A Thought On Stadium Expansion

the notion that more people are going to start to attend is laughable, the reallity is ticket prices are soaring, the cost of living is soaring, wages are stalling, and yet ALL football clubs keep raising prices.

qpr v bolton, 57 pounds for bolton fans, it will be more for city fans, are these kind of prices in touch with real life, not a chance, clubs are soon going to get a very big shock.
 
Franny Lee's Barrel Chest said:
Now then, it might well be the case that we expand the stadium and I think most people either in the know or who know anything about civil engineering are suggesting that the natural expansion is going to be the two ends into 3 tiers like the East and Colin Bell. I'm sure it will look great if that happens.

However, if that is the plan, I would have thought that it would take some time and that they would have to close part of the ground to accommodate this. If this is the case, what will the capacity be brought down to during that time and will this mean that we have a situation whereby some season ticket holders are unable to renew or even get into the ground owing to the reduced capacity? If that happens this board will surely explode.

It was bad enough when they were kicked out of the family stand....
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I would have thought to build on either end of the ground they'd have to shut down those ends for health and safety reasons , until work is complete ...... and that would also present a problem with housing the visiting fans , or banning them until the ground is safe to accomodate them.

So just opening Colin Bell and East Stands would probably only allow in around 34,000 fans for league games , until such time as the work was complete ..... mind you that's if they shut down both ends at once ..... if they just closed down one end at a time , which is probably more likely , you could maybe add another 6, 000 - 7,000 extra fans on to that estimation.

I suppose it would depend on available contractor manpower , and how quickly the club would want the work completing?
 
lunaazul said:
Our first home game of the season hasn't even sold out even with the prospect of Aguero making his debut so I think we're a long way off filling an expanded stadium. We need a couple of good seasons up at the top of the league/with a good run in the Champions league to build a larger fan base...
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Swansea tickets went on general sale yesterday. Give us a chance.<br /><br />-- Sat Jul 30, 2011 7:38 pm --<br /><br />
fathellensbellend said:
the notion that more people are going to start to attend is laughable, the reallity is ticket prices are soaring, the cost of living is soaring, wages are stalling, and yet ALL football clubs keep raising prices.

qpr v bolton, 57 pounds for bolton fans, it will be more for city fans, are these kind of prices in touch with real life, not a chance, clubs are soon going to get a very big shock.
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QPR is not typical.
 
Survey's have been carried out and it is possible for the expansion of the stadium and obviously alterations to the roof, but the club have no intentions of going ahead with any expansion of any sort due to there not being the demand, ie league games not selling out, all cup competition attendances have been terrible even after some of the cost cutting measures the club have come up with to try and sell these games. The club will only look into any expansion, if and when every home game in all competitions is selling out for at least two years on the trot.
I myself agree with this policy as our attendances leave a lot to be desired, it will be interesting to see if we can sell out our Champions league home fixtures, i think not, there is an awful lot of moaning and slagging off of people on here for not going to games, even for going to games, if you are as big a blue (not directed at the op, i mean everybody) as you make out to be you wont be talking the talk on here or watching a game on the telly you will be doing your utmost to go and watch it at the stadium. Me, i'm more than happy with what turns up to the home cup games cos i'm one of them.
Please, i know this will never happen in my lifetime, but don't ever let me hear people moaning about points, being able to get a ticket, slagging supporters club members because you have heard off a friend of a friend of a friends cousin that they have got a ticket and don't have any points. Tough shit, if you want a ticket you will get yourself a ticket by any means. The ones imo doing the most moaning are the ones that cannot be arsed putting in a bit of work to try and sort themselves out, they just expect someone to do it for them, or cannot be arsed picking up a phone to order one cos you have to pay an extra few quid postage. Feck it going for a beer now.
 
Think the launch of the Metrolink expansion (some people don't like using buses, they're slow) and also improved general public transport may also encourage more blues to go to games.
 
LoveCity said:
Think the launch of the Metrolink expansion (some people don't like using buses, they're slow) and also improved general public transport may also encourage more blues to go to games.
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True ....

but nothing will encourage them more than lower ticket prices , and making it easier to get tickets ..... and both have gone in the wrong direction from what i can see !
 
Wasn't there an open end during the Commonwealth games? what happened with the roof then? I assume it covered the three sides, so that end can surely be removed. I have always thought that it would be good to have a "Kop" style end to create the atmosphere. Disadvantage of this would be an odd shaped ground.
However I agree with others there is no requirement for expansion just yet.
 
This club of ours is going in one direction and that is `UP` .....
Our fan base will go in one direction and that is `UP`.....
Also we have many many lapsed blues that will climb back on board, expand the ground now, we will need it and soon, sure we will struggle for a while in cup games to fill it, but given time and a few cups and who knows perhaps even win the league we Will need that extra capacity....

Bring it on ;))
 
This has been discussed a lot on the Las Vegas thread and I agree withe the 'no expansion until regular sell out' approach. What we need to do is get back to the attendances we had in 2002,2003,2004 where we did do this, even with the poor team we had.

As to what the capacity would be if we shut sections for rebuilding, I do have a spreadsheet somewhere with the accurate capacity of EVERY block, in fact I might have posted it up on the Las Vegas thread if you hunt for it - you can play around closing blocks and adding tiers (to get to 85,000 ;-) ) with it if you can find it . . .
 
bluestu1968 said:
Wasn't there an open end during the Commonwealth games? what happened with the roof then? I assume it covered the three sides, so that end can surely be removed. I have always thought that it would be good to have a "Kop" style end to create the atmosphere. Disadvantage of this would be an odd shaped ground.
However I agree with others there is no requirement for expansion just yet.
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Yep, but they used an elaborate external cable system to tension the 3 roof sections that were there. During the final phase of stadium mods when they were completing the roof they built a series of towers to support the inside edge of these three sides until the whole roof was completed.
 
My view is, and always will be, that we should extend the stadium asap.

Remember when we were at Maine Rd and the plans were first drawn up? We all expected a 60k stadium and were disappointed when we were told it'd be 50k. Then it ended up more like 47k.

Experience at a variety of clubs, most obviously at Arsenal and United, has proved that once there's momentum it all takes off and support rockets.

Old Trafford rarely sold out pre 1994 (apart from when capacity was severly restricted); same with Highbury and even St. James' Park & Roker Park, but their owners showed a bit of vision and built stadia/improved stadia that took their capacity to new heights.

So long as the stadium is enlarged to a plan that allows smaller attendances to be managed (there are ways of closing off third tiers that limit the appearance of empty seats) we should go for an enlargement asap. Build it and they will come.

I know people get hung up on the fact we don't seem to sell out, but improving the stadium and its surrounds will help increase interest as well. There's a PR job to do to encourage people to attend who have perhaps not yet come to the stadium but regularly attended Maine Road.

There's no doubt that Champions League qualification and the FA Cup success has generated interest outside of City's normal support - take a look at all the people who have 'liked' my facebook page and you'll see there are a lot of fans who claim support for City who you would not have expected a few years ago. If that continues, which I'm sure it will, then it's clear the stadium would need to be increased no matter what. Add a hotel and other facilities and the game will become part of a package - some will say that's not what football should be but regardless of that, that's the way the game has been going since the PL was formed.

Increase the stadium now and then work hard to fill it.

In 1922 people thought City's directors were mad when they planned for a 80k stadium - our average was a lot lower than it is today - and yet within 6 months of opening it had attracted 76,166 for a game. It was a one off (though there were other large attendances) but no one had ever envisaged Manchester housing such a crowd (it eclipsed all attendances at OT and was greater than 3 FA Cup finals that had been played in the area).

Build it and they will come.

EDIT: Meant to add - as for enlarging the stadium and its impact on capacity. I am certainly no expert and have no idea on technical issues, but once the balancing issue of the roof is sorted out I reckon it would be possible to keep capacity at a similar level to now by building behind the two ends. There would be safety issues, but I reckon it would be possible to reduce capacity a little - and have an uncovered stand - but build behind and above as they did with the 2nd and 3rd tiers of the Kippax during the 1994-95 season (remember on match days they opened an unroofed 1st tier, then 2nd tier).
 
el bee said:
I'd say the biggest single issue is the roof and how it could be supported safely if a section was removed, this could render the whole ground "a construction site" for the whole period of redevelopment. 12 weeks would be a challenging timescale.
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This is exactly the problem as I have explain previously, in other threads, the roof is a mono structure, each part relies on the other parts. The structure is like a tent supported by a pre-tensioned cablenet system with the shape of the roof contributing to the structural integrety If you look at pictures of the north end during the Commenwealth Games you can see the cable net structure in place. It is extremely doubtful that work could be complete during a close season If the plan was to extend the ends to three tiers I would expect the whole stadium would be closed for a year as the whole roof would need to be replaced the design of the roof would I believe be totally different.

Just seen Gary Jame's idea

EDIT: Meant to add - as for enlarging the stadium and its impact on capacity. I am certainly no expert and have no idea on technical issues, but once the balancing issue of the roof is sorted out I reckon it would be possible to keep capacity at a similar level to now by building behind the two ends. There would be safety issues, but I reckon it would be possible to reduce capacity a little - and have an uncovered stand - but build behind and above as they did with the 2nd and 3rd tiers of the Kippax during the 1994-95 season (remember on match days they opened an unroofed 1st tier, then 2nd tier).
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The problem with this Gary is the support structure for the rood negates building behind the ends, look at a plan view of the ground and you will see the cables tied back to ground quite away from the build perimeter
 
These are the average Premier League attendances for the stadium, amazing that in our first season there we did better averages than last season. Suggests that our fanbase is rather static that we're still in a similar place with no real demand for extra seats.

2010–11 - 45,949 (96.2% capacity)
2009–10 - 45,512 (95.4% capacity)
2008–09 - 42,900 (89.9% capacity)
2007–08 - 42,126 (88.3% capacity)
2006–07 - 39,997 (83.8% capacity) <-- Pearce effect
2005–06 - 42,856 (89.8% capacity)
2004–05 - 45,192 (94.7% capacity)
2003–04 - 46,834 (98.1% capacity)
 
el bee said:
bluestu1968 said:
Wasn't there an open end during the Commonwealth games? what happened with the roof then? I assume it covered the three sides, so that end can surely be removed. I have always thought that it would be good to have a "Kop" style end to create the atmosphere. Disadvantage of this would be an odd shaped ground.
However I agree with others there is no requirement for expansion just yet.
Click to expand...

Yep, but they used an elaborate external cable system to tension the 3 roof sections that were there. During the final phase of stadium mods when they were completing the roof they built a series of towers to support the inside edge of these three sides until the whole roof was completed.
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Cheers thanks for the info. Now you mention I seem to remember reading something about that when it was originally talked about it being converted to the football stadium.
 
Crazy thought - maybe the new "Mini Etihad" is being built partly to stage the matches while work on increasing the "Etihad" is carried out?
Using a similar build system to that used for the Olympic stadium in London you could prob get a temporary capacity of around 25k?
 
Stevie B said:
Presumably the expansion would start in the away end near the end of the season, bringing this to three tiers, with blues next to the away fans relocated, then once this is complete begin work on a third tier in the family stand (if demand is there)

thirdtier.png
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1zr1k0g.jpg
 
This is actually a very interesting thread.

First of all some background. Our stadium was built with a few objectives in mind. It was build on cost ( has proved to be excellent value for money entire sports city complex cost 130 million)

It was built as a multiple purpose venue that could be converted to a football stadium. It was built with exceptionally difficult building conditions in mind ( for those that are not aware the stadium is built ant the pit head of a large coal mine in what was an extremely difficult post industrial landscape)

Finally the stadium was built without any thought of expansion in mind. Quite simply it was not expected that the club would need or would ever be able to afford extra capacity.

Now for the good news. For any other club to extend our current stadium would not be economically viable. The roof will have to be completely replaced.

What is more important is extension without compromise of existing capacity. This is difficult and where the real cost will arise.

The most sensible option is adding 3rd tiers at either end of the ground, this DNA be done without limiting capacity all be it at considerable expense.

Considering the cost of the new training comlex - over 200 million initial estimates it seems we are lucky to not have to worry about financial considerations of such schemes.
 
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