Thetownend.com

It's been a few years since they had a proper concert at the county ground in the summer. There was the Elton John and then the Bryan Adams concerts in 2005 and 06 and then there was supposed to be Bon Jovi but we missed out due to The County Ground being too small.

I never went to either of these, not my thing, but I remember seeing photos at the time. The Elton John concert which was a bigger draw used The Town End and the view from it looked utter shite. You can barely work out whats going on in a football game at the Stratton Bank End let alone enjoy a concert taking place on a stage at that end. For the Brian Adams concert the Town End wasn't used.

Knocking The Town End down and building a stand similar to Walsall's could see a big summer concert every year for The County Ground and generate some decent cash for the club.

Think the Bryan Adams concert actually lost money, not much but still a loss.

Think we'd need an entire redevelopment before we started thinking about concerts again. Maybe a goer long term though.

Just did a quick google search, showed it made £19,000 a lot of effort for 19 grand that. But that was under Diamond Mike, surely a better managed concert would bring in the money better.

And you actually trust those accounts?

Even better point.

The town end would be a great end to develop with a second tier. The view would improve, more people would go in it and be encourage to sing to their hearts content. That would create a better atmosphere, more people would go and more could be made from refreshments, food etc. I'm actually quietly confident the new owners will go down this route if they are serious.

Yo can stick your concerts up your arse - unless it funds the returfing of the pitch afterwards...

That was the plan NW announced two years ago.

They should do it right after the season ends like last season. Then it gives plenty of time for the pitch to be worked on.

A two tier Town End for one concert a summer??

And we were led to believe it was gonna happen but a bobble on the pitch and a relegation put a stop to it. But this was in the minds of the consortium before their attentions had to be switch to the field. Now that I would say we are doing very well on the pitch any new investment should be used to develop the town end as was previously planned. I am hoping the new investors wish to put money into the club. I also think paolo has been pivotal and monumental in raising the profile of the club and attracting, indirectly, the interest currently shown.

No so much for a concert but to generate a better atmosphere. The signing bosses are there and if the facilities I.e refreshments, possibly boxes and view could be proved I believe a lot more would go in the town end and this would in turn generate extra money and better atmosphere with the extra noise. A better atmosphere could help on the pitch and attract more bums on seats. Less restricted views would be welcomed and extra capacity would also help in the championship if we do get there.

The problem with rebuilding the ground to provide other sources of income for the club is that it will also need to repay the capital used to perform the rebuilding. Turning the ground in to a half decent stadium (25k-30k capacity, modern facilities, boxes etc) would easily cost £20m and the repayments on that would be something like £1.5m a year for 20 years.

So you've got to find a way of generating £30k a week (all year round) of extra profit from the rebuilt ground, before there is any financial benefit to the club (other than increased match day revenue).

I just can't see how to could generate that kind of revenue within the footprint of the current stadium, even if you include the car park and land behind the DRS. The same would apply with rebuilding just the Town End, difficult to see any real return that makes the plan financially viable.

surely we should think about using the COUNTY GROUND, and not the COUNTRY GROUND?

If our own fans can't even get our ground name right....... :sherlock:

Has it not been suggested before that we could build a completly new ground on the cricket club footprint with the cricket club moving elsewhere and the current CG site being used for additional revenue streams?

Wasn't that Mr Whippy's "Plan in my head" ?

I don't think Mr Whippy had anything in his head, let alone a plan.

We should build either a 2 tier or large single tier with a hotel that generates ongoing revenue there

I'm no expert on this, but I'd imagine Swindon's hotel capacity is already more than enough, for its market.

Again, where is this ongoing revenue coming from? You've got to repay the cost of the development before there is any spare cash to fund one of Paolo's spending sprees. Plus you can't fit a very big hotel in the space and you'll be losing most if not all of the car park - a hotel without parking isn't the most attractive for visitors.


It might have changed in the last few years but there used to be a shortage of business quality hotels.

You can develop for about £1000 per seat - sometimes lower than this for a basic ground design, higher for the top end developments.

Someone has linked to a document before, the developers we were lining up to manage the project, around the costs of development and how to fund them.  They did it based on the model they used for Preston, which was partially or totally self funded.  That doesn't mean it's easy, you still need to get the capital upfront, which is where the issue has been for us over the past couple of years I'd imagine.

For £20m you can develop an entirely new stadium if you do it carefully.

People get spooked by the big developments like Wembley, where they go well over the standard costing model.  From memory, Norwich redevloped an entire side of their ground for around £8m which holds around 9k I think.  It's available online.

 Found this long forgotten gem on ground redevelopment....

 http://thetownend.com/index.php?topic=3235.0

 Tomlinson's failure to facilitate any action, didn't stop him becoming MP mind....which was probably the reason he was on here.

Here we go:

http://democracy.york.gov.uk/documents/s19763/Annex%205%20Community%20Stadium.pdf

We'd only need half of the development Preston undertook in reality.

Probably what they concluded in Reading, Hull & Swansea before someone looked beyond the realms of Elm Park, the Vetch etc.

They were also behind the redevelopment of Boundary Park, anyone watching Oldham v Liverpool today would have seen how well that turned out.

Sorry to keep harping on, but I don't understand why Black instead of pissing his money away on Rooney & Cox ddn't work out a deal with the council about the ground and invest, because that way he had more chance of getting most or all of his money back, do you think that any investors are going to pay £50k extra because Cox is on the books??  It seems that successful businessmen forget all business principles when they buy a club   

Didn't see it, but thought that hadn't got off the ground anyway?

The point was more that it doesn't have to cost 20m, and even if it did, you can find ways of generating the cash from the site to offset some of the capital outlay.  On top of that, you increase facilities for match days as well - our corporate hosptiality offerings are very limited.  Using Reading as an example on that front, I'm sure from speaking to them they mentioned that the conferncing side of the business turns a healthy profit.

Interestingly, the latest Oldham proposals were going to be funded by £5.7m from the Council.

Lets not forget that the Shrivenham Road development was done for just short of £2m I think.  Granted building costs would have gone up over the years, but it showed how it could be done within budgets.  I think Notts County was similar, sure they developed 3 sides of their ground in a very short space of time as well, using a similar design to our stand (ours was based on theirs).

As it is, we get a fairly good deal on the rent - often perceived to be bad - which is linked to turnover.  So if we don't generate the cash, we pay the council less.  It's generally been around the £100k a year mark.

They started it, demolished one of the stands and then pulled the plug on it.

If it is so easy to self fund a new stadium, why after a few years of working on it have Black and co got nowhere and are now walking away?

I remember the architects being quoted in the Adver around the time it was being built saying they were no longer used to building stands just for football with no other facilities in them.

The South Stand was terribly short sighted, but when you got no money...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/churchward82c/3871980900/

That bloke is sat in Mex's seat  :D

You jest reminded me : How is Mex doing ?

Nobody said it was easy, just that it is possible to find ways of funding projects like this.  The issue though is not the future revenue, it's the upfront capital outlay - that's where the finance market has contracted, and probably where we are struggling.  It's not as easy to trot up to a bank and get it sorted anymore, and private investors are just as unlikely to free-up a big wedge of cash.

Oldham's was odd in that the Council appeared to be underwriting it, however it looks like that is a more recent effort and revised planning permission was being sought.

If the new Town End gets it's go ahead, I would really like to see a roof on Stratton Bank before the old Town End is demolished. A roof on The Bank along with some better facilities for it built just behind really would make an epic home end and would keep some atmosphere in the ground while The Town End is being redeveloped.

Adver headline from 1990...

"UP WE GO WITH A NEW £2M STAND"

The ended up sticking seats in the Town End.