Commonsense mate. Don't take it personally, this place is merciless. You are burning up lives quick though.....
Yer, urmm let's get back to answering the poll peoples!. Might even send it to Tony if he does propose sharing a stadium. Now where did I leave his address again? Loool
I used to love Loftus Road, not any more. For the last fifteen years, it was a lovely little ground. Get a ticket and a seat wherever you wanted. Not any more. Unless your a season ticket holder. Unfortunatley, thats not an option, for various reasons thats viable for me. If i'm fortunate to grab a last minute seat, the view is terrible and being 6'2 , very uncomfortable. When I get to an away game, the majority of grounds are far superior than LR. We've been left behind in terms of stadium facilities & modernisation. ( I appreciate the building constraints. ) The only thing i'd miss is the atmosphere, generated by so few. So in summarry, If it was down to me, I would build a cauldron of a stadium that maintained this, and also gave it a unique look ( A replica of Romes Coliseum maybe. ) Not a bought off the shelf effort like Coventry or Reading. The bottom line is, would I share it? NO!
I would only consider sharing if there was absolutely no other option. We HAVE to have a new stadium if we are to become an established PL team, Loftus Road for all it's quirky uniqueness is not fit to hold more than 16,000 without there being serious viewing issues and it's bloody uncomfortable, especially if, like me, you suffer from back problems. It should be an experience when we play the Mancs to see them try and do the Poznan in our tightly-spaced seating...
The bonus of building a new stadium, and one which I hope will just be ours, it can be built to suit our needs now, i.e. the amount of seat, Shape of the stadium, with a roof? and also whether it is to be multipurpose. By making it with a Retractable roof and designing it to be multi-purpose, the club could generate a lot of money by letting the stadium out for events and concerts. With Phil Beard being our CEO, I'm sure he could make it the number 1 events venue in West London, or at least give an option to Wembley Arena. This would help pay for the Stadium and generate future income to the club to help make it self sufficient. But also any cost of a new stadium I'm sure would be reduced due to fact that we would probably use steel to build the stadium from Mittal. But sharing a new ground will always cause problems and we should own our ground outright, not share it as there will always be disagreements. It would also likely have to look totally neutral to both teams, therefore it wouldn't feel like Rangers stadium.
THIS is how it should be done... http://www.seagulls.co.uk/page/StadiumGalleryIndex The away end is changed for each visiting team to make their supporters feel at home, that could be incorporated into a shared stadium if that was our only option. Compare those pictures with the Loft...
we can call it the air asia stadium have names for each stand departure lounge for away support arrivals for neutrals long stay car park for home support frequent flyers for directors box
I like Huddersfield's McAlpine Stadium which is a rip off of the Hong Kong Stadium which is a quality design. My opposition to moving to identikit stadia is that it destroys the soul of the clubs fanbase, you only have to compare the Emirates now to the old Clock End at Highbury. This season the big Prem teams will visit Loftus Road and will feel intimidated by the closed in feeling, the crowd breathing down their necks and the residential streets towering around it. Perfect to turn over Chelsea. Be careful what you wish for, not all change is good. My mate has close ties to Sheffield Wednesday and sometimes invites me to mid-week matches - Me - 'Can you get me a spare ticket?' Him - 'I've got 10,0000................' If you build it, they might not come
Absolutely spot on Lone. These would have been my thoughts also. I would add one rider which is that if it came to choice of having our own stadium in the arse end of nowhere or having a shared ground that kept us in our current area I would plump for the latter. If the club is going to grow it needs new fans and to attract more of the tourist market. Accessibility is key to that and would not be encouraged by a suburban retail park location.
I have thought about this for ages and although I would prefer not to it makes perfect sense to ground share with either the scum or Foolham. The "West London Stadium" - I can see it now! Costs will be shared if we do it this way and shouldnt end up affecting investment in the team as much so we would be less likely to do a Southampton or even an Arsenal to a different extent. The only main problem would be Chelski would want around a 60,000 all seater which they would maybe fill but we wouldnt so the atmosphere wouldnt be as good. So I suggest a 40-45000 all seater ground share with Foolham down the road. Either way we need to move out of Loftus road as we cant develop on this site and this would be the cheapest way to do it.
