Been having an interesting discussion with QPR fans on their board about a potential new stadium for them, and one of their posters expressed the view that our stadium needs some major work doing, which is hard to disagree with. For me, the changes should consist of: A West Stand identical to the East. (+6,500 to the attendance) A Kop extended to twice its current size, but one-tiered so the atmosphere from the top doesn't stop at the barrier. (+6,000). Better cladding and some internal renovation for all the corner stands. And ultimately if we get high enough attendances, a South Stand similar to the Kop with an extended SW corner so the ground is symmetrical with high end and side stands and short corners. (+4,000). Away fans could have one half of the South Stand to get their ticket allocation of 3-5,000, with the rest given to Leeds fans. So what would your ideal Elland Road look like? Is it perfect now? Or would you rather move to somewhere further away, despite the fact there's almost unlimited bounds for extension at the Beeston site?
Looks good that. Only one down side is your plan would have a capacity of between 55 and 60k. Even when we make it back to premiership 40k will likely be our largest home crowds with maybe very odd exception. Financially, would probably cost less to build brand new custom designed stadium than to continue dismantling and rebuilding Elland Road.
Until bates ****ed off there really is no point extending any stands is there. But long term yeah i dont think anyone can disagree with what youve put. Apart from you missed the bit about having a hotel on each corner and a casino under the west stand, and a shopping centre connected to the east
Could we have little tv screens in the back of the seat in front so we can find something decent to watch if the game is duff? Seriously, I'm au fait with your suggestion, Jerel, however, I would suggest one enhancement - the same safe standing/seating arrangement they have in Germany (you did say ideal, didn't you?).
Crowds are going up and up in a boom time for football. If we get reasonable pricing, community engagement, on-field success and unity around the club, there's no reason we can't average at least 53,000 with the fanbase we've got. And I think keeping Elland Road outweighs any newbuild being commissioned for tens of millions - our tradition is priceless. Of course... but in an IDEAL Elland Road, Bates' head would be stuck on a spike outside Billy's Bar, so his presence wouldn't be an issue for once. Good shout with safe standing, although in my ideal world, there'd be open terracing in the Kop and South Stand, with all fans entering warned that they might get knocked about a bit (shock!) at moments of intense excitement.# As for the televized seats, I'm all for it as long as the screen screams 'WATCH THE FUCKING MATCH YOU IDIOT' at whichever dick turns it on!
Ben Fry squeaking about exclusively (read: tediously) bringing us in-depth (read: 1990s quality) match coverage and revealing (read: pointless) interviews with the squad? I think I'll pass.
Hmmm Jerel, I think you may be confusing tradition with sentimentality. If it was such a good thing to maintain tradition, would we be grateful for the earthshock changes a certain Mr Revie introduced?
Maybe I rushed the gun a bit - my view is that Elland Road should be retained for reasons of both principle and practicality: I don't think it would cost more to extend it than to build a new stadium. Leeds City Council and sympathetic landowners currently control the land around Elland Road. There are already plans drawn-up for the extension of the ground. So it's not just sentimentality that makes me think we should stay at our current site, although the eternal line "Elland Road is the only place for us" does ring true for me. If we were in a Man City situation where our ground were surrounded by housing and totally unextendable, I'd want us to get a nice, atmospheric new ground built. But I don't think that's either feasible nor necessary. We can extend up to probably 90,000 at Elland Road - there's no good reason not to retain our proud tradition there. Unless we move to Horsforth and get a stadium at Hall Park. I'd be creaming my pants if we announced that!
Poor Jerel, denying yourself the opportunity of Kenvision educating you real-time, convincing you that you're actually seeing a brilliant match - at very cheap prices too! Just think, you wouldn't be watching a crap match - it would be the mindless morons sitting next to you that would be brainwashing into thinking that that our senior team (i.e. avg age 42) was crap.
Personally, I'm quite happy to stay at Elland Rd. Crapped myself when Ri ... Ri ... that man suggested we move out of town & he found a site on reclaimed land. The devil in me would love a situation where we walked away from Elland Rd in circumstances whereby the owner was left holding a white elephant (snigger, snigger). Another aspect to the ideal ER - we'd need to ground share with Partick Thistle. Now that would be worth creaming your pants for!
Well, we could always move to a neutral venue near my second home in the North East to accommodate the Jags. That wouldn't be too much trouble in my eyes. Always preferred Partick Thistle to those two sectarian messes. "Hello, hello, how do you do? We hate the boys in royal blue. We hate the boys in emerald green. So **** the Pope and **** the Queen!"
Basically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westfalenstadion Although 50-55k would probably be our ideal capacity.
North East sounds good to me. Easy from Wetherby. Think we could float it? Btw, you nearly got the words to the song right - for boys, read ****s. Most impressed that you knew that song!
Average increase in attendance for teams in the Premier League was 63% from 1992 to 2008, increase for teams from lower divisions was an average of 227%. Soccernomics, page 173.
Just think if the world cup was to have been decided to happen in england, we woulda increased the capacity of Elland Road with the club not even paying the full amount
why are you discussing increasing the capacity of elland road when low 20,000's are a regular occurance?
