Relocation.

Please see the following link and make your comments.

http://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/New-GTFC-stadium-plan-progressing/story-24013458-detail/story.html

Were being swamped out by the NIBYS

Best JOHN. UTM

Quoted from Getyourfactsright

Please see the following link and make your comments.

http://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/New-GTFC-stadium-plan-progressing/story-24013458-detail/story.html

Were being swamped out by the MIBYS

Best JOHN. UTM

I'll have a word with these clowns John. I see there's more nonsense about the docks! How many times?!!

Quoted from 75

I'll have a word with these clowns John. I see there's more nonsense about the docks! How many times?!!

Thank you PB we need to really show support and I hope the wider fans get this.

Quoted from Getyourfactsright

Thank you PB we need to really show support and I hope the wider fans get this.

Just sent you a PM John.

Is there a 'worst JOHN'?

Quoted from Getyourfactsright

Please see the following link and make your comments.

http://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/New-GTFC-stadium-plan-progressing/story-24013458-detail/story.html

Were being swamped out by the MIBYS

Best JOHN. UTM

Together we can make it work, John.  

Quoted from Getyourfactsright

Please see the following link and make your comments.

http://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/New-GTFC-stadium-plan-progressing/story-24013458-detail/story.html

Were being swamped out by the MIBYS

Best JOHN. UTM

Now get reading the "Atmosphere." thread (http://www.thefishy.co.uk/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1414865680/). Take a few coins out of that Piggy Bank of yours and give all the Town fans a bottle of whisky before the game. Yes even the U10s. You know damn well it'll work, John.

While we are on this john, and apologies IF you have commented on the other thread (atmosphere),

* is there any way that town fans can get the osmond stand back while pitiful away attendances are common place?

* would any of the ideas presented! ever be considered by the board?

* what is the next stage (timescale wise) with regards to the new stadium and have any other stadia been singled out to be used as a blueprint?

We all or most on here appreciate all your hard work and funding John,

Grimsby does not get much of a press in the national papers or on tv,

The only two are Kevin from Grimsby ( for a few weeks of the year )

The other is Grimsby Town FC,

Grimsby needs a football team and one that is successful and in the league,

We are well on the way to reaching our goal now,

What is needed is a new stadium to take us back up the leagues ,

Giving Grimsby even more publicity 9 months of the year,

UTM   See you at Braintree tomorrow John.

Quoted from grimsby pete

We all or most on here appreciate all your hard work and funding John,

Grimsby does not get much of a press in the national papers or on tv,

The only two are Kevin from Grimsby ( for a few weeks of the year )

The other is Grimsby Town FC,

Grimsby needs a football team and one that is successful and in the league,

We are well on the way to reaching our goal now,

What is needed is a new stadium to take us back up the leagues ,

Giving Grimsby even more publicity 9 months of the year,

UTM   See you at Braintree tomorrow John.

Don't forgot the lovely Ella Henderson Pete!

and the murder, stabbing, crackhouse , first "crimbo" ,cannabis factories and evicting poor little old dears from their cozy tower blocks that we have received coverage for over the last month...but apart from that.....GTFC and Kevin from Grimsby..

Quoted from moosey_club

and the murder, stabbing, crackhouse , first "crimbo" ,cannabis factories and evicting poor little old dears from their cozy tower blocks that we have received coverage for over the last month...but apart from that.....GTFC and Kevin from Grimsby..

Fuddy old codgers. Same fuddy old codgers that don't want the ground at Peaks Parkway because it'd be "too noisy". Fuddy old codgers.

That Kevin bloke off the dancing programme is a bloody Scunthorpe supporter anyway, so he can get copulated.

Mrs mangle was from Meggies if that helps

Quoted from WOZOFGRIMSBY

While we are on this john, and apologies IF you have commented on the other thread (atmosphere),

* is there any way that town fans can get the osmond stand back while pitiful away attendances are common place? What's the point when we have 3000 fans and already 5500 empty seats in the other stands

* would any of the ideas presented! ever be considered by the board?We have a representative of the Trust on the board.

* what is the next stage (timescale wise) with regards to the new stadium and have any other stadia been singled out to be used as a blueprint?

Dunno!

What I don't understand is how Hull can build their stadium next to the infirmary, in a built up area with hardly a whisper of complaint, whilst we have to put up with every kind of objection going.

It doesn't make any sense to me.

In your opinion Mr. Fenty, is this a Grimsby thing, is it the council, or what is it?

I don't get it.

Quoted from mimma

What I don't understand is how Hull can build their stadium next to the infirmary, in a built up area with hardly a whisper of complaint, whilst we have to put up with every kind of objection going.

It doesn't make any sense to me.

In your opinion Mr. Fenty, is this a Grimsby thing, is it the council, or what is it?

I don't get it.

I don't know but I get the impression the Council have earmarked this land, the enabling development is probably the sticking point. From what I can gather, we should be able to raise money from the sale of BP, then you are talking EU grants with a large chunk coming from the enabling development. The economy is picking up, perhaps Morrisons would prefer a site closer to Town than Laceby, Frankie and Bennies are more than welcome too.

Is there a shortfall? I assume so and how on earth will a presumably seven figure shortfall be met? That's my understanding but big business goes way above my head!

Quoted from mimma

What I don't understand is how Hull can build their stadium next to the infirmary, in a built up area with hardly a whisper of complaint, whilst we have to put up with every kind of objection going.

It doesn't make any sense to me.

In your opinion Mr. Fenty, is this a Grimsby thing, is it the council, or what is it?

I don't get it.

The first choice (Ie Great Coates) was a greenfield site (endless red tape) that also fell within emergency zones of the neighbouring industries (more red tape) on the edge of a village (NIMBY's) so all in all probably not a great choice of site in the first place although ironically identified as a site by the council at the time.
This site takes over allotments (protected status so more red tape), is next to the crem and the central cemetary for Grimsby (publically sensitive) and we  now appear to be in a chicken and egg situation with "enabling developers" who wont publically enter the fray (if they do actually exist) until an assurance on land transfer is gained.

2020 best case scenario i would imagine.

I must say I sympathise with John and the board who must be very frustrated with the difficulties in securing support for a move to a new site. I realise the location of such a development is always going to be sensitive but people need to realise there is no such thing as a site that will have no objections, so the powers that be need to take this into account and work with The Club and developers to mitigate any major objections, continually saying no just will not do. As for proposals being used for political purposes, those involved need to stop posturing and contribute to supporting the development of this town. It seems to me that if councillors and their officers decide something is to be done, they are happy to ride rough shod over public opinion, e.g spending £8m on a new swimming pool few people want, scrapping a functioning bus station and replacing it with a dog's dinner of a facility much worse than what went before it, building a new cinema in the centre of town without any consultation whatsoever, wasting millions on block paving which is not fit for purpose,closing youth clubs and toilets (now rescinded after an outcry) etc etc. As for Ukip well, do they have the club and the town at heart? Certainly not and by attaching themselves to a hair brained scheme purely to try to attract some populist support they have shown themselves for what they are, a group who will attach themselves to anything for a short term gain. Major developments, quite rightly need careful and detailed planning and cannot be done on a whim and on the back of a cigarette packet, get real.

May I just explain what the exclusion zone was, since I use to work at Novartis site.

It is NOT an exclusion zone, or anything to do with Health & Safety, it is simply an area deemed to be close enough that anyone inside it should be warned of any release of gasses or smoke. An early warning system, no more. There is, & never was any reason to stop any development inside this zone.

In any case, the real problem at Novartis was due to liquid chlorine stored & used on site, and any problems from its release. They stopped using chlorine, & all the chorine plant has  been demolished many years ago.

It became another excuse to stop the new stadium.

If this stadium doesn't go ahead, it'll be the town going even further down that steep slope. I'm proud to say I'm from Grimsby, when I was growing up it was a nice place to live, that was on the west marsh, now I wouldn't even walk through most of it, I always try and pick out the positives with this town but now I'm starting to struggle :/, here's to praying it happens!!

UTM!

Councillors in York have voted to borrow an extra £4m to keep plans for a community sports facility on track.

Can you imagine our Council doing this for Grimsby Town lol

Quoted from BBC News | 11th October 2014

City of York Council said in September it needed further funding to help build a leisure complex at the facility.

It gave plans to borrow another £4m the go-ahead at a meeting on Thursday night.

The total cost of the site is £37m and is part-funded by the council, with the rest coming from grants and revenue from commercial developments.

Full info here >> [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-29565797]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-29565797[/url]

Quoted from Nelly GTFC

Councillors in York have voted to borrow an extra £4m to keep plans for a community sports facility on track.

Can you imagine our Council doing this for Grimsby Town lolFull info here >> [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-29565797]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-29565797[/url]

In short, no. I can't imagine N E Lincs council doing anything remotely positive while the abrasive, and quite frankly arrogant Chris Shaw is the leader. How on earth he won an election I will never understand. Then of course we have our good friend Mr De Freitas, his only contribution to the area is the £7m he lost in that Icelandic Bank.  

Quoted from gtfc98

Don't forgot the lovely Ella Henderson Pete!

I like Ella but to be honest I have not heard of her down here in Suffolk since the X factor.

BUT

Kevin is on every week on Strickly.

With regards to Novartis - I believe all the sites on the bank collaborate together and assess the impact of a major incident. Potentially having to evacuate anywhere between 2,000-10,000 people is never going to be entertained.

It's amazing how the backwards thinking the town is, any other development in the country would have no issue getting rid of a few allotments. These people live in the centre of a town, if you want to grow crops then go live in the bleeding countryside. The world is expanding, having anything green in the centre of anywhere with more than 1,000 residents is going to get ripped up one day - sad fact of life, but true.

On the other hand the new stadium will not only secure jobs for those working directly for the club and sub-contractors that the club use, these employees wages will be fed back into the local economy. The stadium itself I assume will create more jobs due to the increased size. The development will incorporate other aspects I assume e.g. shops etc, more jobs. It's an enabler for community schemes - the club are very good at interaction with the people of the town, particularly children. The stadium will also in time, whether the club like it or not, for music/entertainment events - it's a good money spinner for the club and it also brings in people from outside the town spending money here, which is a good thing.

Back to the football side, but sticking on the topic of visitors to the town; if I were an away fan I'd rather visit a new stadium than BP. Don't care what you say about nostalgic value but the away attendances are a pittance, they are not going to drastically increase with promotion. There's nothing around the ground for away fans, nothing in the ground.

It's also unreasonable to expect any business to reside somewhere the age of BP - the main stand being wooden is embarrassing these days, it's not even mentioned when we're in the national press any more.

Just stick an olympic sized swimming pool in the car park, call it scartho baths 2 and we'll be fine.

How do you get red crosses for telling Mr Fenty you've PMd him?

Quoted from MuddyWaters

How do you get red crosses for telling Mr Fenty you've PMd him?

Maybe somebody does not like you.

Ignore them mate, some on here just like ticking the red box.

I got one for saying I have not heard anything of Ella Henderson since the  x factor,

How does he or she know what I have heard ?

Quoted from Chrisblor

That Kevin bloke off the dancing programme is a bloody Scunthorpe supporter anyway, so he can get copulated.

But he did give steels fish restaurant massive free publicity on the show  

Most fans agree that the club needs to move ASAP.  Where, who knows, but will support the move whatever.  It should be supported by the council, no doubting that, but you have to ask why are they not supporting the club, or it just John Fenty they don't support? Maybe.  I do not support UKIP at all, but to dismiss their new ground proposal as nonsense is as usual, foolish from John.  It's across the road from Great Coates, so why would it not suit an anchor tenant, like that site proposed?  You cannot just dismiss it outright, or is this just political scoring from Lord Fenty? This is a community stadium and new home for GTFC we are talking about and all locations and support must be considered until it becomes a reality.  It will never happen whilst John is involved, simple as!

Quoted from kingster72

Most fans agree that the club needs to move ASAP.  Where, who knows, but will support the move whatever.  It should be supported by the council, no doubting that, but you have to ask why are they not supporting the club, or it just John Fenty they don't support? Maybe.  I do not support UKIP at all, but to dismiss their new ground proposal as nonsense is as usual, foolish from John.  It's across the road from Great Coates, so why would it not suit an anchor tenant, like that site proposed?  You cannot just dismiss it outright, or is this just political scoring from Lord Fenty? This is a community stadium and new home for GTFC we are talking about and all locations and support must be considered until it becomes a reality.  It will never happen whilst John is involved, simple as!

It's in an health and safety exclusion zone. That's why.

Otherwise are you real!!!!!!

Quoted from kingster72

Most fans agree that the club needs to move ASAP.  Where, who knows, but will support the move whatever.  It should be supported by the council, no doubting that, but you have to ask why are they not supporting the club, or it just John Fenty they don't support? Maybe.  I do not support UKIP at all, but to dismiss their new ground proposal as nonsense is as usual, foolish from John.  It's across the road from Great Coates, so why would it not suit an anchor tenant, like that site proposed?  You cannot just dismiss it outright, or is this just political scoring from Lord Fenty? This is a community stadium and new home for GTFC we are talking about and all locations and support must be considered until it becomes a reality.  It will never happen whilst John is involved, simple as!

But isn't John's hands tied somewhat especially if the investor such as Sainsburys etc dont want it near the UKIP proposed site.  JF can't fund it all by himself he's not got a money tree in his back yard.  Besides the current proposed location could do with some retail outlets.  You might be right regarding them having a personal issue with JF they need to open their eyes and back the move imo.    

IMO the proposed ground move is not about John Fenty and I don't see it as just about GTFC, I see it as about the whole of NE Lincolnshire.
I travel around the country on business all the time and I see lots of Towns and cities developing, trying to attract investment and trying to give their citizens hope for the future.

Many have posted on this message board about Grimsby being a 'excrement hole'. A new vibrant community facility will help lift the doom and gloom, send a message out that NE Lincs is alive and kicking and open for business. If the Abel Uk development is completed, the off shore renewables starts to bring new sustainable employment & a new stadium with sparkling community facilities then the youth of the area can have hope for the future, that the university educated can return to the area because of new jobs, and make the place a very attractive place to live and bring up a family.

IF the council don't back the plans then I think we may as well put the closed signs up. They have the chance to revive the area, to make it prosperous, not just by granting planning permission for a stadium but by moving the Town forward with hope.

The opportunity lies in the hands of the few. I hope when the time comes they make a positive decision for the ultimate benefit of all

Best post ever.

Quoted from Getyourfactsright

Thank you PB we need to really show support and I hope the wider fans get this.

What about the skinny ones?  

I think BC has got it spot on there. You only have to look at the demise that it's had on Hereford as the best example. A town that's ground was stuck in the 70,s (1870's) that could not get approval to be rehomed/developed. The club then becomes extinct.

So mr defruityarse, I put this to you, when you've got 3000 people that no longer have a football club, where will they go???

Quoted from BIGChris

IMO the proposed ground move is not about John Fenty and I don't see it as just about GTFC, I see it as about the whole of NE Lincolnshire.
I travel around the country on business all the time and I see lots of Towns and cities developing, trying to attract investment and trying to give their citizens hope for the future.

Many have posted on this message board about Grimsby being a 'excrement hole'. A new vibrant community facility will help lift the doom and gloom, send a message out that NE Lincs is alive and kicking and open for business. If the Abel Uk development is completed, the off shore renewables starts to bring new sustainable employment & a new stadium with sparkling community facilities then the youth of the area can have hope for the future, that the university educated can return to the area because of new jobs, and make the place a very attractive place to live and bring up a family.

IF the council don't back the plans then I think we may as well put the closed signs up. They have the chance to revive the area, to make it prosperous, not just by granting planning permission for a stadium but by moving the Town forward with hope.

The opportunity lies in the hands of the few. I hope when the time comes they make a positive decision for the ultimate benefit of all

nail on the head.

Quoted from BIGChris

IMO the proposed ground move is not about John Fenty and I don't see it as just about GTFC, I see it as about the whole of NE Lincolnshire.
I travel around the country on business all the time and I see lots of Towns and cities developing, trying to attract investment and trying to give their citizens hope for the future.

Many have posted on this message board about Grimsby being a 'excrement hole'. A new vibrant community facility will help lift the doom and gloom, send a message out that NE Lincs is alive and kicking and open for business. If the Abel Uk development is completed, the off shore renewables starts to bring new sustainable employment & a new stadium with sparkling community facilities then the youth of the area can have hope for the future, that the university educated can return to the area because of new jobs, and make the place a very attractive place to live and bring up a family.

IF the council don't back the plans then I think we may as well put the closed signs up. They have the chance to revive the area, to make it prosperous, not just by granting planning permission for a stadium but by moving the Town forward with hope.

The opportunity lies in the hands of the few. I hope when the time comes they make a positive decision for the ultimate benefit of all

Pity you are not on the council Chris, oh wait that would mean a risk of a change for the better,end of the road town end of the road politics

Quoted from KingstonMariner

What about the skinny ones?  

It's okay, I think it was aimed at me.

The debate over the new stadium carries on, but still nothing has actually happened.

John Fenty mentions that the clubs future is at stake if it cannot relocate, the club in its current guise is being propped up by its directors.
The directors must have an idea how long this situation can carry on, and i hope the council have been made aware of this by the club.

John Fenty may well be carrying the burden of dropping out of the league on his watch, but the present council members ( as a group ) will have a far greater burden to carry if wrong decisions are made on their watch and GTFC folds.

Objectors to the peaks parkway ground would in time get used to it and learn to live with it, and some of them ( in time ) would in hindsight think it was the right idea.
Football fans would never ever forgive those responsible for the loss/demise of their beloved football club.

Quoted from promotion plaice

The debate over the new stadium carries on, but still nothing has actually happened.

John Fenty mentions that the clubs future is at stake if it cannot relocate, the club in its current guise is being propped up by its directors.
The directors must have an idea how long this situation can carry on and i hope the council have been made aware of this by the club.

John Fenty may well be carrying the burden of dropping out of the league on his watch, but the present council members ( as a group ) will have a far greater burden to carry if wrong decisions are made on their watch and GTFC folds.

Objectors to the peaks parkway ground would in time get used to it and learn to live with it, and some of them ( in time ) would in hindsight think it was the right idea.
Football fans would never ever forgive those responsible for the loss/demise of their beloved football club.

Great post RP, I'll be one of those that'll have an axe to grind with objectors if it doesn't go through!

I heard a rumour that if the proposal doesn't go through then the next proposal is to build a permanent travellers site in the same location but avoiding the allotments. This should keep the allotment holders happy and their vegetables safe.

Any chance some of you can post in the GET article the more support on their the better.  Unfortunately its the same old arguments i.e. town don't need a new stadium because we only have 3K in it now blah n blah some people just don't want to understand and are determined to be stubborn sods.

Grimsby, the town that's got nothing, want's nothing and will get exactly that.

If space to build in town is limited why not get the a hot tenant eg sainsburys to build there supermarket with a multi-storey car park above it , with towns new ground on top of that ?

Simple idea covering all 3 problems .

Quoted from louth_in_the_south

If space to build in town is limited why not get the a hot tenant eg sainsburys to build there supermarket with a multi-storey car park above it , with towns new ground on top of that ?

Simple idea covering all 3 problems .

The NIMBY's would complain it blocks their light out    

My post on the Telewag site thread: "It's amazing to me that people can be bothered to write such ill-informed nonsense just because they like to troll. Marks and Spencer is a department store, not rooted in Grimsby history, the first market stall actually opened in Leeds, so, no, it would not be true to say that M+S have just as much right to a free piece of land. And if you know it's free for Grimsby Town Football Club please reveal your sources . So, ahem, engage your brain,read, then comment, that would seem to be a sensible way forward. I don't live in Cleethorpes or Grimsby, I actually live in Beijing, China. I have seen for myself what happens when community based enterprises collapse and are replaced by business whose allegiances lie with the shareholders first and the community last. If you don't like football, then fine, but why do you have to deny it's role and function in the town's non-measurable success? And to those who honestly believe the argument is "build a new stadium and the players will get better", I have to ask if you are knowingly deluding yourselves or just plain daft? What happens is this: GTFC get a new stadium that is not just a new stadium but also has other ways of bringing money into the club, they are called 'revenue streams'. With that extra money, the club can buy better players, maybe even expand the youth setup so that more of these players come from the town and region. I don't expect Craig Disley of JLL will be around when the new stadium gets built, so really, how could it maker them improve? Incidentally, I actually believe that PH has built a squad that can and will get us out of the Conference and Dis and Shop are two of the hardest working players to wear the shirt in years, and they are pretty good too. So, the stadium won't make them better, it will get us more money to buy better players, to get higher in the tree. I mean the football tree (just in case you thought I meant an actual tree). My two boys were born in Halifax, West Yorkshire and live in Beijing, China, but they are Mariners, by choice. They listen with me to all the matches (except the mid-week ones that start at 03:45am here.....but I listen to those.....) and they wear the shirts and they laugh at John Moore's often grating commentary (oooh, it's a nasty one, wide of the mark!!!) and they saw John Fenty in the shop once and went all wobbly, they come to all the pre-season matches in the summer, they buy the calendars and pens and scarves and hats (well, I do....) and they LOVE GRIMSBY TOWN FOOTBALL CLUB and if it dies a small part of them will die too. They cried when we lost to Wrexham at Wembley and they think of BP as a kind of holy place. My eldest touched the pitch with his toe when he was 8, his face lit up. The point is, you doubters, a football club is way more than a football club. Even at conference level, the club signifies pride and history, it speaks about the determination of the Grimsby people, the trawler-men of years ago, in fact the merchants who brought the money to Grimsby in the first place, all dependent on the sea-faring traders, they funded the club. Let it die, and it will die if it doesn't move....and it all goes, it all disappears, the symbol that is GTFC, born 1878 has to be remembered, only remembered, not lived. A new ground will never be BP, but no new ground means no GTFC because the money will run out. I don't want my kids to say, I was a Mariner, I remember the year we got back in the league, and the year we went out of business because we couldn't afford to keep the success story going. My kids love football, they don't love business, but it is a business now. We can return a failing business that symbolises our pride and character to winning ways, or we can let it die a slow and painful death. Be careful what you wish for, people.

Read more: http://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.....y.html#ixzz3IBP4IIB9
Follow us: @GrimsbyTel on Twitter | grimsbytel on Facebook

Quoted from BeijingMariner

My post on the Telewag site thread: "It's amazing to me that people can be bothered to write such ill-informed nonsense just because they like to troll. Marks and Spencer is a department store, not rooted in Grimsby history, the first market stall actually opened in Leeds, so, no, it would not be true to say that M+S have just as much right to a free piece of land. And if you know it's free for Grimsby Town Football Club please reveal your sources . So, ahem, engage your brain,read, then comment, that would seem to be a sensible way forward. I don't live in Cleethorpes or Grimsby, I actually live in Beijing, China. I have seen for myself what happens when community based enterprises collapse and are replaced by business whose allegiances lie with the shareholders first and the community last. If you don't like football, then fine, but why do you have to deny it's role and function in the town's non-measurable success? And to those who honestly believe the argument is "build a new stadium and the players will get better", I have to ask if you are knowingly deluding yourselves or just plain daft? What happens is this: GTFC get a new stadium that is not just a new stadium but also has other ways of bringing money into the club, they are called 'revenue streams'. With that extra money, the club can buy better players, maybe even expand the youth setup so that more of these players come from the town and region. I don't expect Craig Disley of JLL will be around when the new stadium gets built, so really, how could it maker them improve? Incidentally, I actually believe that PH has built a squad that can and will get us out of the Conference and Dis and Shop are two of the hardest working players to wear the shirt in years, and they are pretty good too. So, the stadium won't make them better, it will get us more money to buy better players, to get higher in the tree. I mean the football tree (just in case you thought I meant an actual tree). My two boys were born in Halifax, West Yorkshire and live in Beijing, China, but they are Mariners, by choice. They listen with me to all the matches (except the mid-week ones that start at 03:45am here.....but I listen to those.....) and they wear the shirts and they laugh at John Moore's often grating commentary (oooh, it's a nasty one, wide of the mark!!!) and they saw John Fenty in the shop once and went all wobbly, they come to all the pre-season matches in the summer, they buy the calendars and pens and scarves and hats (well, I do....) and they LOVE GRIMSBY TOWN FOOTBALL CLUB and if it dies a small part of them will die too. They cried when we lost to Wrexham at Wembley and they think of BP as a kind of holy place. My eldest touched the pitch with his toe when he was 8, his face lit up. The point is, you doubters, a football club is way more than a football club. Even at conference level, the club signifies pride and history, it speaks about the determination of the Grimsby people, the trawler-men of years ago, in fact the merchants who brought the money to Grimsby in the first place, all dependent on the sea-faring traders, they funded the club. Let it die, and it will die if it doesn't move....and it all goes, it all disappears, the symbol that is GTFC, born 1878 has to be remembered, only remembered, not lived. A new ground will never be BP, but no new ground means no GTFC because the money will run out. I don't want my kids to say, I was a Mariner, I remember the year we got back in the league, and the year we went out of business because we couldn't afford to keep the success story going. My kids love football, they don't love business, but it is a business now. We can return a failing business that symbolises our pride and character to winning ways, or we can let it die a slow and painful death. Be careful what you wish for, people.

Read more: http://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.....y.html#ixzz3IBP4IIB9
Follow us: @GrimsbyTel on Twitter | grimsbytel on Facebook

and breathe.

hahaha, nice arry, perfect response piece

I just noticed this section from the article "The club has been working with the council's legal team in agreeing the terms of a land option agreement, which the club understands is ready to go to cabinet in due course"  Does this mean there are for the proposal....I'm a bit confused.

[url]http://www.grimsby-townfc.co.uk/news/article/new-stadium-progressing-well-2059496.aspx[/url]

Well, Councillor Fenty (Cons) should know if things are going forward for discussion, unless the various Labour dominated committees don't talk to their opposition members????

Have ANY approaches been made to a business partner in regards to retail opportunities?

I'd love to see a South Bank Makro here !

Interesting points made by JF in tonights GET about getting the burgeoning wind-power companies on board as far as commercial support is concerned. The article also mentioned the 295 members of staff employed by GTFC. Obviously a lot of these will be match-day employees and also support staff with the Youth set-up etc. But is does raise the point that if any other local industry that employed that amount of staff was to state that they had to relocate in the area or go bust then I'm sure the council would be jumping through hoops to help them! I don't think a lot of these " nimbys" realise just what the football club contributes to the local economy. It's not just football, it's employment, aspirations for young players wanting to be pro footballers ie have a career and the wealth generated to the support industries.

What a good idea. An Eco friendly football ground that cod be part self sufficient. Solar panels on the roof ?if structurally  sound, rain water recycled, even wind turbines used. It would certainly keep defruityarse and the Eco warriors schtum

Quoted from WOZOFGRIMSBY

What a good idea. An Eco friendly football ground that cod be part self sufficient. Solar panels on the roof ?if structurally  sound, rain water recycled, even wind turbines used. It would certainly keep defruityarse and the Eco warriors schtum

and they could perhaps sell only vegan food and drinks in the shops.....hang on a minute ....this is ringing a bell....

Quoted from WOZOFGRIMSBY

What a good idea. An Eco friendly football ground that cod be part self sufficient. Solar panels on the roof ?if structurally  sound, rain water recycled, even wind turbines used. It would certainly keep defruityarse and the Eco warriors schtum

Stick enough solar panels on it and sell leccy back to the grid after a few years... wind turbines even better.

For me the I was pleased to hear cycling routes to and from the ground to town centre were part of the proposals. Properly secure bike storage as well would be key, something inside part of the ground ideally.

I´ll probably get called an ecowarrier on here but think they´d be great plus-points for any new development.

In the GET it states leisure complex. What would this include? Or should I say what would you like it to include?

You'll never get permission to have wind turbines that close to a residential area, IMO. Too noisy. Wind power is very unreliable so fundamentally relies on gas generation back-up at present in any case so won't be particularly 'green' regardless. Until a cost-effective energy storage technology is developed (other than hydro), renewables are only ever going to provide a fraction of our power. Now, if we tried to build the stadium in conjuction with a nuclear power station, I'd be all for that.  

Not close enough to population centres for that to happen, however.

Solar panels are mostly a waste of time in temperate regions. Very, very poor capacity factor. When the governments drop their subsidies further (as they undoubtedly will in due course), you're looking at an expensive installation which will cost a lot on upkeep with little, if any return.

Greenwashing this proposed development won't do anything but add cost and we really need to keep that to a minimum. By all means try and get sponsorship from Siemens or one of the other big wind turbine companies, but don't muck about trying to 'greenify' the development as that will do nothing but add cost.

Quoted from Maringer

You'll never get permission to have wind turbines that close to a residential area, IMO. Too noisy. Wind power is very unreliable so fundamentally relies on gas generation back-up at present in any case so won't be particularly 'green' regardless. Until a cost-effective energy storage technology is developed (other than hydro), renewables are only ever going to provide a fraction of our power. Now, if we tried to build the stadium in conjuction with a nuclear power station, I'd be all for that.  

Not close enough to population centres for that to happen, however.

Solar panels are mostly a waste of time in temperate regions. Very, very poor capacity factor. When the governments drop their subsidies further (as they undoubtedly will in due course), you're looking at an expensive installation which will cost a lot on upkeep with little, if any return.

Greenwashing this proposed development won't do anything but add cost and we really need to keep that to a minimum. By all means try and get sponsorship from Siemens or one of the other big wind turbine companies, but don't muck about trying to 'greenify' the development as that will do nothing but add cost.

If the energy companies could develop some way of harnessing the hot air on here after an indifferent display they would be quids in.

Quoted from Maringer

Solar panels are mostly a waste of time in temperate regions. Very, very poor capacity factor. When the governments drop their subsidies further (as they undoubtedly will in due course), you're looking at an expensive installation which will cost a lot on upkeep with little, if any return.

Fair enough, interesting that you see it as 'greenwashing' as well. I need to do a bit more reading, it's a word that's increasingly cropping up, from various critics of the approaches towards climate change. Don't really know enough about the technicalities of solar panels etc. to know if it's worth it, obviously it really isn't.

Aside from all that... I still like the idea of being able to bike/walk there traffic free. Asides from environmental factors, health and general accesibility being promoted. Whether you agree or not with this, it seems to be a major plus-points within todays planning/development climate.

Don't get me wrong, having a new stadium with all the possibilities it will bring, will be great, but as a life-saver for the club? Really? There are more questions than answers.

Currently we don't pay our way. Partly that might be down to operating in a knackered old stadium with limited non-matchday revenue opportunities. Partly it's down to poor management. Over years and years. Now a new stadium will address the first part, but I'm not convinced it will be a silver bullet for the other problems. I get all the extra revenue arguments, but what's to stop us overspending at a higher figure?

Then there's the question of what it will actually cost to build. Seen any figures? £20m?

And what will it cost to run. Any ideas?

How much will we get for BP? Best guess £1.3m going by the valuation in the Accounts. Ah, so we've got one (tentative) bit of information.

How much will the land cost?

So what's the funding gap in capital and how much will we make/lose on an ongoing basis? What will the interest payments be?

How realistic are our hopes that the funding gap will be closed? Who knows?

For all we know we could be building a white elephant which will create another millstone round our necks which will kill the club quickly rather than the slow death we appear to be facing. That's before we get on to issues about how we will get 1000s of people in and out of the site every 2 weeks. How are we going to deal with the concerns of residents, allotment holders and mourners? let's be specific about dealing with them one by one.

Faced with the opposition over the years to the two proposed sites, and the apparent lack of a robust business case, the likelihood of success seems remote. Might time and energy and resources not be better placed at dealing with problems that are within your control, rather than taking what appears to be a punt based on what appears to be nothing more than gut reactions and (understandable) emotion about an institution we all love? I think we all need to be a bit more hard-nosed about this.

We've all seen what's happened with the Winter Gardens. Against severe opposition, do you really expect the council to approve a plan that doesn't appear to have a business case? What evidence is there that the business (i.e. the club) has been effectively managed, and therefore what confidence would you have in the delivery of this project? Put cynically would you face the wrath of the NIMBYs in this situation?

Show us the numbers John and let us Get Our Facts Right then we can all get behind the plan.

KM, all these problems are the same for ever other teams, i.e. Scunny, Rotherham, Donny, Walsall, Colchester etc. etc.

These problems haven't stopped them from building new stadia & moving on, why should they stop us?

I'm fed up with so called fans looking at issues & immediately throwing up their arms & saying it's impossible.

Nothing is impossible For heavens sake, if Scunny can do it, not once, but it looks like twice, surely with a little bit of thought into how they can, then we should be able to overcome these problems & move on.

Lots of teams that were considered to be smaller than us have done it, now we are the smaller, lesser team, & getting smaller!!

I believe that the knowledge and experience of Philip Day in the transfer of previous agricultural land & the subsequent compliance with planning laws will be  key.

To suggest that the clubs are going into this without producing a robust business plan is crazy and bizarre thinking. Do you really think that the club would be negotiating with prospective anchor tenants, even at a preliminary stage, without a thorough financial plan that had been discussed challenged and tested?

Obviously it may not happen, it may fall down on financials or planning constraints but I am absolutely certain that a new stadium, should it happen, will not be a 'white elephant' and 100% certain it will make a huge difference to the long term sustainability of GTFC

Some people have a natural suspicion of everyone but frankly i wouldn't want the club to be publishing the finite financial details and certainly not before planning, agreement with enabling developers etc were signed and sealed

Quoted from MarinerWY

Fair enough, interesting that you see it as 'greenwashing' as well. I need to do a bit more reading, it's a word that's increasingly cropping up, from various critics of the approaches towards climate change.

Oh, climate change certainly is happening and needs to be dealt with. The only carbon-free technology currently available which can produce enough energy for our uses is nuclear power but, unfortunately, the green movement likes to take the evidence-free view that this is too dangerous to use. On the other hand, they like to use all sorts of hand-waving estimation and claims to try and prove that wind and solar could potentially provide for our requirements. When doing so they always seem to ignore the expense and problems caused to the grid by all these intermittent sources of power feeding in and out. This is why a vote for renewables is actually a vote for gas-fired power stations which can spin up and down quickly when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing (or is blowing too hard).

As for the new stadium, I think any solar installation on the roofing would do little other than cost a good deal of money initially for little, if any return, and cause problems in the long run. Just look at the UK climate - not exactly known for being sunny, is it? How often do you really want to have people servicing and upkeeping panels on the top of a football stadium? Small wind turbines are just not worth the expense as they just don't produce much energy at all and the larger ones would be too noisy to install that close to town.

For me, the site near the crem seems like a good one, especially if the development does include facilities for the community in addition to the retail aspects of it. I was less than impressed with the originally planned site near Great Coates. Just too far out of town for me and I think somewhere much closer to the bulk of the population in the area, both Grimsby and Cleethorpes, is a better choice.

I have put my name on the petition in the club shop yesterday - there seems to be  agroundswell for it which is good, I just hope that the NIMBYS and the greenies dont fall out and we end up with nothing ! I think the clubs that have had new stadia have all benefitted from turn around in financial and playing form. An attractive place to come and play and watch would seem to be the best outcome - attract investment and perhaps a lift in the quality of players etc.
UTM!

Quoted from Maringer

Oh, climate change certainly is happening and needs to be dealt with. The only carbon-free technology currently available which can produce enough energy for our uses is nuclear power but, unfortunately, the green movement likes to take the evidence-free view that this is too dangerous to use. On the other hand, they like to use all sorts of hand-waving estimation and claims to try and prove that wind and solar could potentially provide for our requirements. When doing so they always seem to ignore the expense and problems caused to the grid by all these intermittent sources of power feeding in and out. This is why a vote for renewables is actually a vote for gas-fired power stations which can spin up and down quickly when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing (or is blowing too hard).

Without a doubt climate change is happening, I don´t think anyone can credibly deny that anymore. However I´ve heard the term ´green-washing' from many committed environmentalists, in fact it first cropped up in a preview of Naomi Klein's new book, This Changes Everything, in criticism of some of quick-fix solutions that appear grandoise but lack in substance. I don't know enough about nuclear power but I think the 'green movement' (the name doesn't help, it's not just environmentalists that should now have an interest in reducing emissions) is fairly split on it.

For me certainly aside from the energy source, one thing I would like to see is governments invest properly in alternative transport to get people out of cars. If trains were fast, reliable and importantly affordable, people would have an incentive to not own or not use their car so much. If we had decent transport systems in our cities: Leeds for example, the fourth biggest city and with West Yorkshire's urban area having nearly 2 million people, it's shocking that it doesn't have either a metro or a tram, just buses. It's quicker for me to get to Manchester (and even that should be sped up lots, and will be next year if I recall correctly) by train than from the North of Leeds out to East Leeds, for example. We can't fully undo what Beecham did as it would cost too much, but there's a lot of situations where we could really reduce car use in urban areas. A metro system costs a lot, but that comes down to where we place our priorities, and with all the evidence we have about the need to reduce emissions, in my opinion it should be a huge priority.

That and properly segregated bike lanes. In Seville when they installed a whole network of bike lanes fully segregated from both the road and footpath, cycling increased by ten times the previous amount. You see everyone, kids, the elderly, the cyclist-cyclists and every type of bike imaginable making their daily journeys: good for cleaner air, the environment and promoting healthy lifestyles.

Stuff is happening in the UK which will help... but it needs to happen much quicker if we are serious about reducing emissions.

For me I think the stark and unappealing truth is that people in the "global North" will have to make compromises to their quality of life to effectively bring down our level of consumption that leads to emissions, even if that means eating less meat (certainly doable, one day a week for example), or not taking domestic flights. The big changes and the alternatives need to come from governments, but I do think that folk can do their bit as well.

Sorry I've pulled this well off-topic. But interested as you're clearly very knowledgable about the practicality of solutions, and as I said, I need to read up on things a bit more!

Still OT (if you don't like it just ignore this post!)

Regarding the Greens vs Nuclear split, James Lovelock has now come out in favour of nuclear power and others such as George Monbiot are also very much pro. Unfortunately, whenever you get a 'movement' such as the Greens, it can quickly become an 'Us vs Them' situation so these two and others have been called 'traitor's for advocating nuclear power. When you actually look into the science, Nuclear power stations are actually extremely safe, even the older designs. For the record Fukushima wasn't a nuclear disaster - the reactors shut down correctly after the tsunami (which killed over 15,000 people) but the problems which occurred after that were due to the failure of the (badly designed) cooling systems which led to the release of some radioactive material. Not a single person was killed by radiation released and radiation levels in most of the exclusion zone around the plant (which is still enforced) are actually lower than natural background levels of radiation in some parts of the world. No real danger there, whatever the fearmongers would have you believe.

The modern and (hopefully) future designs of reactors are safer still. Here's some useful reading about the potential of Thorium Molten Salt reactors which were first designed in the 1960s and are better in every single way than Pressurised Water Reactors which are most commonly used today:

http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/

As for your comments about public transport, it's a nice idea, but our cities just don't lend themselves to decent transport links such as bike lanes. I've been to Seville myself once and the wide roads are ideal for bike lanes. You'll find the same in Belgium and Holland and other European countries. Here, we just don't really have the space for this sort of thing.

Ultimately, we're going to need to end up with electric cars which are much more efficient, not to mention non-polluting (depending on how the original electricity was generated). Better batteries are required but developments continue apace and I think the range available due to better battery technology in a decade will be surprisingly high. For range anxiety, range-extender engines (such as in the BMW i3) can provide extra distance. Whether these will run on Hydrogen (a bad idea, IMO) or more likely petrol/diesel engines, I don't know. Longer-term, it is quite possible to create synthetic liquid fuels using excess energy from Nuclear power plants which would be carbon-neutral.

The main thing for me would be to spend some money on developing MSRs and other Gen IV nuclear reactors. These could all but solve any waste problems (and it isn't much of a problem - much of the nuclear 'waste' we have stored could be burned in a reactor of the correct design) and provide safe, plentiful energy which could be used for desalination, irrigation and all sorts of stuff to improve farming yields as well as powering more intensive levels of recycling. No reason at all for any scarcity in the future as there is enough thorium and uranium around to power a high-tech civilisation for tens of thousands of years. Heck, you can even extract uranium and thorium from seawater pretty economically if required!

Anyway, off to lunch.

Apologies for the OT for those who weren't interested. Hope you didn't bother reading the post!  

Quoted from BIGChris

I believe that the knowledge and experience of Philip Day in the transfer of previous agricultural land & the subsequent compliance with planning laws will be  key.

To suggest that the clubs are going into this without producing a robust business plan is crazy and bizarre thinking. Do you really think that the club would be negotiating with prospective anchor tenants, even at a preliminary stage, without a thorough financial plan that had been discussed challenged and tested?

Obviously it may not happen, it may fall down on financials or planning constraints but I am absolutely certain that a new stadium, should it happen, will not be a 'white elephant' and 100% certain it will make a huge difference to the long term sustainability of GTFC

Some people have a natural suspicion of everyone but frankly i wouldn't want the club to be publishing the finite financial details and certainly not before planning, agreement with enabling developers etc were signed and sealed

Going on previous evidence of how the club has been run, I'd say it's not barmy. We've had no success either in football terms or financial ones for years. Failed miserably on both fronts, whoever you blame. Hardly a track record of success.

Who has challenged and tested the business plan?

No one is expecting confidential commercial details to be exposed, just what are the broad numbers concerned. You might be 100% certain it won't be a white elephant, but what reason has anyone else to believe that? I don't want to see my football club saddled with more debt and in hock to somebody else.

Before we all rush headlong into the unknown, we should have a clearer idea of what's involved. This isn't just another supermarket that we don't have any stake in and don't care about.

Quoted from mimma

KM, all these problems are the same for ever other teams, i.e. Scunny, Rotherham, Donny, Walsall, Colchester etc. etc.

These problems haven't stopped them from building new stadia & moving on, why should they stop us?

I'm fed up with so called fans looking at issues & immediately throwing up their arms & saying it's impossible.

Nothing is impossible For heavens sake, if Scunny can do it, not once, but it looks like twice, surely with a little bit of thought into how they can, then we should be able to overcome these problems & move on.

Lots of teams that were considered to be smaller than us have done it, now we are the smaller, lesser team, & getting smaller!!

Maybe those other clubs had better plans than us. Maybe they had a better strategy for dealing with potential objections.

I'm not saying things are impossible. Not by any means. Believe it or not I'm an optimistic person in life. I'm also a realist. Based on the track record of the club, I'd not place blind faith in what is being proposed.

All sorts of problems can be overcome, solutions can be found, great things achieved. But you can't do all that with pure willpower and a positive outlook alone. You've got to make things happen by dealing with them pragmatically.

It also helps if you engage properly with all stakeholders, not just say "we need this" and expect people to fall into line. Instead of blaming everyone else (the Council, the NIMBYs, the unconvinced fans) you've got to try to look at things from their point of view and try to counter those reasons.

If that makes me a "so called fan" then I'm happy to wear that cap. For your part, maybe you should go back and re-read what I wrote and spot the part where I metaphorically throw up my arms and say it's impossible. Until then can I call you a "so called reader"?

Quoted from Maringer

Still OT (if you don't like it just ignore this post!)

Regarding the Greens vs Nuclear split, James Lovelock has now come out in favour of nuclear power and others such as George Monbiot are also very much pro. Unfortunately, whenever you get a 'movement' such as the Greens, it can quickly become an 'Us vs Them' situation so these two and others have been called 'traitor's for advocating nuclear power. When you actually look into the science, Nuclear power stations are actually extremely safe, even the older designs. For the record Fukushima wasn't a nuclear disaster - the reactors shut down correctly after the tsunami (which killed over 15,000 people) but the problems which occurred after that were due to the failure of the (badly designed) cooling systems which led to the release of some radioactive material. Not a single person was killed by radiation released and radiation levels in most of the exclusion zone around the plant (which is still enforced) are actually lower than natural background levels of radiation in some parts of the world. No real danger there, whatever the fearmongers would have you believe.

The modern and (hopefully) future designs of reactors are safer still. Here's some useful reading about the potential of Thorium Molten Salt reactors which were first designed in the 1960s and are better in every single way than Pressurised Water Reactors which are most commonly used today:

http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/

As for your comments about public transport, it's a nice idea, but our cities just don't lend themselves to decent transport links such as bike lanes. I've been to Seville myself once and the wide roads are ideal for bike lanes. You'll find the same in Belgium and Holland and other European countries. Here, we just don't really have the space for this sort of thing.

Ultimately, we're going to need to end up with electric cars which are much more efficient, not to mention non-polluting (depending on how the original electricity was generated). Better batteries are required but developments continue apace and I think the range available due to better battery technology in a decade will be surprisingly high. For range anxiety, range-extender engines (such as in the BMW i3) can provide extra distance. Whether these will run on Hydrogen (a bad idea, IMO) or more likely petrol/diesel engines, I don't know. Longer-term, it is quite possible to create synthetic liquid fuels using excess energy from Nuclear power plants which would be carbon-neutral.

The main thing for me would be to spend some money on developing MSRs and other Gen IV nuclear reactors. These could all but solve any waste problems (and it isn't much of a problem - much of the nuclear 'waste' we have stored could be burned in a reactor of the correct design) and provide safe, plentiful energy which could be used for desalination, irrigation and all sorts of stuff to improve farming yields as well as powering more intensive levels of recycling. No reason at all for any scarcity in the future as there is enough thorium and uranium around to power a high-tech civilisation for tens of thousands of years. Heck, you can even extract uranium and thorium from seawater pretty economically if required!

Anyway, off to lunch.

Apologies for the OT for those who weren't interested. Hope you didn't bother reading the post!  

Who's got the paddle of rebuke???

Quoted from Maringer

You'll never get permission to have wind turbines that close to a residential area, IMO. Too noisy. Wind power is very unreliable so fundamentally relies on gas generation back-up at present in any case so won't be particularly 'green' regardless. Until a cost-effective energy storage technology is developed (other than hydro), renewables are only ever going to provide a fraction of our power. Now, if we tried to build the stadium in conjuction with a nuclear power station, I'd be all for that.  

Not close enough to population centres for that to happen, however.

Solar panels are mostly a waste of time in temperate regions. Very, very poor capacity factor. When the governments drop their subsidies further (as they undoubtedly will in due course), you're looking at an expensive installation which will cost a lot on upkeep with little, if any return.

Greenwashing this proposed development won't do anything but add cost and we really need to keep that to a minimum. By all means try and get sponsorship from Siemens or one of the other big wind turbine companies, but don't muck about trying to 'greenify' the development as that will do nothing but add cost.

I'm no expert but surely the solar panels used in this country are not dependant on the temperature, as in temperate zones, but available sunlight. Even if the sun doesn't break through the clouds solar panels do produce some electricity.

Today's Cod Almighty diary echoed a few of my sentiments to moving to a new ground:

http://www.codalmighty.com/site/ca.php?article=5190

Quoted from rancido

I'm no expert but surely the solar panels used in this country are not dependant on the temperature, as in temperate zones, but available sunlight. Even if the sun doesn't break through the clouds solar panels do produce some electricity.

True, but direct sunlight provides a lot more energy than overcast conditions. Just think of the difference you feel when the sun shines on your skin as compared to when it is obscured by clouds - the extra heat is the additional energy hitting you. The difference is night and day. Well, not quite night and day because, obviously, solar panels don't produce anything at night.

Perversely, PV cells actually become less efficient when they get too hot, though this didn't ought to be a problem in the UK!

Not sure of the exact figures, but I seem to recall that overcast conditions reduce the efficiency of solar cells by up to 50%. When you consider that most cheap cells in use are only 15 to 20% efficient in the first place, this shows you aren't getting too much power from them. The general capacity factor across the country for the UK averages out at less than 10% of the installation's rated power. See [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor#United_Kingdom]this link[/url] for figures.

Another thing to consider is that more energy is required during the winter months (for heating) when daylight hours are much shorter, not to mention in the evenings so this means solar cells produce even less electricity when it is most needed. Nothing wrong with solar in sunny areas, but in the UK, it isn't great.

Paddle away, Woz. Paddle away.  

I'll finish with OT posts in this thread now.

Quoted from psgmariner

Today's Cod Almighty diary echoed a few of my sentiments to moving to a new ground:

http://www.codalmighty.com/site/ca.php?article=5190

"So are we sleepwalking into giving up our beautiful, haunted, wooden one-off, with its panoramic view of the Humber and adjacent world-beating fish and chips, all held together by barnacles and our grandads’ spoggy, for ten-rows-all-round of sterile plastic sensory deprivation experiment with a view of three low sheds and a horsefield through a gap in the corner?"

This is my concern too.
I accept we may NEED to move for extra revenue streams.
Just in an ideal world (being a 'stegosaurus' too), I'd prefer not to.

Guess it won't be nearly as bad as we may imagine it to be though.
Who knows, we may even be able to get down the stairs a lot faster at H/T.

I'd love a new ground, a modern stadia to be proud of, somewhere GTFC can shine and be a figurehead in ours and the local communities future, to be fair I'm not too sure if what we end up with will be that. It would be hard to go to the last game at Blundell Park with its history and memories, but, a lot harder to go to a brand new but poorly thought out, poorly designed and souless "just like any other" rushed stadium.

it may end up as many things to all people, but rushed?

You're having a laugh, it's been nearly twenty years now & still counting!!

There's no reason for any new ground to be soulless or dull.  There are plenty of excellent designs and ideas out there for small-scale football grounds.  Look at some of the things being built in Germany or MLS in America.  Even the identikit grounds can be customised relatively easily.  There are trends towards the incorporation of old-style features into new stadia and I also believe that it is the intention to have safe standing in the new ground, so a new ground would mean we can watch Town at home from the terraces for the first time in 25 years.  

For now, all these points are moot.  The ground needs the go-ahead, then it's up to the fans and the Trust to canvas, collect and curate suggestions for what we want for our new home.

Quoted from HackneyHaddock

There's no reason for any new ground to be soulless or dull.  There are plenty of excellent designs and ideas out there for small-scale football grounds.  Look at some of the things being built in Germany or MLS in America.  Even the identikit grounds can be customised relatively easily.  There are trends towards the incorporation of old-style features into new stadia and I also believe that it is the intention to have safe standing in the new ground, so a new ground would mean we can watch Town at home from the terraces for the first time in 25 years.  

For now, all these points are moot.  The ground needs the go-ahead, then it's up to the fans and the Trust to canvas, collect and curate suggestions for what we want for our new home.

Talking point Monday morning???  

let's make sure we have the "extra man" on our side and get the acoustics right - reverberate in the home end and deaden the away end. Gamesmanship moreso than cheating.

Nobody wants the soulless identikit box ground. Let's get an iconic structure for the area. Get the people talking and the myth, spectre and sobriety of what it is to be a grimsby town fan. Up our game on every level....on and off the park.

If you build it, they will come