NEW STADIUM

Quoted from SteffiMariner

So why are people wanting a 14,000 seater stadium then?

Well only eighteen months ago 14000 wanted to watch Town play a game and the year before a couple of thousand more than that dragged their asses on a 360 mile trip. There is interest in the club out there,

There is no doubt in my mind that at least 6k season tickets will be sold first season at the new stadium, add 2-3k floating and away fans, we'll be around 9-10k. The extra capacity for derbies and cup games will bring in extra income without extra cost. It's amazing how many Town fans come out of the woodwork when there's a hint of success or something to be proud of.

What capacity do you suggest then? 5k? 6k? That'll be intimidating like you said you wanted. A stadium with twelve rows of seats all the way round and hardly conducive to create any atmosphere at all. It'll look more like Bradley on steroids..

At 14k everyone is in agreement we won't sell out, you've used the 10k extra figure yourself to try and exaggerate your own argument.

You've rudely called anyone who disagrees with you a moron (and by the looks of it that's everyone), what's your master plan then?

In my mind JF gets quite a few things wrong but the decision to build a 14k stadium is about bang on..

In the Upper the match day experience is terrible, difficult to get into, poor toilets, poor refreshment facilities, arguably dangerous stairs up to the stand when the rain is heavy, pillars and at times apathetic stewarding. Paid £340 for a season ticket and sat on a broken seat for the first 5 games of the season.

Maybe JF and the board ought to take the "customer journey" in each stand for 4 games in a row then maybe things might move quicker.

Quoted from HertsGTFC

In the Upper the match day experience is terrible, difficult to get into, poor toilets, poor refreshment facilities, arguably dangerous stairs up to the stand when the rain is heavy, pillars and at times apathetic stewarding. Paid £340 for a season ticket and sat on a broken seat for the first 5 games of the season.

Maybe JF and the board ought to take the "customer journey" in each stand for 4 games in a row then maybe things might move quicker.

And eat one of those hotdogs instead of fish and chips..

Quoted from SteffiMariner

So why are people wanting a 14,000 seater stadium then?

If you build it, they will come...

It's better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. Plus building from new is way easier and cheaper than retro-fitting.

Quoted from Bigdog

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And eat one of those hot dogs instead of fish and chips..

And join the queue at the toilets at half-time.

Quoted from Bigdog

Well only eighteen months ago 14000 wanted to watch Town play a game and the year before a couple of thousand more than that dragged their asses on a 360 mile trip. There is interest in the club out there,

Trips to Wembley... Any home games where we've needed a 14,000 seater stadium?

There is no doubt in my mind that at least 6k season tickets will be sold first season at the new stadium, add 2-3k floating and away fans, we'll be around 9-10k. The extra capacity for derbies and cup games will bring in extra income without extra cost. It's amazing how many Town fans come out of the woodwork when there's a hint of success or something to be proud of.

You're probably right, we could sell 6K in the first season, you know double the amount that we have sold for the last couple of years. This will be made up predominantly of the current 'floaters' that you mentioned above. I'm unsure how often we get at least 1K away fans, because with not wanting to sound logical, away fans don't generally travel to new stadiums as a rule. The odd one or two do, but not 1,000. Our average away following is probably half that. I would suggest when we get our stadium, we'd probably have 5K season tickets, 2K floaters and  we could leave 1K for away fans. We would then only need 2K extra seats for the bandwaggon jumpers that come to a couple of games a season.

What capacity do you suggest then? 5k? 6k? That'll be intimidating like you said you wanted. A stadium with twelve rows of seats all the way round and hardly conducive to create any atmosphere at all. It'll look more like Bradley on steroids..

I would suggest 10K as a maximum - if you look here http://thefishy.co.uk/story.php?id=8382729 you will see that our average attendance hasn't hit 5 figures for 37 years. In fact, the average over 14K only 10 times since 1925. I would also be surprised if we've sold out more than 10 times in those 37 years

At 14k everyone is in agreement we won't sell out, you've used the 10k extra figure yourself to try and exaggerate your own argument.

As above,  http://thefishy.co.uk/story.php?id=8382729, even our most successful season (98/99) only averaged just under 7K. This is where all those come out of the woodwork to jump on the success band wagon - in a higher division with higher away attendances. 10K is more than sufficient, no exaggeration to inflate my argument.

You've rudely called anyone who disagrees with you a moron (and by the looks of it that's everyone), what's your master plan then?

No, I've called people who think we are going to suddenly get 10,000 extra fans morons. We just aren't that well supported no matter what people may think. We have the odd good day, though it doesn't happen 23 times a season. New stadium would most likely generate average gates of 6-7K at most.

In my mind JF gets quite a few things wrong but the decision to build a 14k stadium is about bang on..

I think 14K is a big mistake as a few seasons in and then we'll be playing in a nice Blundell Park with 9K empty seats (more than the current capacity of Blundell Park).

Quoted from ginnywings

If you build it, they will come...

It's better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. Plus building from new is way easier and cheaper than retro-fitting.

Tell that to Darlington FC...

Quoted from Bigdog

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And eat one of those hotdogs instead of fish and chips..

I lost interest when they stopped serving those chesseburgers.

I agree that there is interest out there. In the pub on a Saturday night I always get asked about the game, how they are doing etc. People might stop going for a variety of reasons, but fans never stop supporting the Town. They just need a reason to start going again, and a new stadium provides that for a while at least. It's then about making sure they keep wanting to go.

Then there's the problem of attracting new players. Just about every team in the league have either moved to a new stadium, or at least tarted up their existing grounds to a reasonable standard. Any potential new player will take one look at Blundell Park and wouldn't fancy playing there and sodomist off to scunny or where ever the next offer comes from. It must be a nightmare getting new players (and managers for that matter!) to sign.

I started following Town in the late fifties. Then we could look down our noses at lesser clubs like scunny, Donny, Rotherham, Rochdale Crewe etc etc. Not anymore, and that is down to our fall from grace, and the lack of investment in keeping up with our facilities. Anyone that watches us on TV must think what a dump, it's like something from the thirties. It's the only time Grimsby features on the telly. And it isn't a good impression.

You only have to look at what the new cinema did for people that wanted to go out and watch a film. They would go to scunny of Hull rather than the flea pit down freemo. Now they go to the new cinema up meggies because it has modern facilities and is a better family experience.

Had their council not built the K.Com Stadium, Hull City might have gone out of business altogether instead of reaching the promised land.

Quoted from SteffiMariner

Tell that to Darlington FC...

Yeah, let's pick out Darlington. Let's not consider all the other teams who have had a boost from a new stadium.