Thetownend.com

£20million stadium plan ground to a halt
           


  SWINDON’s plans to redevelop the County Ground are unlikely to be affected by the club’s relegation to League Two but the project is on hold for the time
  being, the Advertiser can exclusively reveal.

           

http://www.thisisswindontownfc.co.uk/news/headlines/9003279.__20million_stadium_plan_ground_to_a_halt/?ref=rss
           

Don't like the bit where Watkins says ...

"The only thing you would take into consideration is do you build a 19,000 seater stadium or a 9,000 seater stadium.

If you are in the Championship you need 19,000 if you are in League One you probably need between eight and 12,000 and if you are in League Two, then who knows."

I'd rather keep the CG as it is than have some poxy little 9,000 seat stadium.

The whole club is stalling :(

What's the point in having a 19000 capacity stadium when our average attendance (Even last season when we were flying) is well below that?

Even in the Championship we would struggle to get that most matchdays. The fact is the majority of Swindoners couldn't give a fuck about the club and would rather wear their replica Man Utd/Chelsea/Arsenal/Liverpool (Delete as appropriate) shirts in the pub on a Saturday afternoon.

Because we'll likely get one chance to redevelop the ground this generation. And if we don't build for that, we're effectively limiting our ambition to League One (and below) with maybe the occasional tilt at the lower reaches of the Championship. At the very least we should build for what we have and lay the groundwork now to be able to easily expand in the future. But it's easier and cheaper to do it one hit

Because stadium building is a 50+ year capital project.  We would not building a stadium just for the 2010s, but for the period up to 2060 or 2070.

For that reason, I'm very glad that the project is on hold.  When you're at a very low ebb, as we clearly are now, it is not the time to be building a new ground.  If we went ahead now with the budget, League 2-style 13,000 seater option, it would cement in a small-time, low aspiration mentality at the club.  This needs to be kept on the back burner until we're on the up again.

I understand what you're saying Paul, maybe I'm just a bit pissed off regarding football at the moment!

It's bad enough sitting in a half empty 16000 capacity ground though, imagine what it would be like in a larger stadium. Is it Darlington that have the amazing ground with fuck all fans?

Yes it is. Although that's 25k with a 2k gate, which kinds of emphasises the gap!

I do see what you mean, I think Ardiles is right - it's probably as well to back-burner it now, for precisely the reasons he states (which include what you said)

I said this would happen on Saturday.

Still.....at least we can stand in the Town End a little longer...

We need to have a good season in L2 to get some enthusiasm back!

I think whatever ground we get we need to be selling it out at least 6 times a season.

That way the club will gain a bit of exclusivity, and it will force the hand of stayaway fans to attend more often. It will improve the atmosphere immensely at games, and the matchday experience for home and away fans.

With that in mind we should be aiming at a stadium with a 12,000 capacity, with excellent corporate facilities and room to expand further if we start selling out 12 times a season regularly.

Building a ground of 25,000 or even 19,000 is daft when you look at our support. You can give it all the 'were at a low ebb' and all this, but we can barely support the 8,000 average we achieved this season.

Agree with pretty much all of that.

To be honest I think its incredible (and a testament to the fans) that we've averaged 8.5k this season given the state of things on the pitch.

I think that's more a testament to the number of unused season tickets.

i'd like to know what the clubs targets now are.
the 3 year-5 year 1 year bollocks is old news.we need a realistic target set.
all the early optimism when the board took over has frankly drained away to nothing imo.
same old tired ground, and the worst side i've ever seen in my time as a supporter.
a successful campaign next year will have us all happy again,i'm just not convinced we are going to get that.

When the club is doing better the fans will come back.

This season (after the brilliant season last season we've averaged 8,500). Now say in the next 2-3 years we do really well and get promoted to the Championship, even as a lower midtable club we could be getting in and around 12-14k average in my opinion.

We haven't been in the 2nd tear in so long that the fans would come back (and even a few plastics and people who live in Swindon but come from other parts of England would turn up just to see Championship football).

In the Championship near enough every week you would have the away fans selling out thir allocation. We would be playing bigger clubs and the occasional massive club (i.e Newcastle, West Ham who have been relegated in years gone by)

A redevoloped stadium would also attract new fans. Look at Reading, Hull etc.

I agree though, it has to be put on a back burner. We don't want to limit ourselves to having a new ground like Chesterfield etc.

Not by itself it won't. Look at Darlington, Pox etc

I agree with most of this posted here but Mrverve has hit the nail on the head.

Your right, It has to be redevolped when we are relatively on the up, not now.

We're a decent sized club in my opinion who could hold our own in The Championship.

I want a stadium with some sort of unique character about it too. Far too many 'supermarket' style grounds as I call them have been built over the years. You know the sort I mean, 4 small, crap looking little stands and wide open space between each one.

Something like the Galpharm on a smaller scale would do. We shouldn't build a stadium with a smaller capacity than we already have either. I suggest 16,000 with the option to expand.

We shouldn't even consider a ground though until we're out of league 2. Money needs to be invested in the squad.

Oxford's is unique.  Maybe the trick is to make do with 3 stands?  Or we could go one better and build just 2.   :)

As usual it pays to actually read the article to get the full picture. In it,Watkins actually says :


Redevelopment is not and never has been primarily about capacity. It has always been about making the club more self sufficient by generating more income on match days and especially on non match days.

He does then go on to some general musings about how much capacity is required in each league but just because he might say 9,000 would be enough in league two it is a big leap of logic to conclude that the stadium capacity will be chosen on the assumption that we will be playing at that level. Despite all the present doom and gloom, next season will be only the second in the last 25 that we have played in that league.

The reason for the plans being delayed is down to negotiations with potential development partners, the article makes this quite plain. This is most likely down to the current economic situation as much as anything.

The current lease now has less than 2 years to run so something will have to be done within that time frame even if it is just an extension to the existing arrangement.

Good post...think the Board came in just about the time of the Banker's induced economic crash. It's very difficult atm to see anyone wishing to invest in a CG project.

I rekon give it 3 years and the money will be swishing about again at the upper levels.

Love to see a ground suitable for our support, close to the pitch, with stands that are not too steep, where they have really thought about the details (mainly the bars for the fans!).

Even I think the time has come that the club needs the CG to be overhauled and Ive always loved the CG. Maybe thats partly because Ive never trusted any other board weve had in the past to get it right. It was dreadful this season that all but a couple of games had fans on only 3 sides of the ground. The dramatic reduction of season ticket prices from the new regime were really the last chance to make the CG work in its current design.

we should do a darlington and go 30,000 all seater with an average crowd of 3,000 :D

I agree we should put things on the back burner, but only until we know the sponsorhip funds then start rebuilding the stands while we are in the bottom division, clearly ensuring there are sufficient funds for the team.  Therefore, most of the building workm will be complete when we are doing well next year then in Division 2 & the Championship.

This together with the money making schemes, e.g. hotel, will increase income then start to improve the stadium facilities for us (god known this is long coming).

I agree. I think now is actually the perfect time to really get the ball rolling. Look a team like Swansea. Won promotion from L2 at The Vetch before moving into the Liberty for L1. Crowds then increased and through that they had money for transfers to spend on players which resulted in a stronger squad and eventual promotion. They've now maintained that in The Championship and are now even knocking on the door for top flight football.

Another good example could be Brighton. They're now going up and moving into a new stadium. They've sold 16,000 STs and they will have a solid base to build from.

Of course circumstances at each of those clubs are or were different to us but if we were to challenge next season and hopefully get ourselves back up and the ball has began to roll on redevelopment then it will go with the feel good factor, help atrract players. A club on the up. That's what Brighton are at the moment.

Then again having said all of that it does make financial sense to leave things be at this level. You do have to ask the question though. If the board are really serious about Championship football then the sooner things happen with the CG the better. With the way things are currently if we were to achieve 2 straight promotions we'd really struggle to survive in The Championship and good work would go to waste if we were relegated straight away.

Everyone is focussing on the capacity of a redeveloped ground, is that really the point? I thought it was to increase revenue away from plain old ticket sales - matchday hospitality, hotels, residential, offices, restaurants, bars, clubs and so on.

Not sure going by our current and past attendances is of much relevance either. A lot of clubs have seen big increases with new stadiums (not sure about redevelopments though) and we'd get a lot more in The Championship nowadays than we did before as it's a bigger and more popular league. We'd have hit 10k this season if we'd been promoted. We'd easily average 15k in The Championship.

But going back to my original point, I don't see the need for anything to be done unless it's increasing revenue in other areas and is going to pay for itself in the long run.

Well, yes. But as we will get one hit at this for about a generation, capacity is clearly also an issue. If we redevelop and don't take the opportunity to either increase capacity or at the least build in the option to easily extend capacity at some future date, we won't get another chance for 25 years+. Which will serve as a very visible statement of our ambition as a club to remain at League One/periodic visits to the lower echelons of the Championship at best, rather than become an established Championship club

According to this, Pox were interested in buying the east stand from Darlington's old ground Feethams.

http://www.fcbusiness.co.uk/news/article/newsitem=1108/title=farnborough+purchase+quaker%26%23039%3Bs+old+stand

You could say hit a nerve.