North Stand Construction Discussion

[LeroyChickenSane]

If they don’t call it the Bert Trautmann stand they’re idiots. Missed a massive trick the last time they renovated the stadium.

Someone must have got it in the neck for that?

 

[jrb]

If you look at Wembley, Murrayfield, and Hydro Glasgow all of them are serviced by major transport hubs. What City are joining here is impressive but you are not going to a concert if it takes three hours to get out of the car park. Mr Edwards Shoe has a point about being a destination, you need to create a district at the Collar site to cater for loads of different people, look at what Wembely has done, I know not everyone's cup of tea but a designer outlet or something along those lines to bring other people to the area making a district.

Someone posted on SSC advising of a train station at the old Mercedes garage that would be perfect as it could service the whole area.

As @blueyorkie advised on his posts Manchester City execs advised they are building multi-storey carparks the perfect spot for them would be the old gas holders, you could copy what they have done at Wembley with their multi-storey car parks, they even have one for coaches as in the Pink Car Park which is a multi-storey for buses

I agree with what @jrb said about the North Stand and the hotel etc, the idea for the new city square is great but it needs to fit in with the surroundings at the moment it looks like a bold on to the stadium

If they were designing something why not something like this that could also be added to the stadium

Unfortunately we’re still no closer to finding out what the club and MCC have got proposed for the Collar site. (15 years later!) If it’s still a leisure destination of sorts, that maybe the catalyst that attracts people to the Etihad Campus as a non sporting/concert/event destination.

In all seriousness. I don’t want to see a wider Wembley stadium destination proposed, made up of Whetherspoons, Gregg’s, Tescos, Pizza Hut, etc. I want to see an original and world class leading destination that is different, exciting, and will genuinely attract people to it from Manchester, the North, the UK, and even from abroad.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

I'm not really bothered by the idea of putting a hotel onsite, but the one that has been presented in the architects drawing looks totally out of place and is blocking the best view if the stadium. The opposite side of the stadium is too close to the road, to get a proper look at the size scale of the ground in its entirety, so the best angle is from Joe Mercer way. You have to agree that it is impressive currently from that end and with a new stand it will look amazing.

This enormous hotel right in front of the ground is nothing to do with Football and that spoils it for me.

And I don't agree that the Etihad site will ever be an extension of Manchester City Center. They said that 20 years ago. There have been so many proposals put forward in that time. I know from 47 years of living here, that the huge residential areas that surround the site are a pain in the arse to navigate. There are networks of streets where people live, parks, railways, scrap yards, canals, fly overs that are not owned by the club and completely disconnect the campus from the City center. Many blues have experienced problems getting to the ground from town. Some people still don't bother with the trams because they are unreliable and decide to walk it or park as close to the ground as possible. Also, the trams stop running at midnight, and are not managed by the club. The site will have to survive by itself, it will have to be a desirable destination which competes with the City center, and not part of it.

And this co op arena with it's 32 bars that are open 7 nights per week. I cannot imagine a group of young people deciding to give freight island or the Northern quarter a miss, and get a taxi to Beswick to sit drinking cocktails looking out across City's car park, or marveling at the gas holder or cemetery. I love your optimism, but c'mon.

Also, why are people even bothered? The arena is nothing to do with City, is it? It's being built by an American company. The council owned the land it is being built on, so there's no money coming City's way. In fact, will the people using the arena impact match day fans. Will they take up parking spaces, seats on the trams and buses?

Sorry for not being part of the happy clappy mob, but sometimes you have to ask questions, point out flaws and be realistic. It's a football stadium for football matches, that is what it is for. It's not Las Vegas or Disney land. It never will be.

The Arena is now 50 per cent owned by CFG and, as such, half the profits flood back to us.

It will be worth £30m a year to us.

 

[Gordyola]

Might be wrong but I think I read the other day that non-football related income (specifically quoting things like gigs/hotels) wouldn't be counted wrt FFP. Generally agree though that its good for the club as I see our ownership reinvesting a fair chunk one way or another, even if its not allowed to be on playing staff!

Edit - I might've misunderstood, it was this twitter thread, just found it but now scratching my head

In previous FFP income from infrastructure was included maybe, in the new version it would be excluded? The Tweet was referring to costs of stadium expansion not being excluded, along with Academy and the Women's team costs which is a bit odd but on the face of it, it appears to be so

 

[Lavinda Past]

Will it have the Steve Coppell bar ?

No... Probably naming one of the entrances after him. The Coppell Tunnel?

 

[Lavinda Past]

The Arena is now 50 per cent owned by CFG and, as such, half the profits flood back to us.

It will be worth £30m a year to us.

I love your use of the word "us". It makes me dream of getting a fat cheque through the post at the end of each year.

We'll be lucky if we are offered ticket priority for arena events.

 

[richards30]

The Arena is now 50 per cent owned by CFG and, as such, half the profits flood back to us.

It will be worth £30m a year to us.

 

[nmc]

Will it have the Steve Cop out bar ?

Edited for accuracy

 

[Shaelumstash]

forget about all that shite, I know it's hard to. But imagine from the pitch side, having a full stand behind the goal which became infamous again. Just a wall of noise. Aguero stand sounds wanky to me. The Kippax ticks all the boxes. It has the history, and it tells the world that this is where the noise comes from, where the camera pans to after a goal, the voice of the fans. Not for day trippers or people who have won a competition. The Kippax, where you will hear foul language, where drunk men will let it all out. Somewhere authentic and not contrived, or made up by marketing wankers with no attachment to the club.

You know, there's hundreds of people employed by the club who don't actually support City or even follow football. They've studied marketing at uni, and these are the people who make decisions about the fan experience, and all the stuff that makes you cringe. Light shows and Hugh Ferris.

I was at Old Scaffold, last month, and when they scored that dodgy equaliser, IMO the second goal came from the Stretford end going totally mental. It was like an explosion. As soon as I heard it, I was thinking, "their gonna score here." And they did.

There is nothing like that at the Etihad ATM. No wall of noise, no area where all the nutters are in one place. It's too corporate, too contrived, not edgy or vibrant. Very sanitised. Winning consistently has taken the edge off.

The plans for this new stand seem to appeal to a different sort of clientele. Souvenir shops, a hotel, fast food outlets. It's not really that focused on creating a better atmosphere.

I agree with everything you’re saying. But calling it the Kippax isn’t going to make the blindest bit of difference.

When the Kippax went all seating, the atmosphere was no better than the East Stand is now.

Names don’t make an atmosphere, people do.

Our away support is mega, so there’s clearly appetite from at least a few thousand to stand and sing and make an atmosphere.

But the people who are going to drive an atmosphere are lads in their late teens and 20s. Probably the same as you were when you stood on the Kippax.

A lot of them will have been kids when Aguero scored that goal, and wouldn’t have even been born when the Kippax was a thing.

And far from being “wanky” I see it as a positive naming the stand after the best moment in the history of the club. Possibly in the history of the English game.

We should celebrate that, while also keeping it as a permanent reminder to the shite that the best stand in the country and an iconic building for the city is named after the moment that changed the balance of power and broke their hearts.

Sometimes I wish we could go back in time too. But we can only go forward.

 

[Northblue]

In previous FFP income from infrastructure was included maybe, in the new version it would be excluded? The Tweet was referring to costs of stadium expansion not being excluded, along with Academy and the Women's team costs which is a bit odd but on the face of it, it appears to be so

In the tweets further down in the thread there’s screenshots from the rules about income from non football related activities E.g. music concerts/hotels but re reading it I can’t actually make sense of it haha