Pretty much correct. The construction of St Mary's means that only three stands can be built upon. One of the main stands cannot be raised, so the stadium roof would end up with a dip along one side, unless it was evened out somehow [of the two, I think it's the Itchen, IIRC]. That would yield between 40-42K [I forget the exact figure proposed - time passes]. Cortese also envisaged an entirely new stadium upto 52K elsewhere in the city. That might seem overly large, but as mentioned many times, Saints did the research into it and came up with that maximum.
A few points: 1. Would prefer a new build and a change in location to access, parking, pedestrian congestion etc. Heard last year rumours about the old Ford Works site near the airport. Couldn't think of any where better personally for communication routes with air, rail and motorway access. 2. Fran mentioned MK Dons site. A major investment by The Liehberr Corp in something similar to Stadium MK with its inbuilt hotel, conference centre plus large retail park would be far more self sufficient and generate significant income all year round 3. With a capacity of circa 40k, we can accommodate significant away fans e.g. Man Utd, Liverpool, Man City and the London clubs with significantly more tickets going their way. At the moment we on give a max of just over 3k (I think) so doubling or even trebling that allocation will not only bring in more fans but improve the atmosphere. For those old enough, remember The Milton v The Archers Ends? 4. With excess capacity for less well supported teams, we could offer special deals to encourage kids to come either via school trips or parent and child deals. These are our future Saints supporters and if we can get them early we may keep them away from Manure etc. I would like to see an enhanced "Family Area" and potentially a family reception area under the stand to make the youngsters experience better than the one we get. Kids don't like to stand around in a concrete bunker with nothing to do other than eat fast food. A bit of imagination needed to make the kids day out at Saints a memorable one. I would support the expansion of SMS too if the expense of a new stadium was too much but the infrastructure of the area would have to be seriously redeveloped if another 8-10k people were attending e.g. the foot bridge over the railway line is a disaster waiting to happen
OK, who's going to wheel out the old drawings then..? BTW, for those who think expanding now is the best situation, here is Ralph's view, via the Echo, at the beginning of this season: http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/11479816.Saints_keen_on_stadium_expansion/?ref=ar
Well the first sentence in that article speaks volumes. ie, it would only happen "following a significant run of sell outs at the stadium".
Well, we have had a few sell outs this season, and our average attendance is 30,548, significantly up on the 30,211 we managed last season. It's heading in the right direction, fuelled by some great results and our league position, so it must still be in the board's mind. If we can get the percentage capacity up in the high 90's (it's 93.5% this season) then they would be forced to address it, I would think.
Nicola even added 'and a few seasons in the Champions' League.' We must be nice and patient...all in good time. Our main income is from breeding and selling talented players...now there's a thought, perhaps we could put our most promising players out to stud. We could have crossed Shaw with a woman with a brain. .
Indeed we have. Quite a few. Supporters might take note that although we have had those sell outs, in not a single case has the 32,689 capacity been reached, so a sell out is not a requirement to fill every nook and cranny. To be honest I don't quite know what constitutes a sell out when there are a 1000 or so seats left. Perhaps it's that the hospitality boxes have not sold out, but the main stadium seats have. In any case, a couple more seasons of this and some serious European competition going on can only add to the exposure and tempt more people to change their weekend habits. Getting young new supporters in is a key area for improvement and I believe SFC have gone some way to improving that situation with the new season ticket price structure.
In the interview about our finances, Rogers said one thing they would have to work on would be getting the boxes filled.
Hugo Drax and Max Zorin had similar plans whilst CEO's of their respective villainous enterprises in James Bond...they never came up with the idea of a cunning hermaphrodite left back though
There are still decent chunks of 100 or so seats that aren't filled on match days that don't involve the top 4. I'm not sure whether expanding make this problem worse (through lack of fans) or better (the fans want to come but that are empty are truly ****).
Just a thought guys......Although the stadium is supposed to hold 32689......Isn't a few seats lost keeping a division between home and away fans? Also isn't the optimum safety certificate numbers different to the actual capacity, I E 32000? Add to that the missing corporate box numbers. I have known on several occasions when my son has come over unexpectedly from the US he hasn't been able to get a late ticket because of unavailability....."sorry sold out", he has been told yet the official recorded numbers are no where near the capacity, as we know it.
The main stay of the vacant seating is Corporate Hospitality/boxes, division between home/away fans. away ticket returns for the lesser clubs/evening games. With a larger ground away fans could have an end which could be properly fenced off so we wouldn't have to use the material strip which knocks out loads of seats and if we signed up to away fans for £20 then it would encourage more to attend both boosting attendance and improving the overall atmosphere.
Expanding the stadium is a nice idea for the fans but it won't make a lot of difference to our ability to compete in this division. If we were to sell all 10k seats for 20 games a season at £40 each (optimistic) that would add around £8m to our income. Even after we got our money back on the expansion costs in 5 years or so, £8m really isn't that much in the context of the club's wider revenues. Quite rightly, this is not a priority for the club at the moment. The academy is the answer for us, and we will be able to pay higher wages once we've established ourselves at the top end of the table and improved our commercial income.
I can certainly understand your reasoning however add to the £8m the additional retail sales especially if can market to kids/young families who will want replica kits etc but more importantly it will generate the next generation of Saints fans who will get up from infant their TV/PC and come to the ground week in week out
Exactly. A bigger ground allows the club to do cut-price entry for school kids and hopefully enough of them will get hooked before they have to start paying full price.
I think it would be a folly increasing the ground capacity to bring it up to 40K even though an extra 5k could be feasible but I do think that money should be spent on improving the ground which is starting to look a bit uncared for. The rhs sections which make up the main architectural feature of the ground need to be cleaned and re-painted and the curtain walling sections are starting to look a bit tired. The grey cladded panels have not dated as much as you would have expected but the Perspex elements behind the high lever tiers and the roof have discoloured through both the weather and algae growth. At least it isn't as bad as the Stadium of Light yet. Whenever I look at Brighton's stadium I always feel a bit jealous as although St. Mary's is a marked improvement from the facilities at The Dell, I don't think the building is an architectural statement. What we bought was a package from a contractor who was a stadium specialist and therefore the fact that the design was likely to be in house by Barr resulted in a presentable looking sports venue but nothing spectacular. In many respects it is similar to so many grounds built in that era and lacks individuality. Since St. Marys has been designed other venues such as the Cardiff, Wembley and Brighton have proved that it is possible to build marquee venues that have a degree of flair about the design. It is strange that very few clubs have grounds which have any architectural merit with probably only Villa Park and Highbury matching the old Wembley stadium for character. Even something like Old Traffold is brutal and without merit as a piece of architecture. When you see some of the foreign stadia it is difficult not to be impressed even if they lack some of the charisma of the old English grounds. If money is lavished on the stadium the appearance could easily be enhanced and facilities in the concourse made to seem a little less industrial. The toilets probably need a new fit out. Having done the stadium tour, it is quite staggering to see the rooms behind the scenes that make the match days pass smoothly but the corporate areas are a bit ordinary. I'm not really a fans of suspended ceiling systems like Microlook Dune and think that an architect in 2015 would be more inclined to have a neater MF type system. I understand that Marchwood is extremely impressive but I suppose by appointing Barr to build the ground, Rupert Lowe ensured that all the architectural flair was quickly designed out. If you are building marque developments in cities such as football stadia, I think that sticking to a tight cost plan is probably short-sighted in the long term.
Its tough to make the last train east after an evening game also, usually means leaving before final whistle.
The utterly, utterly ridiculous situation is that Red Funnel must be aware that there are Islanders going to and from the match on week nights and yet they can't find a way to adjust their sailing times by 15-30 minutes in order so that it isn't tough for you to make the Ferry. I know there is a knock-on effect, but there is certainly room in their schedule that the knock-on only lasts for the rest of the evening. Not a major problem, I would have thought. Or are you just saying that it is tough to make the earliest Ferry, after the match, back home..?
Red Funnel's last Fastjet is possible to catch if you are a fast walker or catch the bus (which you can't always do). They have improved the time from when we were at the Dell....that was nigh on impossible if you wanted to stay till the final whistle (which I always did). The problem would be if the ground was further away. However, I recognise that Islanders are a tiny number compared to the rest.
