The big stadium capacity question.

[oafc0000]

Read it again. I've put hopefully or did you miss that in your rush to call me a mug? Also if the Criminals sorry, Council stand to get any money into their coffers do you think they'll do anything?

 

Feel sorry for you. You must wake up in the morning and feel truly powerless in this world.

 

I suppose you stayed in bed the morning of the march for the Oldham Arena.

[Corporal_Jones]

I agree.

That is my pooint also.

I think 12,000 is more than adequate for a reasonable time frame in the Championship.

Depsite it being unfortautne,, that is the truth and the economics of it.

I have been trying to find the attendances from 1976-1991

I am sure that 12,00 would hav been fine a lot of that time

 

 

 

 

Another example of how short-sighted those who argue for only 12000 seats are being is in looking at past attendances, which are, of course, relevant but also subject to events both within and outside football during the period you're looking at, as well as what was going on at the particular club under focus.

 

The other thing is, that there are clubs around who are watched by more people on average now than they were beyween 1976-91 (or whenever). This is because they have expanded their fanbase. It's what Latics should have done when we were flying high.

 

A 12000 capacity stadium shows no real ambition to significantly expand the fanbase, especially when you consider that we have been able to attract more than 12000 to BP on numerous occasions even during the last dire fifteen years.

[Corporal_Jones]

Butt out Corp.

 

I replied to Stitch on a specific point he made about me that was incorrect.

 

It was not directed at you or anyone else for that matter.

 

Anyway, on that point I think I will retire from this board.

 

Cheerio

 

And to all Tics out there, KEEP THE FAITH.

 

Cheers and Goodbye,

 

 

 

Harry

 

 

 

 

Who is 'Harry the runner' to decide who should and shouldn't 'butt out' of a debate on here?

[footy68]

Feel sorry for you. You must wake up in the morning and feel truly powerless in this world.

 

I suppose you stayed in bed the morning of the march for the Oldham Arena.

 

You're right, I do feel powerless....

 

As for the march, I was up bright and early.....earning shiny pennies to put in to the club.

 

I suppose you feel all powerful and wonderful with your ability to put somebody down on a message board......fancy a pint?

[oafc0000]

You're right, I do feel powerless....

 

As for the march, I was up bright and early.....earning shiny pennies to put in to the club.

 

I suppose you feel all powerful and wonderful with your ability to put somebody down on a message board......fancy a pint?

 

 

Sometimes the truth hurts. If your "put down" then use it positively and realise you do have the power to change things and don't be a lemming for the "man".

 

I will pass on the pint though cheers.

[footy68]

Thanks for the advice, I'll take it on board.

[BP1960]

I may be wrong, but its rare if Latics have filled the present ground to it's actual capacity.

This is because away support allocation has to be taken into account and often seats are left vacant for policing or health & safety reasons.

In other words the 12,000 capacity may have to be reduced depending on who Latics play.

[martjs]

I have two questions:

1) Why are members "leaving" the message board because of this debate? (I can think of at least two who have threatened to do so)

2) Why are threads on this subject being closed and discussions discouraged? (Surely debate should be encouraged on here especially as the club benefits financially from it.)

 

Cheers.

 

 

Edited for typos.

Edited July 30, 2009 by martjs

[Corporal_Jones]

To what extent will the rise of City have been taken into account in the club's resignation to never playing in front of more than 12000 again?

Edited July 30, 2009 by Corporal_Jones

[Lags]

You cannot dispute we have downscaled our plans. The figure's are in the open domain. We marched against the council and subsequently overturned their ruling against a 16,000 seater stadium. Now we propose to build a 12,000 seater stadium. That is downsizing in anyones book. Not so long ago even after going all seater we had more than 12,000 seats at BP, so again even against that we are downsizing. The original plans had provision for an imposing main stand whereas now we site Colchester as a comparison to what we hope to build. Without any commitment nor real mention to expand the ground at a later point and let's not kid ourselves this will happen.....it won't. Not in this boards lifetime and probably never ever.

 

I've voted that if expansion was promised it's fine to go 12,000 now although it goes against my better judgement it will never happen. Also to build this 12,000 we defo will get a Colchester style stadium and that's exactly what I don't want for a whole host of reasons. Reasons ranging from they look s**t to it smacks of a club with no ambition to us the fans, the current players and the future one's we all hope to draw to the club. This is our one and only chance for decade uopn decade to get this right and a ground that not only looks to have the vision to go forward but actually wants to go forward. This club missed a great chance just short of 20 years ago to now be a fixed asset in the elite league through small mentallity, lets not repeat that again with this chance. Maybe last chance.

[Corporal_Jones]

You cannot dispute we have downscaled our plans. The figure's are in the open domain. We marched against the council and subsequently overturned their ruling against a 16,000 seater stadium. Now we propose to build a 12,000 seater stadium. That is downsizing in anyones book. Not so long ago even after going all seater we had more than 12,000 seats at BP, so again even against that we are downsizing. The original plans had provision for an imposing main stand whereas now we site Colchester as a comparison to what we hope to build. Without any commitment nor real mention to expand the ground at a later point and let's not kid ourselves this will happen.....it won't. Not in this boards lifetime and probably never ever.

 

I've voted that if expansion was promised it's fine to go 12,000 now although it goes against my better judgement it will never happen. Also to build this 12,000 we defo will get a Colchester style stadium and that's exactly what I don't want for a whole host of reasons. Reasons ranging from they look s**t to it smacks of a club with no ambition to us the fans, the current players and the future one's we all hope to draw to the club. This is our one and only chance for decade uopn decade to get this right and a ground that not only looks to have the vision to go forward but actually wants to go forward. This club missed a great chance just short of 20 years ago to now be a fixed asset in the elite league through small mentallity, lets not repeat that again with this chance. Maybe last chance.

 

 

 

Colchester's stadium is fine...for Colchester: a town less than half the size of Oldham with a club that came into the Football League late and has, of late, been punching above its weight, as they say. Their recent times have been, for them, like our own PL days: as good as it gets. Before that they were probably one of the six or so smallest clubs in the entire FL. I liked Layer Road; it was like stepping into the past, and therefore a novelty. But they needed to come into the 21st century desperately. Good luck to them. They are still at the height of their achievement.

 

We should not, however, be placing this club alongside them, despite our respective league positions, and despite all the disasters Latics have endured over the past fifteen years.

[Corporal_Jones]

The original plans had provision for an imposing main stand whereas now we site Colchester as a comparison to what we hope to build.

 

 

 

There isn't much room for an imposing main stand in a 12000 capacity development. If we went ahead and built a 5000 seater stand like the one at BP was meant to be, think how the others stands, with 7000 seats between three sides of the ground, would look.

 

Nothing as imposing and impressive as the main stand at BP was going to be is likely to emerge should this latest proposal reach the planning stages.

 

A little lower division club doesn't need imposing main stands, however.

[Corporal_Jones]

Reasons ranging from they look s**t to it smacks of a club with no ambition to us the fans, the current players and the future one's we all hope to draw to the club.

 

 

 

And yet another good point. Why would players with the ability to establish us in the Championship want to come to a club that looks like it's content to survive in the third division, and which regards an occasional eleven thousand or twelve thousand gate as the height of its ambitions?

 

[BP1960]

Greater Manchester footballing towns populations (at last count as far as I can establish).

Bolton 267,600

Bury 183,000

Oldham 218,100

Rochdale 224,300

Stockport 291,100

Wigan 312,000

 

Stockport and Rochdale have a larger populations than Oldham, do they need larger than 12,000 seater stadiums ?

Edited July 30, 2009 by BP1960

[leeslover]

Season tickets sales for the next season are double the normal.... Would everybody still be happy at a 12,000 capacity?

Forget the rest. If the bit in bold happens in the next three years, I'll suck your cock. That's not pessimism, nor optimism on the cock front before my detractors start spreading false rumour, but that would be around what we might get as a total home gate in the Championship including on the day payers. I am bewildered why a capacity that most admit we would rarely get in the Championship is not big enough for the here and now. If we got into the Premiership I guess we would have to build enough in case we got into the Champions League and drew Celtic or Madrid on a day when Jimmy Johnstone or Puskas made a one-off comeback from beyond the grave and attracted a record crowd.

[BP1960]

And yet another good point. Why would players with the ability to establish us in the Championship want to come to a club that looks like it's content to survive in the third division, and which regards an occasional eleven thousand or twelve thousand gate as the height of its ambitions?

 

Players with the ability to establish themselves in the Championship and Premiership can be found at a lower level than Latics.

It's all down to scouting and finding them.

[Corporal_Jones]

Greater Manchester footballing towns populations (at last count as far as I can establish).

Bolton 267,600

Bury 183,000

Oldham 218,100

Rochdale 224,300

Stockport 291,100

Wigan 312,000

 

Stockport and Rochdale have a larger populations than Oldham, do they need larger than 12,000 seater stadiums ?

 

 

 

No-it isn't primarily about population, although it's a factor, but about the type of club you're talking about. Latics, poorly supported as we might be, have traditionally attracted considerably bigger average attendances than either Stockport or Rochdale.

[Corporal_Jones]

Forget the rest. If the bit in bold happens in the next three years, I'll suck your cock. That's not pessimism, nor optimism on the cock front before my detractors start spreading false rumour, but that would be around what we might get as a total home gate in the Championship including on the day payers. I am bewildered why a capacity that most admit we would rarely get in the Championship is not big enough for the here and now. If we got into the Premiership I guess we would have to build enough in case we got into the Champions League and drew Celtic or Madrid on a day when Jimmy Johnstone or Puskas made a one-off comeback from beyond the grave and attracted a record crowd.

 

 

 

As already said, the issue of ground capapcity isn't about assuming that a club will always get poor crowds, but about the aim of building your fanbase through success on the pitch. Latics expanded the club's fanbase in the late eighties and early nineties only to lose much of it again.

 

The new proposed stadium's capacity is all about accepting that it has gone forever and that this is as good as it will ever be: 5-6000 in a little stadium, with the prospect of an occasional 10-11000 if we get lucky.

 

Personally, I suspect crowds will dwindle to rather less than 5000 once the realisation that the aim is to be no more than a well-run lower division outfit sinks in.

Edited July 30, 2009 by Corporal_Jones

[Corporal_Jones]

Players with the ability to establish themselves in the Championship and Premiership can be found at a lower level than Latics.

It's all down to scouting and finding them.

 

 

 

Still doesn't answer the question of why they should come to a little club, with a little stadium and a perceived limited ambition when, if they have the ability to play at a higher level, bigger clubs with a better scouting system will surely be sniffing around them too.

 

[leeslover]

As already said, the issue of ground capapcity isn't about assuming that a club will always get poor crowds, but about the aim of building your fanbase through success on the pitch. Latics expanded the club's fanbase in the late eighties and early nineties only to lose much of it again.

Until these point are answered very specifically, and in reference to the crowds we might get in the Championship, I will debate this particular point with you no more Corp. Given that we didn't sell out hardly ever in the Premiership, supposing at the time we got promoted, if we had had a bigger ground do you think we would have got either:

 

1) Bigger crowds

 

2) More points

 

 

Because we'd without the slightest shadow of a doubt done it on the pitch. The whole country loved us and our brand of football, and I can say that as someone who has lived around a fair bit and knows what people remember when they hear the word.

 

NB This is NOT to say that we shouldn't have progressed from there or that many bad decisions weren't made. But specifically whether if we had hadsay 300 or 5000 seats spare at that moment it would have been better spent than say, signing better players.

 

 

[Corporal_Jones]

Until these point are answered very specifically, and in reference to the crowds we might get in the Championship, I will debate this particular point with you no more Corp. Given that we didn't sell out hardly ever in the Premiership, supposing at the time we got promoted, if we had had a bigger ground do you think we would have got either:

 

1) Bigger crowds

 

2) More points

 

 

Because we'd without the slightest shadow of a doubt done it on the pitch. The whole country loved us and our brand of football, and I can say that as someone who has lived around a fair bit and knows what people remember when they hear the word.

 

NB This is NOT to say that we shouldn't have progressed from there or that many bad decisions weren't made. But specifically whether if we had hadsay 300 or 5000 seats spare at that moment it would have been better spent than say, signing better players.

 

 

 

This post isn't entirely coherent, if you don't mind me saying so.

 

And of what I do understand of it, I don't see the point your making when you're speaking of years when we attracted considerably more than 12000 to almost every game.

Edited July 30, 2009 by Corporal_Jones

[leeslover]

This post isn't entirely coherent, if you don't mind me saying so.

 

And of what I do understand of it, I don't see the point your making when you're speaking of years when we attracted considerably more than 12000 to almost every game.

I was drunk

 

If we had built more seats in, say, our Championship winning year, would we have got either more points or more supporters in the Premiership?

[NIKI1234]

FAO Corp! Out of Interest will you be attending the open evening to discuss your views with those that matter?

Edited July 31, 2009 by NIKI1234

[BP1960]

Still doesn't answer the question of why they should come to a little club, with a little stadium and a perceived limited ambition when, if they have the ability to play at a higher level, bigger clubs with a better scouting system will surely be sniffing around them too

 

I can tell you with authority big clubs often miss out on talent from the lower leagues.

Fitz Hall (where were the big clubs scouting systems when he was in langusihing in non league) is among a multitude of others.

To an aspiring young player in Div 2 or in non league Latics could be seen as a good stepping stone.

 

[Corporal_Jones]

I was drunk

 

If we had built more seats in, say, our Championship winning year, would we have got either more points or more supporters in the Premiership?

 

 

 

No. The ground held around 20,000 at the time, if I remember correctly, so they weren't needed. However, we had more than doubled our average gate from what we were getting a short time earlier, to almost 13000, and in the following season managed to average even more (around 15000?) Plus, didn't we have a number of 18-19000 crowds in both league and, especially, in the cup runs?

 

With a 12000 capacity stadium has the club decided that this can never be done again?