I heard after England won the rights to the Rugby World Cup in 2015 that St Mary's will be used as a host and therefore we would need to build up the stadium to accommodate for this. Can anyone else shed some light on this whether I heard it right and if so does anyone know what capacity St Mary's will be after the expansion?
I heard there was a minimum requirement of about 40k for a rwc game or that's what England want or something like that, I can't be certain what it was but I know I heard something about it lol
The first half is correct, unfortunately someone has made the second part up. There are a few other comparable stadia around the 30,000 mark being used.
I'm glad someone else has lol I'm sure we would be in the Prem by the time we expand it (if we do) so all in all it could be a great money spinner depending on how many rwc games that we get, 3 or 4 would be great just to have a few group stage games would really help boost the club, the city and the stadium along with it's facilities as I'm sure Staplewood would be getting used for some team to train at
The Rugby World Cup does not require an expansion of St Mary's. It was just something a random person decided to edit the Wikipedia article about St Mary's with and had no evidence to support it. Just look at this years World Cup in New Zealand, four of the stadiums used were under 20,000 capacity. For 2015 World Cup in England, Gloucester's stadium is being used and that is under 20,000. In any case there simply isn't the money associated with a Rugby World Cup to justify building a new stadium or significantly upgrading existing ones. In all likelihood St Mary's will be extended relatively soon, as has already been mentioned to be the plan by Nicola Cortese on a number of occasions.
Truth is as someone else has said............Some Rugby world cup games are due to be played down here. The part about the extension was on the Cards if we had been excepted as a possible venue for the football world cup. Which because of our late application was turned down, not withstanding England didn't get the votes anyway. !!
Can't see any expansion at SMS in the near future. We have to get promoted and look like we're staying there and then show (by filling the ground almost every week) that a bigger ground is warranted. It will only be done when it looks sensible financially. Do we really want an even bigger stadium half-full in the Championship. I'm sure it's in the long term plans, but I'm sure NC will only consider that expense when commercially viable. SMS is big enough for our requirements now.
When SMS was first built, my first reaction was... what a lovely stadium..! Pity it's so small. Which indeed was the case, shortly after it was first opened. Saints averaged over 30,000 fans per game for the early SMS years. When the boardroom rumbles began, and the team started to suffer, then the average dipped below 30K to somewhere around 27-28K. Then relegation and the rest is history. The point I'm trying to make, though is that at an average of over 30K, there was virtually no extra capacity. The pressure on tickets was almost as bad as it was at The Dell. There was many a time, when a game was actually sold out, several days or even a week beforehand, and yes there still would be gaps in the crowd. Season ticket holders who didn't turn up, and/or people who just couldn't make it, for whatever reason. In a potential crowd of 32.5K, there are going to be absentees, for whatever reasons. Now it's 2011, and I don't know whether making the change from 32,683 to something rather more substantial is going to be worth it. To my mind, it should have been 40K flat. If [yes, it's an IF] Saints had prospered, rather than been relegation fodder, in the Premiership, it would have been filled, almost every game, by now. The groundswell of support would have continued - it's a big catchment area. As to future expansion..? Well Nicola is here for the long term, so only he can answer that question. He's the Chairman, the Chief Executive, and if he mentions the words Stadium Expansion, in a favourable way, you've got to take it seriously.
Given Englands dire performance in the last rugby world cup, i would have thought it would be the bars and ferry terminals that needed expanding rather than the stadium!
Nicola said recently (tongue in cheek) that he'd only pay top wages if were in the Champions League in a larger stadium. Sounds like it could be on the agenda, but not imminent.
Talking about Champions League etc is all very exciting, but without sounding like a party pooper, if we're ever going to get there, it is a very long way off! Look how long it's taken the likes of Stoke and Sunderland just to get a firm footing in the Premiership. At this stage, I would just be happy to be an established Premier League club once again - it's been a long 6 years so far without top flight football! The stadium as it is, is ideal for Premiership football, it always has been.
That chump Rupert had the oppurtunity to build a fantastic stadium for the future and blew it. It's a lot better than The Dell, but should have had another 10,000 seats. I have heard that the price for extending the stadium is sky high. The cost of extension in terms of £'s per seat is sky high, and therefore the return on the investment will be low and slow. Just as likely is a total rebuild, either on present site or on a new one. It really all depends on whether there is going to be devolopment of the water front and surrounding area. There is no doubt in my mind that a catchment area as huge as ours, that with a proper pricing structure and Premier League football a 45,000 statium is a reality.
Surely if (a) The RFU want to use football grounds and (b) they have a minimum capacity requirement of 40,000, there are plenty of suitable grounds in England already without approaching a football club with a smaller capacity to say "We'll use your ground, but only if you expand it"
I see your point entirely but the choice of grounds is down to location more than capacity. If England had won the bid for 2018 Football World Cup, Milton Keynes and Plymouth were two of the venues that would have potentially been put forward. It would not have been based on the respected stadiums but on location as they woudn't want all the venues to be centred around London/Manchester etc, they would want them to be more spread about. This would have meant stadium expansion of course, as neither Plymouth or MK Dons have 40,000 capacity grounds. It is exactly the same scenerio for the Rugby World Cup in 2015 with the respected venues that have been chosen.
If we get to the Premier League and adding another 5000 seats was cheap (which it isn't), I'm sure Nicola would look into it, but we are a long way off needing to expand SMS. Can we just finish this season first, please.
A construction cost of only 32 mil for 32k seats...does suggest we could/should have built a bit bigger at the time
