Barnsley

[74bus]

Is it time for a second tier debate again? Getting less and less relevant imo.

I know you won't let this go, Derek, so I'm opening a can of worms here. By the end of the season we may well have had a no. of sell outs, thus the average gate cannot be boosted by these. We will also have undersold games.
Question.  I am self employed, an owner operator. In Jan and Feb I am not so busy  but the rest of the year there are not enough hours for me to do all the work.
 Do I ,  a/ equip myself for Jan and Feb because to spend any more could be pointless?
Or,      b/ Equip myself as best I can to handle as much as I can and make myself as able as possible to handle any upsurge in work?
This subject has been done to death and the only thing that is clear is that some of us would like to expand, if only slightly, and some don't mind the gradual erosion of our capacity. I've always believed that if you are standing still, effectively, you are drifting backwards. Anyway, off to work now, got to bank it before the drought!

But we did invest as a club when we were making hay.

We brought in a level to sports science and rehabilitation that allowed us to have an enviable injury record (look how badly the likes of Arsenal and United struggle with injuries) and to get the best out of ageing/injury prone players.

We invested in an academy and youth structure which is now reaping real rewards - this hasn’t been an accident - it’s taken 5-10 years of speculative investment.

We’ve also transformed the club training and sporting facilities. Granted there is further room for expansion but compared to most clubs of our size, our training facilities are excellent.

The club has had the chance to increase capacity, but it has never been a pressing issue. We’ve invested in areas that were seen to be more crucial to our performance than another 5-000 seats.

Ultimately we’ve had very few outright sell outs in the last 5 years, and the Fact there were still tickets available for the Villa semi final until a few days before the game suggests our capacity isn’t for off where it should be. We have a large diaspora of fans around the U.K. as oppose to a nucleus of local fans in an entrapped catchment area...

Good post.

Yes, a good post and a well made argument apart from the reference to the availabilty of tickets for the Villa match, which was down to poor ticketing arrangements, rather than lack of interest.

[SW4Baggie]

Is it time for a second tier debate again? Getting less and less relevant imo.

I know you won't let this go, Derek, so I'm opening a can of worms here. By the end of the season we may well have had a no. of sell outs, thus the average gate cannot be boosted by these. We will also have undersold games.
Question.  I am self employed, an owner operator. In Jan and Feb I am not so busy  but the rest of the year there are not enough hours for me to do all the work.
 Do I ,  a/ equip myself for Jan and Feb because to spend any more could be pointless?
Or,      b/ Equip myself as best I can to handle as much as I can and make myself as able as possible to handle any upsurge in work?
This subject has been done to death and the only thing that is clear is that some of us would like to expand, if only slightly, and some don't mind the gradual erosion of our capacity. I've always believed that if you are standing still, effectively, you are drifting backwards. Anyway, off to work now, got to bank it before the drought!

But we did invest as a club when we were making hay.

We brought in a level to sports science and rehabilitation that allowed us to have an enviable injury record (look how badly the likes of Arsenal and United struggle with injuries) and to get the best out of ageing/injury prone players.

We invested in an academy and youth structure which is now reaping real rewards - this hasn’t been an accident - it’s taken 5-10 years of speculative investment.

We’ve also transformed the club training and sporting facilities. Granted there is further room for expansion but compared to most clubs of our size, our training facilities are excellent.

The club has had the chance to increase capacity, but it has never been a pressing issue. We’ve invested in areas that were seen to be more crucial to our performance than another 5-000 seats.

Ultimately we’ve had very few outright sell outs in the last 5 years, and the Fact there were still tickets available for the Villa semi final until a few days before the game suggests our capacity isn’t for off where it should be. We have a large diaspora of fans around the U.K. as oppose to a nucleus of local fans in an entrapped catchment area...

it's not fair to use that as an argument, the ticket restrictions for that game were severe.

What were the issues? 

That non ST holders had to have attended 1 match in the last 12 months? 

I realise the online ticketing confused some but surely we can’t be using the fact people who hadn’t attended a game all season found it hard to get tickets for a massive one off match as justification for expansion?

[MassDebater]

But we did invest as a club when we were making hay.

We brought in a level to sports science and rehabilitation that allowed us to have an enviable injury record (look how badly the likes of Arsenal and United struggle with injuries) and to get the best out of ageing/injury prone players.

We invested in an academy and youth structure which is now reaping real rewards - this hasn’t been an accident - it’s taken 5-10 years of speculative investment.

We’ve also transformed the club training and sporting facilities. Granted there is further room for expansion but compared to most clubs of our size, our training facilities are excellent.

The club has had the chance to increase capacity, but it has never been a pressing issue. We’ve invested in areas that were seen to be more crucial to our performance than another 5-000 seats.

Ultimately we’ve had very few outright sell outs in the last 5 years, and the Fact there were still tickets available for the Villa semi final until a few days before the game suggests our capacity isn’t for off where it should be. We have a large diaspora of fans around the U.K. as oppose to a nucleus of local fans in an entrapped catchment area...

it's not fair to use that as an argument, the ticket restrictions for that game were severe.
[/quote]

What were the issues? 

That non ST holders had to have attended 1 match in the last 12 months? 

I realise the online ticketing confused some but surely we can’t be using the fact people who hadn’t attended a game all season found it hard to get tickets for a massive one off match as justification for expansion?
[/quote]

Something tells me that that will actually be the case

[cornishbaggie]

Is it time for a second tier debate again? Getting less and less relevant imo.

I know you won't let this go, Derek, so I'm opening a can of worms here. By the end of the season we may well have had a no. of sell outs, thus the average gate cannot be boosted by these. We will also have undersold games.
Question.  I am self employed, an owner operator. In Jan and Feb I am not so busy  but the rest of the year there are not enough hours for me to do all the work.
 Do I ,  a/ equip myself for Jan and Feb because to spend any more could be pointless?
Or,      b/ Equip myself as best I can to handle as much as I can and make myself as able as possible to handle any upsurge in work?
This subject has been done to death and the only thing that is clear is that some of us would like to expand, if only slightly, and some don't mind the gradual erosion of our capacity. I've always believed that if you are standing still, effectively, you are drifting backwards. Anyway, off to work now, got to bank it before the drought!

But we did invest as a club when we were making hay.

We brought in a level to sports science and rehabilitation that allowed us to have an enviable injury record (look how badly the likes of Arsenal and United struggle with injuries) and to get the best out of ageing/injury prone players.

We invested in an academy and youth structure which is now reaping real rewards - this hasn’t been an accident - it’s taken 5-10 years of speculative investment.

We’ve also transformed the club training and sporting facilities. Granted there is further room for expansion but compared to most clubs of our size, our training facilities are excellent.

The club has had the chance to increase capacity, but it has never been a pressing issue. We’ve invested in areas that were seen to be more crucial to our performance than another 5-000 seats.

Ultimately we’ve had very few outright sell outs in the last 5 years, and the Fact there were still tickets available for the Villa semi final until a few days before the game suggests our capacity isn’t for off where it should be. We have a large diaspora of fans around the U.K. as oppose to a nucleus of local fans in an entrapped catchment area...

it's not fair to use that as an argument, the ticket restrictions for that game were severe.

Excellent post SW4, how on earth were the restrictions so severe when ST holders could have an extra ticket ?

[Atomic]

For the Villa play off game we probably could've got another 10,000 "Albion fans" attending the game. No, these are not people that attend regularly, these are more the type that go to play off finals (i.e. 43,000 vs Port Vale back in 1993). They will be Albion fans and mostly among the 55,000 ish we have on our database.

On the stadium expansion thing. Do people realise we have a regular 22,000 home fans. If we had an FA Cup tie vs Villa / Wolves the opponents would be entitled to the whole of the Smethwick End. That is over 5,000 tickets leaving around 20,500 (given all the advertising etc) which means there would be a number of "REGULAR" fans not able to get a ticket. That's not on for me and for that reason alone a stadium expansion to around 30,000 would be perfectly justified.

[MassDebater]

For the Villa play off game we probably could've got another 10,000 "Albion fans" attending the game. No, these are not people that attend regularly, these are more the type that go to play off finals (i.e. 43,000 vs Port Vale back in 1993). They will be Albion fans and mostly among the 55,000 ish we have on our database.

On the stadium expansion thing. Do people realise we have a regular 22,000 home fans. If we had an FA Cup tie vs Villa / Wolves the opponents would be entitled to the whole of the Smethwick End. That is over 5,000 tickets leaving around 20,500 (given all the advertising etc) which means there would be a number of "REGULAR" fans not able to get a ticket. That's not on for me and for that reason alone a stadium expansion to around 30,000 would be perfectly justified.

Not sure that is strictly true... Up to 15% can be allocated for the away team in the FA Cup(3,900 ish)... and the local safety groups can see the 15% reduced (Arsenal gave Everton just 9% in 2014 http://www.thefa.com/news/2014/feb/26/aw...al-everton), so we could just give them 2,500 - 3,000. (or at least that was what the rules were in 2014, which was all my quick search returned). Normal away capacity is 3,000 currently.

[Atomic]

For the Villa play off game we probably could've got another 10,000 "Albion fans" attending the game. No, these are not people that attend regularly, these are more the type that go to play off finals (i.e. 43,000 vs Port Vale back in 1993). They will be Albion fans and mostly among the 55,000 ish we have on our database.

On the stadium expansion thing. Do people realise we have a regular 22,000 home fans. If we had an FA Cup tie vs Villa / Wolves the opponents would be entitled to the whole of the Smethwick End. That is over 5,000 tickets leaving around 20,500 (given all the advertising etc) which means there would be a number of "REGULAR" fans not able to get a ticket. That's not on for me and for that reason alone a stadium expansion to around 30,000 would be perfectly justified.

Not sure that is strictly true... Up to 15% can be allocated for the away team in the FA Cup(3,900 ish)... and the local safety groups can see the 15% reduced (Arsenal gave Everton just 9% in 2014 http://www.thefa.com/news/2014/feb/26/aw...al-everton), so we could just give them 2,500 - 3,000. (or at least that was what the rules were in 2014, which was all my quick search returned). Normal away capacity is 3,000 currently.

I'm not certain of all if's and but's of it, but you get my point. Man Utd / Liverpool / Man City etc would almost certainly get the whole stand, we can't give 3,900 due to the lay out of the stadium, it's either 2,737 (with segregation), 2,000 (as we're allowing this season) or the whole of the Smethwick (5,496).

The normal away capacity at the moment is 2,000 not 3,000.

[Super_Slav]

Hi Atomic.

I think the biggest mistake the club made was in 2008. The club spent £3m to refurbish the Halfords Lane which was renamed the West Stand. It was at this time (construction costs were lower), where we should have built a stand that mirrored the East Stand. The cost of this would have been around £10m. We could quite comfortably have afforded this and it would have taken the capacity of the stadium to around 32,000.

I don’t think any fan is asking for a 40,000 Stadium. The West Stand is outdated and small. It needs bringing in line with how most supporters view Albion in the 21st century as a relatively big team.

[Atomic]

Hi Atomic.

I think the biggest mistake the club made was in 2008. The club spent £3m to refurbish the Halfords Lane which was renamed the West Stand. It was at this time (construction costs were lower), where we should have built a stand that mirrored the East Stand. The cost of this would have been around £10m. We could quite comfortably have afforded this and it would have taken the capacity of the stadium to around 32,000.

I don’t think any fan is asking for a 40,000 Stadium. The West Stand is outdated and small. It needs bringing in line with how most supporters view Albion in the 21st century as a relatively big team.

Agreed. 32,000 and no-one would complain.

[SW4Baggie]

Hi Atomic.

I think the biggest mistake the club made was in 2008. The club spent £3m to refurbish the Halfords Lane which was renamed the West Stand. It was at this time (construction costs were lower), where we should have built a stand that mirrored the East Stand. The cost of this would have been around £10m. We could quite comfortably have afforded this and it would have taken the capacity of the stadium to around 32,000.

I don’t think any fan is asking for a 40,000 Stadium. The West Stand is outdated and small. It needs bringing in line with how most supporters view Albion in the 21st century as a relatively big team.

Agreed. 32,000 and no-one would complain.

We could probably keep steward costs down by closing one section of the “new stand” and keeping the 25-000 or so fans together like other clubs who’ve expanded needlessly do too... 

Well except for play off finals obviously.