Last Night's Rugger - How Did The Club Benefit?

[Pavilionaire]

A top quality 3G pitch is a better playing surface than the "grass" effort at Championship club Blackpool.

If 3G were permitted in the Football League then it could have significant benefits for the Albion:

1. We'd be able to offer top level facilities to any professional rugby union club that wished to have Brighton as their home - rental income for the club.
2. More use made of the catering and hospitality facilities - this might make it easier when it came to stock and labour if there was at least one Saturday event every weekend. Again, more income for the club.
3. The pitch could be hired out for tournaments for local clubs - real integration between club and community.

It doesn't make any sense to have a top class facility being used just 30 times a year, especially when we are losing £10 million per season. In any other business they would be looking / pushing for increased use of the facility.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

A top quality 3G pitch is a better playing surface than the "grass" effort at Championship club Blackpool.

If 3G were permitted in the Football League then it could have significant benefits for the Albion:

1. We'd be able to offer top level facilities to any professional rugby union club that wished to have Brighton as their home - rental income for the club.
2. More use made of the catering and hospitality facilities - this might make it easier when it came to stock and labour if there was at least one Saturday event every weekend. Again, more income for the club.
3. The pitch could be hired out for tournaments for local clubs - real integration between club and community.

It doesn't make any sense to have a top class facility being used just 30 times a year, especially when we are losing £10 million per season. In any other business they would be looking / pushing for increased use of the facility.

No no no.

3g maybe better than years ago but it is still nowhere near grass. I would hate us playing on plastic.

 

[Brian Fantana]

A top quality 3G pitch is a better playing surface than the "grass" effort at Championship club Blackpool.

If 3G were permitted in the Football League then it could have significant benefits for the Albion:

1. We'd be able to offer top level facilities to any professional rugby union club that wished to have Brighton as their home - rental income for the club.
2. More use made of the catering and hospitality facilities - this might make it easier when it came to stock and labour if there was at least one Saturday event every weekend. Again, more income for the club.
3. The pitch could be hired out for tournaments for local clubs - real integration between club and community.

It doesn't make any sense to have a top class facility being used just 30 times a year, especially when we are losing £10 million per season. In any other business they would be looking / pushing for increased use of the facility.

I'm still convinced that 3G pitches lead to many more ankle and knee injuries than grass equivalents. I'm sure there's probably someone with more knowledge out there than me though...

 

[Pavilionaire]

It is permitted in the FA Cup, Champions League, Europa League, international football, 3 divisions of the Conference.

By now there should be enough data on how 3G compares with grass re player injuries, the trueness of the surface to be able to say whether the difference is now negligible. Personally, if we reach that point where the technology can produce a pitch that can replicate turf then I'd be all for switching and reaping the net benefits it would bring to our club.

 

[Brovion]

A top quality 3G pitch is a better playing surface than the "grass" effort at Championship club Blackpool.

If 3G were permitted in the Football League then it could have significant benefits for the Albion:

1. We'd be able to offer top level facilities to any professional rugby union club that wished to have Brighton as their home - rental income for the club.
2. More use made of the catering and hospitality facilities - this might make it easier when it came to stock and labour if there was at least one Saturday event every weekend. Again, more income for the club.
3. The pitch could be hired out for tournaments for local clubs - real integration between club and community.

It doesn't make any sense to have a top class facility being used just 30 times a year, especially when we are losing £10 million per season. In any other business they would be looking / pushing for increased use of the facility.

I agree. I think the problem with extra utilisation of the Amex is more to do with planning permission though. Aren't there only so many non-Albion events we can host? Admittedly that is 'only' a political issue, but still. Is there the desire in the club to fight it?

 

[Arthur]

First sporting event to allow drinking on the terraces - were there any issues.

People were allowed to drink in the stands??

Does beg the question why it wasn't/isn't allowed at the Sussex Senior Cup Final.

 

[Alex Alex Dawson oo! oo!]

I agree. I think the problem with extra utilisation of the Amex is more to do with planning permission though. Aren't there only so many non-Albion events we can host? Admittedly that is 'only' a political issue, but still. Is there the desire in the club to fight it?

The original planning permission was for a maximum of 50 events pa, I don't think any were specified as needing to be Albion/non-Albion.

 

[Poppett63]

People were allowed to drink in the stands??

Does beg the question why it wasn't/isn't allowed at the Sussex Senior Cup Final.

Unfortunately, it is a matter of the law. No alcohol is allowed in stands when it is a football stadium by law. Ok when it is a sports stadium for other events.

I would like to see a T20

 

[Lady Whistledown]

A number of the Sussex private schools are Woodard schools and play football rather than rugby.

Pretty sure I remember reading (in relation to the four or five England internationals in recent years who were schooled in Sussex) that several of them went to comprehensive schools, curiously enough. Off the top of my head it was Weald (Billingshurst- think that's Billy Twelvetrees), Beacon in Crowborough (Dylan Hartley) and Heathfield Community College (Joe Marler). There was one who went to Christ's Hospital, which is just a tad different, mind


Edit: that was Joe Launchbury, Google tells me

 

[Pavilionaire]

Jordan Turner-Hall of Harlequins also played at Hove RFC.

 

[AlastairWatts]

I guess it depends how regularly they want to hold rugby matches there, and what sort of a state the pitch ends up like as a result

Absolutely. Although born and raised in Sussex I presently live in High Wycombe, and only last week the local paper carried some quotes from Wycombe Wanderers complaining of the damage the now ended association with (London) Wasps had done to the pitch, which apparently is due for renewal. I'm not a rugby fan anyway, and to me the idea of thirty really big guys pushing and shoving each other in one limited area at a time would seem to me to be a recipe for disaster, however good the ground staff are.