Thetownend.com

I noticed that during the fans talk in with Jed , that Jed mention that they were considering putting boxes in the DR stand. If they do that i would imagine that we will lose about 1000 to 1500 seats in said stand so thereby reducing the capacity of the ground to about 13000. Tickets for any big match will be at a preimium and i dare say the atmosphere will be affected as well. Thoughts?

When comparing the revenue received from those rare games when we exceed 13k vs what 'we' (assuming its reinvested in the club) would get from season long box sales, I'd say its a no brainer.

What atmosphere would be affected? It's the DR Stand?!  :zzz:

I hope it's down the bottom and not the top of the DRS.

There is a hidden floor halfway up, would be right through the middle.

I would be very surprised if they reduced capacity in the DRS without increasing it elsewhere.  Regardless of whether a redevelopment masterplan exists, the Town End, for example, is ripe for investment/expansion.  Sooner or later something is going to have to happen there.  You can only put it off so long.

This season we've gone over 13k at home just once, against Villa in the cup (14.4k). The next highest attendance was 11,381 against Portsmouth on New Year's Day but the majority of games have been 7/8/9k. So we wouldn't lose much revenue from losing a thousand-odd seats around the DRS.  Especially if you did something with the Town End.

If you look at what franchise charges for quite modest boxes, it makes sense: http://www.Franchise.com/commercial/hospitality/

The idea of boxes in the drs is fucking ridiculous

I'm pretty sure the DRS was specifically designed with the facility for hospitality suites to be retrofitted. There's the potential for another floor about halfway up the stand from what I remember when it was built.

I think it would work, there's many a business based in Swindon and Wiltshire that would spend money on these, not to mention a few jobs it will create around the club also.
It also opens up possibilities to hire out these rooms on non match day for a number of things not football related.

How long would it take to do? Pre-season?

Construction of the entire stand took less than 3 months during the summer of 1994, so fitting a row of boxes should also be possible in a similar timescale, I'd have thought.

Canapes and Aperitifs in the County Hotel pre match.

Thats what i heard!

If i remember correctly, Fitton was also looking at this option during his tenure

Its not exactly a large space and the impact it would have on the seats already there puts me right off it. I cannot see how the top tier wouldn't be wiped out(or most of it)by it.
It is the one stand out of the four that doesn't need touching. Ideas for boxes should be for the other 3 tired and in need of replacing stands. They need sorting before even looking at the DRS stand.

It'll be because it's easy to do in the DRS given it already has the concourse shell prepared.  I'd imagine you'd lose about 5 rows or so, and it's possible it would be a section of the stand rather than the entire length.  The previous board started looking into it.
The financial rewards make it a good bet, the income of the club has gone up in recent years due to the investment in the Arkells on the corporate side.

Does it have a concourse shell prepared though? And even if it does the space is small. When in the concourse of the stand i've looked up and just can't get my head around the idea. It's never clicked with me to be honest.Same when looking at it from outside too. I just can't see it working without significant impact on the upper tier of the stand. Why do it there when its the best stand of the 4? It aint borken so fix the bits of the ground that are.

Its not just the spaces for the boxes, you are going to need space for the back of house stuff unless they are planning to carry the food round the pitch side on trays.

Box the bank?

I'm trying to remember what the DRS concourse is like. Isn't it double / full height at the rear of the stand? I seem to remember looking up and assuming there was scope to put in an extra floor at mid stand height.

Basically there is what there is on the ground floor on the floor above, but not as wide obviously.  So plenty of room for boxes and food/drink stands, or more likely bar and hospitality area.

It's not worth losing 1000 seats over. Financially it probably is but from a logical point of view, no. You're just making a small ground even smaller.

Where is all that room, I don't get it? The steps from the upper tier stagger down and take up loads of space. There is minimal space unless i'm seeing it completely wrong. That's why I cant see it working without impacting on most of the upper tier. It is quite narrow really in comparison to the Arkells stand.

looking at my avatar I too struggle to see the space.

The concourse is double height, with a floor above.  The bottom concourse makes it seem smaller because you have the access points taking up a lot of space.  You've probably got a good 15-20ft width available above though before you'd begin hitting the seat space.

a small ground that we almost never fill

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

We talking about the middle part here?

Well that makes sense doesn't it

Yep.  IN terms of functional space it's not much less than the bottom.

Should do what Donny did on a similar stand at Belle Vue. Double stack fitted out Portacabins on the bank and use the space as its barely ever used and we'd probably still be able keep half of the seats on it. Maybe the boxes could support some kind of temporary roof and solve that problem at the same time. Seems a much simpler and more beneficial option to me.

In a way it does.

If they balance out any drop in DRS capacity by building up the Townend (something we should be doing anyway) then I'd probably be in favour.

As long as it doesn't look anything like Brisbane Road.

[url width=800 height=600]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/Brisbane_Road_West_Stand_-_2.jpg/800px-Brisbane_Road_West_Stand_-_2.jpg[/url]

 :yuck:

Looking at this photo there is plenty of room. Make it happen Jed you cunt.

Since when has our ground been "small"?

Last I heard we average 8,500 attendance in a 15,5000 seater stadium.

Fuck me, are we Darlington in disguise?

Hell of a stadium! Shits all over Wemberly!

 :)

Subliminal, identified my 5000th post.

If we were in the championship it would be full most weeks. So losing 1000 seats would be foolish, unless they couple the boxes in the DRS with a new Townend..

Eloquently put, and it's a kind offer Crispy... but i'll pass  ;)

I was pointing out that our ground is only 55% full most of the time.


We don't sell out many games. If boxes will generate extra revenue, and the DR stand is the best place... why not do it?

I remember the one above the bank with Hansen, Hill and Lynam.

I don't think it would, get over the honeymoon period of the championship and I don't think it would be full, we wern't selling out last season everyweek when pissing league 2.

£25 in League 2 is hard to justify even when you're doing well. £25 in the championship is reasonable (provided they kept it at the same price). Probably half of the away sides would sell out too.

Bugger, worth a go I suppose!  :-[

55%? I worked it out at 5.48% looking at your original figures  ;)

Official capacity stated on our website is now 14,700.

http://www.swindontownfc.co.uk/club/thecountyground/

It's more like 14500 now, because of the missing seats in the bottom corner of the Stratton Bank. We got 14434 against Villa.

Didn't think about that, valid point - Very hard to justify indeed. I don't think it would stay £25 mind if they charged that last season, my season ticket actually went up from the League 1 relegation season to the league 2 season by £50..

Apparently Bournemouth season tickets are upwards of £500 next season...

Fuck that, absoloutely disgusting. I suppose they need to recoup the money they've spent this season.

That's it those blocks with the holes in visible...were laid down along the whole length. I reckon you'd have to lose 5 or 7 rows of seats.

Haha I stand corrected. What is everyone worrying about? We'll never fill all 15,5000 seats!




A quick look at the Npower Championship avg attendances suggests you're correct, but we used to struggle for high attendances when we were in the old division 1 (as it was then).

Let's all hope the CG being full too often is a burden we regularly have to cope with! ;-)

Our average attendances from our last four season spell in the Championship (or D1 as it was) were as follows: 9,265, 9,505, 8,656 and 6,977

Our crowds have almost doubled in 8 seasons, progress is being made.

Doubt it, we didnt sell out many games when we were in the Premier League

[url width=300 height=180]http://blog.kontera.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/like.png[/url]

This was in the late 1990s.


And this was in the mid 1990s.

Both too long ago for any comparison to mean much, in my view.  Go back less than 10 years, and the attendance figure would often start with a '5' and sometimes even with a '4'.  Huge progress has been made since then, and the new owners are going to have to be pretty smart to keep it going.

Agree with that Ardiles. Can't remember the 4's though. Not for a league game anyway.

Probably just selective memory on my part though.

[url width=900 height=417]http://i.imgur.com/ZJ7ir03.png[/url]

I think we've kind of plateaued. I reckon you could add a couple of thousand to the home attendances maximum if we were in the Championship and the away attendances would likely increase somewhat, although would have no impact on the capacity of the DRS.

Regardless I can't see anything happening given that it would involve the board planning something...

I used to love the old 2800-odd at home on a tuesday night under Iffy, tremendous.

That looks about right to me to as well. I'd guess they'd run across the central 6 blocks at the most, so we'd lose a maximum of 30x6x7 seats - c1250.

9 of our 23 home league fixtures in 02/03 had an attendance of below 5,000.

I think thewashbag did something about this recently but I created a spreadsheet a couple of months ago to look at the attendances, file is attached.

I reckon we would average around 10-11k in the Championship.

The lowest crowd I can remember, which lies just outside the ten year time frame was 01/02, when we had just ober 3000, for a home game v Notts County on a Tuesday night Jan. Wasn't even all that cold. Took me back to the days of Div 4 in the 80's when you could luxuriate in the TE in splendid isolation.

Main difference in the 80's you'd mostly stand, although a haemorrhoid inducing sit on terracing was not unknown, whereas in 02, you could sprawl over several seats, and have an uninterrupted view.

Never underestimate the ability of the average Town fan to vote with his/her feet when they see shit hitting the fan both on and off the pitch....no coincidence that prob just about the lowest gate of the season was a couple of weeks ago v Crewe.

We averaged 8,089 HOME fans this season, if you add to that the 2,050 away fans that Peterborough averaged it would suggest that you are not far out.

I guess we would probably get more home fans than this season (based on the teams we would have to play), however Peterborough had more than 3,300 away fans four times so that may well balance out.

I'm guessing they will put boxes there as the view is great. For the money being forked out, you'd expect a decent view.

Oh dear...they look like they'd take out my seats....row J...

I'd imagine Peterborough away is one to look forward to as an away fan at that level? Being able to stand on an old-fashioned terrace and all that.

Are Posh going to have to turn it into seating at some point? Some sort of rule about spending a maximum of 3 years in the Championship or something if I remember.

I've heard that as their three years are up & that they will have to convert before next season. Although in all likelihood if they start to convert one end they may get some leeway before they have to start at the other end.

The other option (and by far the cheapest), would be to just put seats in both ends, similar to what we have done with the Town End & the Bank.

Those prices aren't that high, when you consider you're getting a 3 course meal and the plush surroundings. Think it's more about appealing to a different demographic and maximising the revenue streams. We could generate a few extra quid if we just had better food and drink options around the ground for example.


Would be higher than that, probably 12k plus on average. Everyone goes on about our attendances the last time we were in The Championship, but they've gone through the roof across the board since then. We could probably go higher but would be constrained by our capacity - there would be plenty of sell outs.

There would be a few full houses but I reckon I am about right for the average, maybe 10.5k - 11.5k.

Well there's only one way to find out...

Did you do a spreadsheet though? I did a while back comparing our attendances with other clubs / league averages over the last 20 years or so, which is how I came up with the 12k plus average for The Championship.

Their clubPlatinum is prity much the same price as our sponsors and directors suites.

Not really, what has tended to happen, is that there's been a shake out of the smaller attended clubs in Div 2, and a replacement by bigger attended clubs. So in one of our later seasons in Div 2, 98/99. You had Bury, Crewe, Grimsby, Tranmere, Stockport, Port Vale, Oxford and us, all of whom averaged < 10,000.

Maybe but the fact remains that attendances in The Championship have been steadily increasing over the last 20 years or so over which time they've gone up by 70%, and up by around 20% since we were last there.

20 years on.....we would sell out every game if we were in the Premiership......we would sell 10,000 season tickets for a start.

Nope, mainly because after I thought about it and summed everything up, I came to the conclusion that..  I had a life and really couldn't be arsed.  :D

Isn't that what the 80% is for?  I spend my days at work playing with spread sheets, why the fuck would I want to carry on for something that doesn't really matter.  The crowds will be what they will be...

I just reckon I am right  ;D That's my spread sheet.

I think it's a good idea to be honest. It's what we have lacked as a club for some years now. We fell behind on this front a long time ago as already mentioned in this thread even clubs like Donny managed to get some boxes put up to get them extra revenue.

Yes it means reduced capacity but the chances are we won't sell out every week anyway. Imagine in the Championship under a 13,000 capacity if we got around 11,500-12,500 every game and sold out the boxes? It would be brilliant financially for the club and it's possible.

For longer term plans I would say put some boxes in the DRS then rebuild the SB and the TE to regain the capacity lost in the DRS and to improve the dated facilites currently on offer. The SB can be done cheap. Whack a lego style stand up with a roof there. It's actually fairly deep so you could easily get a 3,000 seater stand with a roof there which would then become the sole away allocation.

The TE can be extended a bit further back into the car park behind it making it a deeper stand with more capacity. Again this could be done pretty cheaply and quickly and would increase capacity.

In terms of the Arkells that's probably the biggest and toughest to tackle in terms of a possible redevelopment. But the easiest thing would be to build a stand that replicates the DRS with boxes.

I reckon all the above would give us an allocation of around 18,000 maybe 20,000 at a push which is probably more than enough in all honesty.

Jed will know someone who could glaze any new executive boxes on the cheap. I can't see anything happening too soon until the board structure is sorted in the medium/long term. It would make sense to dust off the plans that Wray and Watkins had over the last couple of years rather than spending a fortune on stadium consultants again. The Whittle group proposals were basically £1000 a seat for a basic stand, £1500 to add some matchday hospitality facilities and £2000 a seat to add offices/hotel etc that provide additional revenue.

Still we could be Bristol City and spent £10-£12M on a new ground and not be anywhere nearer getting into it and back in League One with an £18m wage bill to cut. Fortunately, Stephen Lansdown shows no signs of pulling the plug and sold enough Hargreaves Lansdown shares last week to more than cover his losses.

If the exec boxes did take a few seats out, would it drop the capacity enough to stick the away fans solely on the bank? Could then open up the rest of the arkells to home fans and bingo, you've lost little, if any, home seating. I know there's a percentage of capacity that must be allowed for away fans, but dont know exactly how much it is!

This might sound selfish, but I hope it doesn't happen in the DRS, I don't want to move seat after 10 years or so, it will feel odd and I doubt I could get a better seat that is not taken anywhere else.

It's probably a good idea, but ill be pissed off changing seat.

Same as.

And me. Unless i get a box as a replacement (but then i'd probably just sub-let it because i'm a man of the people me).