To build one stand will not take one year. If they started now I think you could sit in a new seat before the new year. Most new stadia are created away from location and are delivered. Clearing the remaining part of the East Stand would not take three weeks and the new pieces could be delivered as the space is available. Then the electricity can be introduced and decoration made, only club offices and reception areas. If it is like the Reading stadium that is a lot of unfinished grey brick walls.
Bloody hell you want every thing all at once dont you mate , Not enough that the pozzos save us from badman Baz ,not enough they save us from admin or worse ,not enough that they give us Zola , not enough that they give us players that ooze talent and class last seen in the heady days of Barnes and Cally,not enough that the first of our 2 transistion years we had a trip to wembly and were so close to going up. Not enough that they have nutured Udi and granada for years and taken them way above their stations. Come on mate these are the best owners we have had since SEJ for the first time in years the positivity coming out from the club and the fans is amazing ,1881 movementkicking off ,so hopefully improved atmosphere, increased sponsorship of global brands financially sound ,and all in 12 months ! Patience mate the East stand will come all we have to do is keep hitting the 15k home gates which should be a doddle with 11500 STH`s todate numbers will be helped by away fans as well dont forget futures bright futures yellow futures Watford fc
It is this bit from the below article that gives me hope that everything is in hand; "Work on the South-West corner is set to begin this summer and completing the redevelopment will kick-start Watford’s plans to undertake a complete refurbishment of Vicarage Road" http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/sport/watfordfc/watfordfcnews/10440837._/ It will all take time, and one bit at at time - but this talk makes me believe they are here for the long term...
All good points guys, but if I was extra suspicious I'd say the only reason the south west corner is being built is because of the quick buck their making from the Lindley Group, 18 mill is a nice turn over for something that is already half built. I'd be more impressed if they built the new stand along with the corner but that opportunity to extend the building programme is just not happening at the moment. Hopefully soon....
There are a few small things that have happened which I believe show the Pozzo's commitment: Flying the team back from an evening away game Flying Vydra back from an internation on a private jet Sending our sub goalie to Italy for a bespoke face mask, which fortunately he did not have to use there are probably more that I have not noticed.
I personally think the SW corner is an inconvenience they could have done without, and if they had the choice, it's probably not a project they would have started in the first place. Seeming it was half-built, they felt the need to finish it off, but only if it was financially viable to do. At the end of the day, they're not here for the love of Watford Football Club, they are here to create a financially stable football club, with the view to make money. They just realise they have to do certain things to be able to do that. The biggest way of doing this will be though promotion and establishing ourselves as a Premiership team. They also need a sound infrastructure in place as well... not only the stands where the fans sit, but all facilities. It may take a few years to do, but I firmly believe they will see it through
If they want to create a financially stable football club then we should be 100% behind that and be front runners in what all clubs will/should have to become in the long term.
Sorry mate, but it will take at least 18 months. http://www.not606.com/showthread.php/212793-If-we-don-t-go-up?p=4808986&viewfull=1#post4808986 The abridged version below: The East Stand is a mess and although there were plans in place I would suggest that the actual 'buildability' is far worse than most laymen realise. Frankly it is likely to be an inordinately expensive project and it may well be, as others have mooted, that completing the SW corner is viable and that this is followed up by a new stadium - possibly elsewhere. Whether or not that is 'popular' is one thing but here are some things to consider: 1. The stadium is built over a disused gravel pit so ground conditions are going to be pretty awful. Any redevelopment of the East Stand is going to require a serious amount of groundwork including grubbing out the entire side and ensuring that both the North East and South East corners are stabilised. The piling is likely to be very deep. It is not a simple case of bore some holes and chuck in a few tons of concrete. It requires big machinery in a very confined space. 2. The Lower Rous is probably the worst of all the post-Taylor Report stands. There are no saving graces. Poor vision of the playing area and the space above (even worse for rugby!). The Vic End is so tight that, rightly, the Stadium Safety Officer has banned the sale of alcohol there for both home and away fans. Add to this the significant slope of the pitch, especially from the halfway line to the Vic End, and you have a myriad of problems as soon as you either try to build new stands or level the pitch. It is just not practicable unless you rebuild the whole ground and relay the pitch to suit. The Rookery and Vic are built at different levels, they have a different 'rake' (that is the angle at which the eye-line from the seat to the playing surface is measured) and are optimal to the existing pitch. Alter the level of the pitch and all you will see is the back of some ones head and not all of the pitch. __________________________________________________________ Sorry for repeating myself but I am construction professional and my dissertation (2008, they were putting in the groundworks in the SW corner at the time) was a study of the stadium including a warts and all tour and measurement surveys. I do not know all the ins and outs of what is being planned but I am very familiar with the stadium as existing. Unlike the Rous Stand, they cannot build on the existing foundations so that alone will more than double the time any regular build would take. That means stabilising the two end stands before building the new one. Take it from me, if it were as simple as many seem to think then it wold have been done already. In terms of 'contingency' (i.e. keeping time and finance back to solve problems as they arrive) it is a disaster waiting to happen. It will require some top engineering and construction skills and a fair bit of luck with the actual ground conditions, keeping the neighbours happy (maintaining access for them, airspace usage by cranes etc.), the weather, materials etc. for the project to arrive on time and anywhere near on budget.
The stadium should be moved as was attempted a few decades ago but I think the short sighted council scuppered that.
I've always thought we should investigate how viable the Radlett Road playing fields are to maybe develop a new stadium and surrounding area. We don't need anything too huge, enough room for other facilities such as a car park, is pretty close to the M1 and M25, and Watford Junction! Maybe it has been considered, and dismissed for some reason though....
Bonham's found a new home..... http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/sport/watfordfc/watfordfcnews/10479603.Bonham_to_join_Brentford/
Fez. I am not a civil engineer and know little of what goes on under the East Stand. My point is starting from the ground and working upwards. If there is work to be done underground this must be made first. Surely if the ground is solid a stand could be built quickly if all the components are prepared and can be brought to the stadium for assembling. I am sure the Amex Arena and other stadia took a shorter time to build than the preparation to make the ground safe. After everything how long did the first phase of the Rous Stand need to be constructed.
AK, I'm an Architectural Technologist and spent the past 12 years working for a structural/civil engineering consultancy. I was, as I say lucky enough to get a warts and all tour of the stadium, down in the depths, under the Lower Rous, around the building site that is the SW corner when it was still a mass of re-bars and mesh and they were still capping the piles. I had access to all the drawings of the stadium, planning documents, borehole logs (all at the Vic End) and was allowed to survey the pitch in relation to the stand. You are comparing apples with pears. The Rous was built off the existing terracing, access is easier, the ground - though falling away- is a much more gentle slope. My point is you cannot start at ground level. The whole East Stand needs to come out including the foundations such is the state of them. Then you have more stringent Building Regulations to build to (doubtless not as strict as yours what with all that seismic activity in Island) but it is on London Clay over a disused gravel pit. Add the proximity of the houses behind and the necessity to access open to the residents - they have their garages there and will be ultra defensive and awkward about every last lorry, crane swing, dump truck, piling rig, scaffold and everything else - and you have a recipe for disaster. The Vic End and the new construction to the South will need to be stabilised to allow works to commence. The Amex etc. are easy to build because there is space to build and they had the backing of the council. Commencing December 2008, completed May 2011 - 2 1/2 years. We have, at best, an ambivalent if not hostile local authority. I reckon it would be better to move - if only there was the political will and somewhere to move to. We have neither.
Thanks Hornet-fez but it makes for grim reading. It certainly gives food for thought for simply moving to a new ground but as they are investing in the SW corner I can't see that happening
I have no inside knowledge and only make this comment on the SW corner from what I have read. If we get promoted we are required to have some sort of media centre with about £500k of cabling. I somehow got the impression that the SW corner was to be adapted for that if we had won the play-offs. Carrying on that work suggests we still intend to get promoted. As I say this may be completely wrong and I am happy to be corrected.
Quite a lot on the East stand and SW corner here. http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/sport/10486702.East_Stand_development_partner_sought/ Looking at the attendance figures quoted it does come closer to being built this time.
I looked at the BBC website and the Watford story is Harry Redknapp and QPR playing against Sheffield Wednesday. Where is our interest?
Its the fixtures AK. But they insist on focusing on the Qpr fixture as the headline rather than going with a generic headline.
