.
 
Burly Hurley said:
I hope he's treated better by our new owners.

We owe that guy a lot.

Had the vision, just not the bank balance.

Just think where we could've been if he had.
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He had the bank balance when we sat 2nd at Christmas but didn’t push on with it. We owe him a lot, but he should’ve invested then and I am in no doubt we’d have pushed Man U for the title!
 
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Brian clough could have came here, Bob you blew the biggest chance in our history, but thanks for the SOL roker park was our home but was crumbling but we needed a Mancini or a top manager and money to be spent.
 
mrsuper said:
Brian clough could have came here, Bob you blew the biggest chance in our history, but thanks for the SOL roker park was our home but was crumbling but we needed a Mancini or a top manager and money to be spent.
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I’m not sure Mancini would have quit playing for ****ing Inter Milan to jump in as Sunderland boss at the time.

I’ll give Bob that one..
 
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