Close. But a new tier built at the rear of the existing stands would include all the pinning and structural supports not the existing stands. Even if it was possible to drop the pitch how would you build seating and stands. Not cost effective. Your right its built in the wrong place its roughly where the car parks and morrisons are. But commerce over sport won again. Unfortunately at the time the stdium was constructed we had to have council support. If they weren't involved everything could have been different, traffic, parking, layout and oh. No stadco. But still can't wait for the season to start
Oh I see what you mean, actually build on the back of the existing stadium, is there enough room for that then ?
Funny enough - as soon as I heard we were building a 20k stadium - the first question I asked was - can it be expanded / are they building it with exapansion in mind. As you say - we were in league 1 at the time (I seem to remember we were in league 2 - but anyway).... I got absolutely ridiculed for asking the question - we cant fill half of it!, etc. My comeback was....well surely the longterm ambition is to get to the premiership - for which I was laughed at and mocked. Get in the real world was the response! Now who has the last laugh
We were in league 2 when it was being built, but moved in there when we got promoted up to league 1, and even if it took 20 years to realise the dream of moving up to the prem, the ability to expand should have been added to the stadium, probably by a different design, but to spend £30m on a stadia that is virtually not able to be upgraded unless a huge amount of investment is put in is negligent!
The problem with building for the future is that designs change. When Wolves rebuilt Molineux, we left an option to add about another 8k seats pretty cheaply if they were needed in the future. We have just knocked down our South Bank which will be rebuild over this season, which is costing less than adding to the old and will bring additional benefits than just expanding capacity, The Steve Bull stand will be going next year, again being totally rebuilt. Looking back in hindsight, we would have not worried about designing the old stadium with expansion in mind since its not being used anyway and i bet cost a few quid to provision for this in the first place. If you can stay up for a year or two then the money you will gain by being in the premiership will soon pay for those expansions, as long as you don't blow it all on players wages.
You said it, hedgeworth. Rather than pay the obscene wages now being demanded, I would sooner we dropped down to the NPC and used our money to develop our Academy and secure our long term future that way. Our funds should be invested in the infrastructure of the club - not blown away by inflating the already bulging wallets of a bunch of disgracefully overpaid mercenaries. There's going to be a well documented recession in football shortly and I want to see our funds safely invested in our future.
