New stadium

[Drumstick]

Surely we can put up a green temporary stand

OH NO YOU DON'T AND NO TREES NEITHER

 

[Brovion]

I think this is a perfectly valid thread and an issue I have often thought of myself.

Why does everyone support a team? For me is so I can dream that one day we will compete in Europe or win the Premiership.

No matter how far fetched that dream is it is a dream none the less. Look at Wigan, look at Ipswich. Look at Nottingham Forest!

No one is suggesting that Falmer is too small. At least not at the moment. no one is suggesting that ground expension should be a high priority. All we want to know is;

Is it possible? Is it an option?

Or have we consigned ourselves to be also rans forever? Reading have a ground of 25,000. More than enough for that tin pot outfit and yet the stadium was built with expansion in mind. I want to that should we ever get to the Prem (and we will one day even if it is only briefly) and manage to sustain a good few years there. Well if Southampton/Pompey can do it we certainly can!

Then we will need a bigger ground to cope with the demand. I would suggest an absolute maximum of about 35,000 would be heaps. We're never going to need 40,000+ for example.

Is it possible?

Or should we all just rub our hands together and think, well 100 years of second flight football it is then.

I take your point, but I don't think it's as simple as saying, if I can paraphrase you slightly, "big stadium = successful team, small stadium = perpetual also-rans". As you rightly say, given our current demographics, we are never going to need a 40,000 plus stadium. We are never going to be the biggest team in Europe, no one is ever going to say: "The three biggest teams in Europe are Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Brighton". However as someone else has said there's always going to be a load of bandwaggon-jumpers, even at the top of the Championship, but even if we could expand Falmer to whatever capacity we wanted I think it would be folly to suddenly add 10,000 extra seats on the back of one or two good seasons. When the 'glory era' was over we'd go back to the hardcore 8-9000 rattling around an oversised stadium like peas in a drum.

Also why would we want to make Falmer 35,000 given our historical support? To generate more money to buy better players? I could argue that that is a dangerous route to take; we'd end up trying to buy success and a rasher chairman could take us down the Leeds or Bradford path. I want to see us in the Prem but I don't think relying on fickle gate receipts from a super-sized Falmer is a sound policy, I'd rather see us continuing with our youth policy and signing lesser-known players than trying to buy success with a couple of high-profile 'Carlos Kickaballs'.

So I don't think we are detined to 100 years of 2nd rate football, more like a 100 years of yo-yoing up and down the leagues (hopefully with the odd cup and European journey thrown in) as we assemble decent teams and then watch them break up as they move on to bigger clubs because we won't re-mortgage future gate receipts to try and keep them.

Anyway, lets just get the sodding thing built ......

 

[perseus]

I take your point, but I don't think it's as simple as saying, if I can paraphrase you slightly, "big stadium = successful team, small stadium = perpetual also-rans". As you rightly say, given our current demographics, we are never going to need a 40,000 plus stadium. We are never going to be the biggest team in Europe, no one is ever going to say: "The three biggest teams in Europe are Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Brighton". However as someone else has said there's always going to be a load of bandwaggon-jumpers, even at the top of the Championship, but even if we could expand Falmer to whatever capacity we wanted I think it would be folly to suddenly add 10,000 extra seats on the back of one or two good seasons. When the 'glory era' was over we'd go back to the hardcore 8-9000 rattling around an oversised stadium like peas in a drum.

Also why would we want to make Falmer 35,000 given our historical support? To generate more money to buy better players? I could argue that that is a dangerous route to take; we'd end up trying to buy success and a rasher chairman could take us down the Leeds or Bradford path. I want to see us in the Prem but I don't think relying on fickle gate receipts from a super-sized Falmer is a sound policy, I'd rather see us continuing with our youth policy and signing lesser-known players than trying to buy success with a couple of high-profile 'Carlos Kickaballs'.

So I don't think we are detined to 100 years of 2nd rate football, more like a 100 years of yo-yoing up and down the leagues (hopefully with the odd cup and European journey thrown in) as we assemble decent teams and then watch them break up as they move on to bigger clubs because we won't re-mortgage future gate receipts to try and keep them.

Anyway, lets just get the sodding thing built ......

I think you have missed the main points of having a bigger stadium (although you rightly pointed out the drawbacks).

The point of having a bigger stadium is so people can go and watch the games without a Withdean-style palaver of getting the tickets.

It is just that when Barry Lloyd came along, he played boring footabll and nobody wanted to watch it. Not if you had to peer through animal cages.

Before Barry Lloyd, the Goldstone crushes and small capacity at 35,000 became a problem that cropped up in successful seasons and went away in poor seasons.

However, even saying that, I remember only in one "pay on the gate" match against Rochdale where fans ever turned away, although this may have also happened in the late seventies as well? against Bolton?

People before my time recount a horrible crush against West Ham in one match that put people off for good for the big matches and mayhem and chaos with a 30,000+ crowd against Bournemouth that had much the same effect. Fair weather fans were deliberately staying away from matches because of the crushes.

 

[Brovion]

I think you have missed the main points of having a bigger stadium (although you rightly pointed out the drawbacks).

The point of having a bigger stadium is so people can go and watch the games without a Withdean-style palaver of getting the tickets. ...

There's still going to be a bit of a palaver though isn't there? No tickets on sale at the stadium itself on the day of the match.

I don't think I did miss the point though, I was trying to say that building a stadium that is big enough to handle the crowds we are likely to expect in the few good years will be a soulless, empty bowl for the other 95% of Falmer's lifespan. Perhaps I'm being unduly pessimistic, I certainly hope so, and like I said in my first post on a previous page I hope I'm wrong and Falmer proves to be far too small season after season as opposed to just once or twice - but somehow I doubt it.

Maybe we should re-design it with retractable stands that allow the capacity to move between 10,000 and 50,000 at the touch of a button? Just means going through the planning process again, no big deal ........

 

[Easy 10]

Tickets will never be sold on the day at the ground even if we DID have an extra 10,000 (usually) empty seats to play with. I think its one of the conditions of us having gained planning permission for the thing (maybe Lord B can confirm ?). There's no way Sussex Police will want an indefinate number of fans to roll up to Falmer on a whim, on the offchance of getting a ticket when Arsenal/Man U/Chelsea are in town. If you've not already got a ticket from the ticket office (complete with travel voucher), then they DON'T want you milling around trying to get in, and causing trouble when you don't.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

There is talk of a swipe card system and the club will surely make a huge effort to sell tickets so that you dont have to pick them up or wait for them to be posted.

 

[Curious Orange]

I don't think I did miss the point though, I was trying to say that building a stadium that is big enough to handle the crowds we are likely to expect in the few good years will be a soulless, empty bowl for the other 95% of Falmer's lifespan.

Which is a very good point. If you look at the Britannia Stadium on Saturday, 15k would have been a very big crowd for us at the Goldstone in the period I watched there, yet it was, and did look, a comparitively small crowd for a 28k seated capacity stadium like Stoke have.

 

[London Calling]

Back to the original question, modern stadia are very flexible in design and as such the Falmer stadium could quite easily be expanded and develped to a larger concept.

 

[perseus]

Back to the original question, modern stadia are very flexible in design and as such the Falmer stadium could quite easily be expanded and develped to a larger concept.

The Falmer does look a bit more flexible than most, but Bolton found they are unable (or unwilling) to increase their 28,000 capacity.


As the current Planning Permission allows for 22,000 only, the suggestion was to create the stadium with a bit extra space so that some extra seats could be installed rather more easily rather than thinking of the problem when/if it occurs.

I expect any enlargement will not be easy if not planned beforehand. It would be either very difficult or impossible.

Still, it will not matter unless you can buy tickets easily, because people will simply not go. Not unless you can buy them on the day or locally. This up to the Council.

10% of people do not use credit cards, others cannot find the time to call in (don't want to make two journeys), and others will not trust the post.

 

[perseus]

I would not put it past the Premiership clubs to exclude entry for clubs with a stadium that does not fulfill certain requirements, e.g. a 25,000 all seater capacity some time in the future.