Thetownend.com

http://www.griffinpark.org/images/lionel_road_300.jpg

Looks decent ..... Hope one day we can create something similar!

That does look decent. It's certainly the right shape.

shame, Griffin Park is a lovely little ground

Hopefully they can move the pubs too!

That photos been hanging around 2 or 3 years.

Smart that, is it built on the same site or are they moving? Hopefully not too far away due to those pubs!

It will in Lionel Road South, right next door to Kew Bridge station.

[url width=300 height=269]http://www.brentfordcommunitystadium.com/assets/img/location-map.gif[/url]

About 400 yards east of Griffin Park.

I like old grounds. People should build more ramshackle stadiums that have 8 stands, arty crumbling walls, a slight whiff of piss in the corners, people smoking rollies in the terrace and a maze of streets and alleys to reach your seat.

Sounds almost as if you should be supporting Swindon.

Brentford own that land at Lionel Road, they're just waiting to get the go ahead to build it. Local residents have been protesting about it but Brentford are proposing to make it a sports centre that the community can also use. Talk is that the new stadium is only going to have an 18k all seater capacity so not much bigger than Griffin Park.

Just great, another decent old school ground to be replaced by something very unoriginal and dull.

Brentford is one of my favourite away days (on a Saturday). :(

Anyone seen the big old pub standing wrecked and lonely....near the Brentford ground seen from the flyover?
Seems to have been in that state for years.

or new, modern, and better? Their ground is shite

Think it's Manor Ground nostalgia...I'm surprised OF is old enough to remember it, but clearly age has dimmed his recall, as it wasn't just the corners that stank of piss..

Crying shame that they are getting rid of a famous "pub on each corner" ground, with some quirky stands, for a generic Doncaster/Northampton/Colchester/Scunthorpe nondescript pile of concrete

I just don't get everyone's obsession with a new ground at Swindon.

The County Ground has history, pubs nearby, and is not too far from the town centre.
Why does everyone want to move to the M4 and pretend to be Reading ?

Maybe another tier on the Town end, or a roof on the bank, but let the rest be

Everyone?

Ok then, some people

Couldn't agree more, but I don't think anyone (or anyone that I have heard recently) is wanting us to move out of town.  Redevelop, but don't relocate.  The ground is great where it is...but we could have the best of both worlds.  A modern, town centre stadium that you can walk to.

For what it's worth, I think Brentford's plans look pretty good for that reason.  They're not looking to move to the back of beyond either...just a few hundred yards up the road.

I haven't heard relocation mentioned since the Shaw Tip debacle.

New and modern yes, better depends what sort of ground you like.

Old school type is better IMO every time

I'm with sonic...it's only a few hundred yards away...

Colchester is an example of how shite it can turn out.

This

Revenue streams can fuck right off. How many businesses are going to rent office space in a recession. Biggest misnomer going that it would help the coffers. Sod it, stay where we are.

I don't know where to start. Are you suggesting STFC would be better off not redeveloping the County Ground? Only way to go if our aim is to establish ourselves in the Championship in the coming years in my opinion.

How short sighted! There's no way we can increase our revenue with the existing stadium. If we want to push on and survive the higher leagues we need to increase our facilities and capacity and the only way to do this is to develop the ground. I'm sure the powers that be will research it and not make the mistakes of other clubs such as Coventry and it will, ultimately, be of benefit to the town as well as to the club.

Good point DPorter,

but have we reckoned in the psychological damage done to die hards if we leave the County Ground, or revamp it out of recognition. I will put it on the record, and invite other Town fans to do the same, if we leave the County Ground, that's it for me, finished, no more. I don't want a business park drone existence. Either the County Ground or nothing for me. If Chairman Patey is reading, that's how the majority feel, forget ideas of suburban nothingness

a) Don't claim you speak for the majority

b) Redeveloping the ground does not have to involve leaving the CG or 'a buisness park drone existence'. When it has been mentioned in the past this board have specifically said they have looked at any new project being at the current site.

Every cloud and all that

Should we knock down the drs and stick the  shrivvy road tin shed back there. Nostalgic bollocks. The past means nothing going forwards

I don't understand what you mean by 'psychological damage' - surely a die hard fan is exactly that and would continue to support their team whatever? Change has to be embraced! Although we all like the CG as it is let's face it, it's not particularly hi-spec and it really needs updating in places. I love being in the Town End and the atmosphere there and i hope some of that would be retained if they redevelop but either way i'd still have a season ticket as it's my team and you can't just change who you support overnight. By stopping going you would only be cutting off your own nose to spite your face!

I think Dosty's posts should be taken with a lot of salt.

He's clearly a kitkat short of a snack bar.

[url width=263 height=400]http://i.imgur.com/fybSX.gif[/url]

*thumbs up*

As soon as we put seats on the Stratton Bank it killed the atmosphere. The Town End has never receovered from the times it was designated as a family stand.

I'd say plenty of Reading fans suffered psychological damage when they left Elm Park

football has changed.it aint gonna go back to how it was. People need to realize this and moveon. I don't remember Stratton bank generating atmosphere personally

Tongue was firmly in cheek arriba, jokes.

cunt. Hard to tell as some seem lost in the past.

I loved the banter between the Town End and DRS last weekend. Haven't heard the DRS that loud in recent memory - maybe all that's needed is some fiendly bullying of each other.

I actually think a redevloped Town End might help the atmosphere a bit - people don't like it due to lack of view but if that was sorted I'm sure more people would be up for going behind the goal and creating an atmosphere.

That's not a pop at anyone by the way, the Town End is rarely any good for atmosphere either.

You are seriously rankling with me, I don't like the cut of your jib. Totally artificial. Bring back Norway Red, a true legend, because at least he didn't have that facetious, cheap and easy, derogatary pull back that SonicYouth relies Upon. Try Harder CUNT.

Coca Fola and Dostoyevsky Army

Bezzie mates?

You're a fucking cunt. I don't mean this in a friendly, jovial way either. Just shut the fuck up.

:dance:

Thanks for that, most offended.

Xx

Haha. Reading are a prime example of what can be achieved with a shiny new stadium. When i first moved here they were averaging about 3,500. There's a few more now. For my sins i have mates who are season ticket holders. Do they love to reminisce about the shit tip that was Elm Park? - yes of course they do (it was their shit tip)! Would they move back if they could? - not a chance!

It wasn't directed at you Tans, i'm getting heartily sick of that guy, SonicYouth, having a go at my Bosnian mate Coca Fola, really sick of his derisive remarks. He's in Norway drinking piff paff Champagne on the back of oil rig workers (oh, it will end! who knew?, who fucking knew?) and he'll have to take his ski's off, and by God he better be ready for a skirmish on terra firma. Easy to mock, not so easy face to face with a black belt.

  :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick: brilliant. Powers of the mind and a martial arts expert. Legend

Here we go............

 :popcorn:

[url width=900 height=957]http://images.stuffofawesome.com/haters-gonna-hate-stephen-fry-edition-1306256408-2116.jpg[/url]

ooooh, get her!

SonicYouth, the TownEnder that keeps on giving, it's a fair bet that you weren't one of those roaring your guts out at Wembley, all mouth and no trousers.

Sonic Youth- the gift who keeps on giving :cry:

do you have a drinking problem?

Don't evade the question, do you have a thinking problem?

only when i can't get a think.

When you slag Coca Fola, you ridicule yourself, i've had it with you, no more slack for you. Sod the fuck off with your facile comments. I used to like you, no more :bye:

[url width=400 height=210]http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/26966978.jpg[/url]

There is a limit to what you can achieve by redeveloping the current site. Moving out of town presents a lot more opportunities, especially if it includes getting a cut of the money from selling the Country Ground for redevelopment.

New grounds don't have to be a disaster. They were talking a while back about a massive development to the east of Swindon, putting the ground in the middle of that wouldn't be so bad would it?

I get the keeping the old ground thing, but I could put up with moving if it meant a better view, comfy seats, decent food, better parking and more money to improve the team.

Just a couple of points.


Does it really?  Difficult to quantify or back that one up, I think.


It would be horrific!  You'd be 4 to 5 miles from the centre of town, miles from any decent pubs, miles from the train station.  (There is a railway line nearby, but the chances of a new station out there would be slim at best.)

Town planners in Swindon have consistently, over the course of decades, allowed just about everything to move out to the suburbs...leaving the centre to rot, basically.  I really hope that the football club does not follow the shops and the cinemas.

There is something special about a matchday in Swindon...and it's almost entirely down to where the ground is.

• The crowds getting off the train before a big match.
• The walk through the side streets on the way to the ground.
• The view you get of Old Town and Christchurch from the Arkells Stand.
• The dozens of pubs within a 15 minute walk of the ground full of pre-match banter.
• The folk who will stop you in the street shortly after a game and ask you how the Town got on.

You'd lose all of that if you moved out of town.  The experience of the matchday would change.  Sure, we would accept it and move forward.  But it would be a massive step backwards for me.  I think we can get the best of both worlds.

[Sorry if I'm sounding a bit preachy, by the way.  Pet subject of mine, as you may have noticed.]

Abso-bloody-lutely  !!

Who is this Dostoyevsky idiot !!

Just spouts utter nonsense in a weird attempted poetic way nonsensical.
Must be either pissed or high

Wasn't it the same idiot who claimed Wiggo was doping as well ?


I suppose I've given him/her/it the oxygen of a reply there haven't I

The main benefit is land being cheaper and more of it available, making a larger development possible. You are very limited with what you can do with the County Ground, especially as the local residents are likely to oppose the development plans. By the time you've finished rebuilding the stands there isn't going to be much extra space to put anything extra in, unless they move the cricket ground and/or the playing field.

There is a big difference between putting a new ground in the middle of nowhere and putting it in the middle of a brand new development and doing it properly. Though I don't have much confidence in the Council to do it the right way.

I'm not a fan of out of town development but the ship has well and truly sailed on that one in Swindon.

Bang on the money, anyone who has been to Colchester's new ground knows that an out of town stadium has the potential to be an absolute disaster.

Welcome to Coventry.  Highfield Road was great, the whole match day infrastructure was there, from pubs, to chippys, shops, all walkable form the train station and the centre of the city.  Now you get a bus out to a ground (a nice ground in fact) with not much to do around it apart from get the bus back to the city.  Shame, and we need to avoid this...redevelop the CG, and press on to the Championship. (Or if things go well, the other way around!)

QPR is an ace ground for the away day crack and in ground atmosphere.

and needs replacing for the sake of qpr going forward.

I thought that until our last visit. Especially after the game, thanks to the met police.

Plod were pricks!

The difference with the county ground site is that it is plenty big enough

Effectively selling our souls if we move out of town, we'd be no better than the plastics down the road in the M4.

Football is a culture and a stadium and fans are a reflection on the character of the club. Reading is the perfect example of everything we do not want to become. Shite fans, souless bowl stadium in the arse end of nowhere with no decent pubs, train links, etc. close by.

Some may say they'd accept it if we were successful, but not me. I'd rather stay at the county ground in the bottom two divisions. Doing it doesn't guarantee success either, just look at Coventry.

A club which has been between the top flight and championship with great crowds since moving there. I'd take that. Wanting to stay in the bottom two divisions rather than do something similar to Reading I find sad.
That said as pointed out by Si pie,the county ground site is plenty big enough to develop.

I wouldn't trade the soul of the club for a bit of success, watching football in what looks like a big plastic concert arena every week with no pubs for miles and having to catch a bus to go to the game.

It would effectively end my home attendance at Swindon apart from the really big games. Not my idea of fun at all. I wouldn't trade Swindon for Reading any day of the week.

Football grounds dont have souls. Its just concrete and steel surrounding a grass pitch. It's not like the county ground is a place of magic. It's seen its share of misery along with some success. I fail to see this fairytale rubbish some fans seem to dream about.
Why Reading gets the knocks it does I don't know also? They got it right and their ground imo is excellent.

I see no reason why the county ground cannot be developed in a sensible manner anyway. SBC have to do something right for the town after making a mess of it for so long. The tired ground and surrounding areas would be enhanced by updating.

The County Ground does have soul.......the soul of my father buried under the Town End goal :)

Grounds like Reading's look good to the Sky Sports generation of fan as they are aesthetically pleasing to eye when sat at home.

The whole matchday experience at an out of town stadium is quite often lacking

Well said.

I think that is now the general aim (and has been for a while) but cannot see anything happening in the near future as there is no money to plough into the scheme. As SBC are cutting back on everything and they (i.e us local taxpayers) are the landlords, it is not going to be a high priority until the economy really picks up and I do not see the board wanting to invest in something that they will not own.

 :no: