''Could Southampton really become a top-six team within the next few seasons''

Worth noting that they managed on them 'small' crowds by hiking the prices astronomically!

 

I'm not sure it's worthwhile increasing capacity slowly. It's not Lego. There has to be an extensive rebuild...probably do all 3 sides at the same time. I believe there is one side that can't be extended. The super duper plans produced in the DVD suggest massive alterations...be hard to do that in the closed season. Any building/design experts on here?

 

I was going to point out the same thing, Fran. I'm not a design expert [sadly] but it's undoubtedly far cheaper and indirectly more impressive in ambition and message if a club extends a capacity dramatically, rather than making incremental changes.

 

I believe it is The Itchen that can't be extended but open the correction.
The only issue with the three sided development is really "risk" .....if we started the Kingsland the day after the season closes and for what ever it isn't ready in time, then we have a limited disruption whereas if the same happens during the three sided development, I would suggest it would be financially disastrous

 

there is no way NC would spend millions and then make no extra revenue by making the seats cheaper, unless the new seating has really bad views.

 

There were times in League One when we had the fifth or sixth highest attendance for a football match in the country. That's pretty impressive considering we were two tiers outside of the top flight in the league!!! We have the catchment area, we play entertaining football and we're a team on the up. Investing in infrastructure can only be a good thing, as even if we were to go down sometime in the future (hopefully not for a long, long time, if ever), the investment remains and leaves us in a solid position.

 

Don't forget that Spurs are building a new 56k ground when they've finished the supermarket next to it And Chelsea has been worked on substantially since the days of the original Chelsea village idea. Did Ken Bates worry when Chelsea couldn't fill the old capacity? No work started back then on a 30k stadium and they have added 11,000 spaces.

This is Chelsea's average attendances since the Premier League. This should be our model here and we should stop warbling on about catchment areas:
1992–93: 18,754
1993–94: 19,211
1994–95: 21,062
1995–96: 25,598
1996–97: 27,617
1997–98: 33,387
1998–99: 34,571
1999–00: 34,532
2000–01: 34,700
2001–02: 38,834
2002–03: 39,784
2003–04: 41,234
2004–05: 41,870
2005–06: 41,902
2006–07: 41,909
2007–08: 41,397
2008–09: 41,590
2009–10: 41,425
2010–11: 41,435

Cortese doesn't talk about us being a family club, he talks about a global brand. As you can see, people follow success. We will welcome all the plastics with open arms and they will fill the spaces and will also add more and more in the pot as success comes.