Mags embarrassing themselves yet again

Fair enough and I agree with most of what you say but if kids can’t get into the SOL we can have as many Luke ONien days as we want and kids won’t get in..

SAFC is uniquely placed in England to relatively easily and cost effectively expand the stadium. Let’s increase capacity and have Luke Onein days with cheap tickets and get the kids in.

 

We are living rent free in their heads mate

 

This is what I mean about "a tad early", most people who support Sunderland don't get to the match regularly anyway, how many sell-outs last season by percentage? Let's sell-out for two years straight before we put the cart before the horse.

 

On this I just have to disagree.

Think of all the recent initiatives like the hospitality, sound system, pitch, lighting, club store, etc. Some were started in L1 and through the Championship. We’ve progressed by being proactive and now have sponsors, advertisers, investors fighting to be involved.

Even more we now have supporters begging for home tickets which will only increase through the season, hopefully. Harnessing all that momentum, and pushing forward, is the only option in my opinion. You can always wait ‘just one more season’ and delay. What happens if we finish mid-table for two or three seasons?

Nah, balls to it …

… build it and they will come.

 

I guess it's perspective. In my view, I'm trying to offer balance, not negativity or gung ho-ism.

Maybe all the relegations have me beaten down? We can only fill a stadium of 49,000 in the Premiership or with big momentum and even then sometimes we didn't quite fill it. 49,000 is a good size, and we shouldn't think it isn't, we can expand it to 60,000 now and cash-in on the momentum but what it that doesn't last? Is that being negative? Or is that suggesting to see both sides of the coin?

 

Yes you may well be right mate.

I’m just aware that we’re currently turning away supporters, restricting away support, perhaps missing out on internationals/concerts, etc …

… my view is that you can always find a reason not to go ahead but imagine if we qualify for Europe this season and need two years to catch up.

I’m probably jumping the gun but, in fairness to me, I have had hints dropped by a couple of people who know more than they’re saying. The club is run very tightly now so info isn’t leaked any more … which is a good thing, especially with blabbermouths like me

 

Fair enough but why not Strike while the iron is hot? Football is only going to get bigger and Sunderland needs to use its USP at this magnificent opportunity the club now has imho.

In relation to this thread we need to take the battle to the Saudis to win the regions kids. Living in a mostly mag area when the Saudis took over I genuinely feared for the future of our club. The owners over the past couple of years have been nothing short of sensational (even if I doubted them) so let’s not be little Sunderland and if we have the finances to do the extension we should do it - we now have thousands locked out.

If the clubs were reversed the Saudis would be very much extending asap imho. Thanks to Sir Bobs foresight we can do the extension relatively easily and cost effectively so let’s make the most of the golden opportunity we have. The added bonus we can negate any nimbyism with the sheepfolds development too.

 

I’d say that a 55k stadium would be about right for us at the moment, but we could always do with a bit spare capacity to cater for the really big games and concerts. We could wait for a couple of seasons and possibly lose out on an extra 10k per game (380k over 2 years) and other venues may start picking up the concerts.

As others have said, we are so lucky to be in a position where we can extend extremely cheaply compared to the majority of other clubs, that we shouldn’t let the opportunity slip away. We may well be back in the Championship in 5 years time, but so could half of the clubs in this league. The main thing is that if the worst did happen, the facilities would already be place on our return.

 

The counter weight to this is obviously being in the Championship (or worse) with an even bigger stadium. 40,000 in a 49,000 capacity looks okay, but 40,000 in a 60,000 stadium looks, well, not great. I'm probably being too cautious, but I'm worried too many are "being fools by rushing in".

 

We had this argument when we were on about building the SOL, "40k is too big, we only average 17000" "it'll look ridiculous less than half full"... First season in the SOL we averaged over 33k, the following season over 38k.

To me extending the stadium makes sense, we're selling out our home allocation almost immediately, we need to ensure the next generation get hooked now, or risk them slipping off yo support someone else or be an armchair fan. It's extra revenue for the club, chances of hight profile games and gigs. I'm 52 and seen us squander plenty of opportunities to be successful by being too cautious (under Durban, the back door promotion, the Milk Cup team, for example). Let's not hamstring ourselves now for the future.