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Post by stonerose on Sept 30, 2020 11:39:22 GMT
We may also see an attendance boom when normal times return. That's speculation, but it's worth keeping an eye on to measure how big our potential is. As heartless as it sounds, the demise of Macc may also mean our sphere of influence in a southerly direction gets a little larger than it would otherwise have been. I'm not sure what our boundary is for community activity but we should definitely be looking to go beyond Poynton to capture the next generation of fans.
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Post by bristolhatter on Sept 30, 2020 11:54:54 GMT
the way EP is currently designed where apart from the pop everyone comes in and goes out onto hardcastle road it would be pointless extending the main. its not as if other areas could be used. at the moment we can get just over 10,000 in. the question must be how large should EP be. i,m sure if some on here had there way we could end up with another reynolds arena. That would inevitably have to be part of the redevelopment plan - access points round the back of the Railway End and the Pop Side. Would probably have to involve a redesign of the entry points to the Cheadle End too. All achievable I think. The question of how big it needs to be is a good one. I don't think it'd be outlandish to make c.11,000 to c.15-16,000. It'd give us scope for growth without being too ridiculous. Worth remembering that in normal times, our crowds now in the National League are healthier than the end of our Football League days, and I'm sure that if we rise up the leagues, that will grow. Lincoln City were getting smaller attendances than us 6-7 years ago, and until the pause, they were routinely getting 9,000. We may also see an attendance boom when normal times return. That's speculation, but it's worth keeping an eye on to measure how big our potential is. As heartless as it sounds, the demise of Macc may also mean our sphere of influence in a southerly direction gets a little larger than it would otherwise have been.
I definitely think that when (if) this pandemic is 'over' people will re-evaluate their habits/preferences. I do enjoy watching some of the big games on tele and those from the football league but feel very overwhelmed by the volume of games each day and depressed at the seeing the empty stadiums. I think some will appreciate the opportunity to see live football again and our attendances may increase. Putting my Ryan McKn*ght hat on and thinking of the 'product', this will also depend on the quality of football and experience on offer. I don't think anyone could blame any casual football fan who turned up between say 2010 and 2018, and thought never again! The club was a mess, with awful footballers coming and going on a weekly basis with crap facilities.
However a quality footballing side playing attractive football in a decent stadium will always attract casuals. If we can improve the stadium in terms of sightlines, catering and facilities, we already have the location/pubs/parking/chippys to be considered a good afternoon socialising. Hopefully these people will get the bug, fall in love with the club and return but we have to be realistic that the casual fan has other leisure activities they could spend their money/free time on and we need to market ourselves properly going forward. Fortunately, I think the current owner and employees share this vision and are prepared to invest to achieve results.
As an aside, I've been very impressed with Lancashire CCC's redevelopment of Old Trafford from a sustainability/profit perspective. They realised that the only need large capacity for a few games a season and the key to revenue is 365 days of income, not just the cricket season. Therefore although unsightly, they have a large temporary stand each year for these few games. Other times the space is left vacant for a stage to be erected for concerts and parking for Man United games. They also have a large hotel and conference facility that provides significant revenue. It's important that any development work at EP focuses on increasing revenue on non match days, again something I think our owners will be considering
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Post by suedehead on Sept 30, 2020 11:57:34 GMT
We may also see an attendance boom when normal times return. That's speculation, but it's worth keeping an eye on to measure how big our potential is. As heartless as it sounds, the demise of Macc may also mean our sphere of influence in a southerly direction gets a little larger than it would otherwise have been. I'm not sure what our boundary is for community activity but we should definitely be looking to go beyond Poynton to capture the next generation of fans. Didn’t City tell us to know our place with regards to community work a while back? Basically, you can have these areas (specific parts of Stockport) but if you try and do anything beyond that we’ll come and blow you out of the water with free tickets, shirts, top players in schools etc. Think this was probably ten years ago, if not more. Sounds like the kind of shite they’d pull, especially when they first came into money.
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Post by stonerose on Sept 30, 2020 12:18:00 GMT
Balls to them.
Any school or community organisation within our own borough should be ours to approach, the Heatons and Reddish are in our town and we should be actively working in these areas regardless of the proximity to the Etihad.
Free tickets will be a pull for some but they'll never have the interaction that the kids get from the manager and players at our club, that goes a long way more so than a once season ticket to a game in the 3rd Round of the League Cup.
Somebody has used Lincoln as an example of a club with massively increased crowds, with all the good work going on at the club and the efforts to modernise the ground there's no reason why we shouldn't be getting regular gates of 7/8K when we finally return to the Football League. The kids in these areas from the edge and North of the town will be part of that. Target them actively now while we are on the up.
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Post by BWScarf on Sept 30, 2020 12:29:58 GMT
Balls to them. Any school or community organisation within our own borough should be ours to approach, the Heatons and Reddish are in our town and we should be actively working in these areas regardless of the proximity to the Etihad. Free tickets will be a pull for some but they'll never have the interaction that the kids get from the manager and players at our club, that goes a long way more so than a once season ticket to a game in the 3rd Round of the League Cup. Somebody has used Lincoln as an example of a club with massively increased crowds, with all the good work going on at the club and the efforts to modernise the ground there's no reason why we shouldn't be getting regular gates of 7/8K when we finally return to the Football League. The kids in these areas from the edge and North of the town will be part of that. Target them actively now while we are on the up. Yep. I think a particularly rich seam for us can be to the south and east of the town too - High Peak, Marple, High Lane, Poynton etc.
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Post by Henry Pratt on Sept 30, 2020 12:46:28 GMT
As an aside, I've been very impressed with Lancashire CCC's redevelopment of Old Trafford from a sustainability/profit perspective. They realised that the only need large capacity for a few games a season and the key to revenue is 365 days of income, not just the cricket season. Therefore although unsightly, they have a large temporary stand each year for these few games. Other times the space is left vacant for a stage to be erected for concerts and parking for Man United games. They also have a large hotel and conference facility that provides significant revenue. It's important that any development work at EP focuses on increasing revenue on non match days, again something I think our owners will be considering
Broadly agree, as long as the aesthetics are considered as well. Old Trafford is by far the ugliest of the current test playing grounds. When you look at the development of all the other traditional test grounds - Headingley, the Oval, Trent Bridge, Lords - they're light years ahead of Old Trafford, which is awful.
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Post by DaveLong79 on Sept 30, 2020 13:03:40 GMT
The challenge in doing that would be around where you would put turnstiles, if you put them under the extended stand then you’d lose the space for additional amenities. Not really! The entry and exits for a redeveloped Railway end (and obviously the Pop side too) don't need to be on Hardcastle Road... it would surely make more sense to put them behind the Railway end? And like I said, you'd be surprised just how much space is taken up by the relatively modern buildings on the Main stand side... which on on account of their design actually block views of the pitch towards the Cheadle end of the stand. These buildings are poorly designed and inappropriate and should go! On the subject of exit from the RE/Vernon, I've no idea who owns the passageway at the back, the steps leading to the RE/Vernon corner are still there. I guess that would be used again when any potential redevelopment is carried out. 8.4.3
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Post by Imposter on Sept 30, 2020 13:09:10 GMT
Balls to them. Any school or community organisation within our own borough should be ours to approach, the Heatons and Reddish are in our town and we should be actively working in these areas regardless of the proximity to the Etihad. Free tickets will be a pull for some but they'll never have the interaction that the kids get from the manager and players at our club, that goes a long way more so than a once season ticket to a game in the 3rd Round of the League Cup. Somebody has used Lincoln as an example of a club with massively increased crowds, with all the good work going on at the club and the efforts to modernise the ground there's no reason why we shouldn't be getting regular gates of 7/8K when we finally return to the Football League. The kids in these areas from the edge and North of the town will be part of that. Target them actively now while we are on the up. Yep. I think a particularly rich seam for us can be to the south and east of the town too - High Peak, Marple, High Lane, Poynton etc. Essentially what I call Greater Stockport - Stockport all of it. Tameside, particularly the more southern and populated parts. South Manchester - Burnage, Didsbury, Wythenshawe etc... High Peak including as far as Buxton and New Mills. North/Northeast Cheshire, including Poynton, Macclesfield, Disley, Prestbury, Wilmslow, Alderley Edge etc... An area with a total population around the 750k mark.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 30, 2020 13:09:15 GMT
I'm not sure what our boundary is for community activity but we should definitely be looking to go beyond Poynton to capture the next generation of fans. Didn’t City tell us to know our place with regards to community work a while back? Basically, you can have these areas (specific parts of Stockport) but if you try and do anything beyond that we’ll come and blow you out of the water with free tickets, shirts, top players in schools etc. Think this was probably ten years ago, if not more. Sounds like the kind of shite they’d pull, especially when they first came into money. And look where it got them? They still can't fill their ground. They're still doing it now though, having their new kit shoot in Stockport modelled by a Stockport band. It's absolutely pathetic, but I wouldn't expect any less from them.
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Post by desmond on Sept 30, 2020 13:23:16 GMT
The challenge in doing that would be around where you would put turnstiles, if you put them under the extended stand then you’d lose the space for additional amenities. Not really! The entry and exits for a redeveloped Railway end (and obviously the Pop side too) don't need to be on Hardcastle Road... it would surely make more sense to put them behind the Railway end? And like I said, you'd be surprised just how much space is taken up by the relatively modern buildings on the Main stand side... which on on account of their design actually block views of the pitch towards the Cheadle end of the stand. These buildings are poorly designed and inappropriate and should go! I’m well aware of the space the more modern elements in that area take up, but at both ends of the stand the buildings include toilets and catering facilities underneath them. So if those were demolished those facilities along with some sort of turnstile/entrance system would have to be created. So you could probably increase the capacity of the stand but I wouldn’t expect it to create much more incremental space for additional facilities. Having said that a redeveloped RE or Pop Side would offer quite a few options for that.
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Post by edinburghhatter on Sept 30, 2020 14:31:00 GMT
Not really! The entry and exits for a redeveloped Railway end (and obviously the Pop side too) don't need to be on Hardcastle Road... it would surely make more sense to put them behind the Railway end? And like I said, you'd be surprised just how much space is taken up by the relatively modern buildings on the Main stand side... which on on account of their design actually block views of the pitch towards the Cheadle end of the stand. These buildings are poorly designed and inappropriate and should go! I’m well aware of the space the more modern elements in that area take up, but at both ends of the stand the buildings include toilets and catering facilities underneath them. So if those were demolished those facilities along with some sort of turnstile/entrance system would have to be created. So you could probably increase the capacity of the stand but I wouldn’t expect it to create much more incremental space for additional facilities. Having said that a redeveloped RE or Pop Side would offer quite a few options for that. Indeed. You'd clearly need to replace toilet and refreshment facilities as part of an extended Main stand... but do it as part of a well thought out extension at each end. Th big difference of course would be that the new toilet and refreshment facilities would also have up to 1000 or so seats and a roof on top, and no obstructed views. I suspect you'd also not need quite as many turnstiles or exits, since the Railway end would surely have its own, behind it? Also, if the changing rooms, etc were moved to the Railway end there'd be huge potential for opening up more space under the current Main stand itself.
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Post by Durango95 on Sept 30, 2020 15:15:36 GMT
Not really! The entry and exits for a redeveloped Railway end (and obviously the Pop side too) don't need to be on Hardcastle Road... it would surely make more sense to put them behind the Railway end? And like I said, you'd be surprised just how much space is taken up by the relatively modern buildings on the Main stand side... which on on account of their design actually block views of the pitch towards the Cheadle end of the stand. These buildings are poorly designed and inappropriate and should go! On the subject of exit from the RE/Vernon, I've no idea who owns the passageway at the back, the steps leading to the RE/Vernon corner are still there. I guess that would be used again when any potential redevelopment is carried out. 8.4.3 It’s still there and not affected by the new building work going on. It’s a public access path and there’s two gates to go out the ground and two lower down the steps that are still ready to use. Going off one of the recent pictures there’s new wood/fencing at that exit area too. And where the old floodlights used to be.
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Post by Bredburyhatter on Sept 30, 2020 21:08:38 GMT
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Post by vicar on Oct 1, 2020 6:34:13 GMT
They've probably switched their attention to Bury and and Macc now.
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Post by timberwolf on Oct 1, 2020 8:08:24 GMT
And look where it got them? They still can't fill their ground. They're still doing it now though, having their new kit shoot in Stockport modelled by a Stockport band. It's absolutely pathetic, but I wouldn't expect any less from them. could you actually see leeds united doing the same in bradford or middlesbrough doing it in hartlepool. its more than pathetic its a clear insult to a town with another club and decent fan base. AFC Classless of Manchester would be a better name for em.
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