Pack The Park

Quoted from lukeo

Looking online clearly our ground isn't too small. Lots and lots of seats still available in the osmond stand. A shame as I'd hoped we'd virtually sell out the home end for DAs first game in charge

The problem is our league position suggests to the floating fan were poor and Crewe not really mouth watering opposition so close to Xmas.  The rest of us are committed already with good seats. Town get a good win and you can stick 1k home fans on the next home game vs I think Harrogate.

Looking ahead I can tell you the Upper is in need of some remedial work.
Because of the need for extensive scaffolding the bill is circa 750k.

Two weekends to go before Xmas is never a good barometer of crowd appetite in normal times, never mind when we're still in a cost of living crisis.

I'm incredibly enthused by what I've seen in the two performances under Artell and then what I've heard from the man himself.  I'm looking forward to tomorrow more than I have done for a long time to watch Town.  I suspect I'm not alone in that either.  But, for my sins, I was always going to be there.

The casual fan probably didn't watch/hear the MK Dons and Oxford games nor have they poured over everything they can find on Artell and how we'll be approaching games.  To them we've appointed someone who was a lower league centre-back and has then spent five seasons managing an equally as unglamourous lower league side as us.   Since he's come in we've drawn a game and lost a game.

If you're ever so slightly on the outside and looking in, you're not going to be frothing at the mouth....yet.

Give it time.  Good and entertaining football will get people really talking.  Hopefully the results will pick up too and that'll sharp object more ears.  I'm genuinely excited to see just how much appetite the area has for its own football team.  We've had a consistently fantastic following for the last two-and-a-half years now.  Really only six, maybe seven of those months were 'good' to watch, be it through entertainment or through results and even that in the fifth tier.  Just imagine what it would be like if we're consistently winning and consistently entertaining, at a level that a couple of generations haven't seen us seriously compete at!

Quoted from diehardmariner

Two weekends to go before Xmas is never a good barometer of crowd appetite in normal times, never mind when we're still in a cost of living crisis.

I'm incredibly enthused by what I've seen in the two performances under Artell and then what I've heard from the man himself.  I'm looking forward to tomorrow more than I have done for a long time to watch Town.  I suspect I'm not alone in that either.  But, for my sins, I was always going to be there.

The casual fan probably didn't watch/hear the MK Dons and Oxford games nor have they poured over everything they can find on Artell and how we'll be approaching games.  To them we've appointed someone who was a lower league centre-back and has then spent five seasons managing an equally as unglamourous lower league side as us.   Since he's come in we've drawn a game and lost a game.

If you're ever so slightly on the outside and looking in, you're not going to be frothing at the mouth....yet.

Give it time.  Good and entertaining football will get people really talking.  Hopefully the results will pick up too and that'll sharp object more ears.  I'm genuinely excited to see just how much appetite the area has for its own football team.  We've had a consistently fantastic following for the last two-and-a-half years now.  Really only six, maybe seven of those months were 'good' to watch, be it through entertainment or through results and even that in the fifth tier.  Just imagine what it would be like if we're consistently winning and consistently entertaining, at a level that a couple of generations haven't seen us seriously compete at!

Now there is a post to whet the appetite.

It's not as easy as it once was to "get on a roll" but often the start is the most difficult  bit.

The new manager does remind me of Buckley; he has an ethos and way of playing and is quite straight talking. I suspect he won't suffer fools gladly either.

Obviously the proof of the pudding is in the eating, but hopefully by the end of this season we will have a way of playing that is good to watch and successful.

Very disappointing to hear that maybe £750K needed to maintain the upper wotsits name stand.  Or anything like this cost.  This is a much newer stand compared to the other stands.  

Where did this information and costs  originate from please?

Equally disappointing that it would probably have saved some of this money if the previous owners had carried out preventative maintenance over time.  (And in the Main stand).

Someone will say “when did fixing a stand get you 3 points on a Saturday?”.   True.

However, health and safety and legislation at football grounds has come a long way since Hillsborough, Heysel and Bradford to improve safety for fans.  You can’t take shortcuts if money has to be spent.

Quoted from lukeo

Looking online clearly our ground isn't too small. Lots and lots of seats still available in the osmond stand. A shame as I'd hoped we'd virtually sell out the home end for DAs first game in charge

Determining long term infrastructure needs based on one wet Saturday in December sounds like a plan

If it’s true that the findus needs £750k of work, John Fenty needs dragging back here and shaking upside down until the money falls out to cover it. That’d be £750k on top of, what, £350k for the main stand, a new roof on the pontoon and another 6 figures on structural works in the Osmond? Plus hundreds of thousands in improvements at Cheapside. These problems don’t just crop up in a year or two.

Makes you wonder how we ever managed to be so bad on the field when we seemingly never spent a penny anywhere else (other than pension contributions to a certain board member).

Stockwood & Petit are clearly better people than me as I’d never stop hammering the bloke in public. Utter rat.

Quoted from ska face

If it’s true that the findus needs £750k of work, John Fenty needs dragging back here and shaking upside down until the money falls out to cover it. That’d be £750k on top of, what, £350k for the main stand, a new roof on the pontoon and another 6 figures on structural works in the Osmond? Plus hundreds of thousands in improvements at Cheapside. These problems don’t just crop up in a year or two.

Makes you wonder how we ever managed to be so bad on the field when we seemingly never spent a penny anywhere else (other than pension contributions to a certain board member).

Stockwood & Petit are clearly better people than me as I’d never stop hammering the bloke in public. Utter rat.

There's 201 mil available on the Euro lottery tonight, just saying!

Quoted from ska face

If it’s true that the findus needs £750k of work, John Fenty needs dragging back here and shaking upside down until the money falls out to cover it. That’d be £750k on top of, what, £350k for the main stand, a new roof on the pontoon and another 6 figures on structural works in the Osmond? Plus hundreds of thousands in improvements at Cheapside. These problems don’t just crop up in a year or two.

Makes you wonder how we ever managed to be so bad on the field when we seemingly never spent a penny anywhere else (other than pension contributions to a certain board member).

Stockwood & Petit are clearly better people than me as I’d never stop hammering the bloke in public. Utter rat.

Seriously makes you wonder how we’ve managed to renew safety certificates all these years.

Inspector: So, John, I’m afraid we’ve noticed some significant rot in several of the supporting beams holding up the roof of your Main Stand here. If this isn’t addressed immediately, I’m afraid we could be looking at a simply catastrophic outcome. But don’t be too disheartened, I estimate the necessary remedial works will cost no more than three hundred thousand pounds.

JF: Three hundred thousand pounds!!? Oh wait, look, a ghost! <points to Phil Day wafting around in a white sheet with holes for eyes in the centre circle>


Inspector: A ghost??

JF: Why yes, didn’t I tell you? Blundell Park was built on top of an ancient Indian burial ground.

Inspector: An ancient Indian burial ground!? In Cleethorpes?

JF: Er…yes. We must have you evacuated immediately.

Inspector: But all my notes and papers are in your office!?

JF: Oh, don’t worry about any of that, I’ll write up your report for you and file it to the authorities on your behalf. Oh look, your taxi’s here. Hop in!

Inspector: But I didn’t order a taxi? I drove here myself.

JF: I said… “hop..in”!!


JF & Phil <writing up the report>:

"No problem with the safety in this stadium. Don't check for another three.....hundred years.

"Nice people, especially the bloke with the turtle neck jumper and leather jacket…who wasn't holding a gun.”

It's becoming clearer by the week how much £££££ is going to be needed just to maintain BP let alone improve it ; is it actually financially viable to stay there?  - if this 750k is true (which I do believe is the case) + 350k for the main stand , other bits and pieces you are probably looking at 1.5mill down the drain already since the current custodians began their tenure .

You can imagine the handover

JF 'she's in great shape just needs a few touch ups and modernising of the ladies changing room '

Then a couple of years later the lads have done 1.5million down a rabbit hole only to be asked 'where's the cup money gone ?'

Is BP nearing being impossible to keep open ?