New Football Grounds.

Elm Park was great on a Wednesday night when full and under the lights. Great atmosphere. Rest of the time it was pretty awful with no facilities, dreadful food, and being mainly wooden a potential death trap.

New stadium is safe, great view (even for away fans) good choice of food inside and outside the ground. Decent beer as well. Happy to go to games with my daughter, but not sure I would have been to old ground. Nice to see so many kids and women at games now. We get to games at least an hour before kick off for food and drink. If ground is soulless, give me more soulless grounds.
 
Our old ground was a total dump. It got what it deserved when it was knocked down and they built houses on it. Our new stadium is great but it's about twice as big as it needs to be. We don't get more than 3.5k there most weeks and in a 10k seater stadium it looks awful. They would've been far better building it to take 6k with the option to extend it as and when necessary. That said, the access to it is so much better than with the old ground and they have plans to develop the whole area so we'll wait and see how that goes.
 
Dunfermline. We had East End Park redeveloped to meet the SPL rules and it crippled us with huge debts to Barr Construction (they of one time Dundee FC ownership) for little gain. Stadium is always 2/3 empty as no point having a 12500 capacity (since reduced) when you struggle to attract 7000 in a town with a population (at the time) of less than 40,000. It got so bad we closed one complete stand to cut running costs for a number of years.

Whilst we didn't move the stadium, it turned it a bit soulless for me and hasn't been the same since. Especially the loss of the East End pub in favour of a trendy "sports bar".
 
Some times people just get all misty eyed and gloss over the negatives that the old stadiums had. They forget the moans they once had about the old wooden seating, lack of pie stands, only 4 urinals for 4000 fans in that stand etc.

In reality the majority of new stadiums offer a greater degree of comfort, better facilities and better viewing experience all round.
 
Doon frae Troon said:
Following on from the Aberdeen stadium conversation on the SPFL thread.

I have always thought that new grounds/stands/improvements were a good thing for clubs and then I thought about Darlington, Airdrie and Falkirk.
When the SPL was started they insisted all clubs should have 10,000 all seater stadiums.
Some clubs such as St Johnstone, Livingston, Gretna etc never stood a chance of filling their grounds.

Any other stories, good or bad on how new grounds/ stadium improvements affected your club,
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The George Reynolds how big is my ego arena at Darlington

The death of my club 😢

25000 seater stadium with average attendances of 2500 until we went out of the league and it dropped further to about 750.

It could have been good if it wasn’t so bloody big.
 

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For me it’s more to do with location, a new identikit stadium on the previous site isn't ideal (notwithstanding better facilities etc) but far preferable to moving to an out of town Retail Park where going to a match feels the same as going to Ikea.

In fairness to Tottenham they seem to have broken the mould and knocked it out of the park with their new place from what I've seen. Stays pretty much in same place and rather than another 50k bowl indistinguishable from many others it looks very impressive and has its own unique elements. Maybe teams will learn from that in the future......
 
Lincoln Quaker said:
The George Reynolds how big is my ego arena at Darlington

The death of my club 😢

25000 seater stadium with average attendances of 2500 until we went out of the league and it dropped further to about 750.

It could have been good if it wasn’t so bloody big.
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Was he the ex.bank robber?

New grounds have better facilities, rarely a better atmosphere though. Spurs ground may possibly be an exception.
 
Tashyboy said:
Rob me man. Would your team be Forest. Saw a piece where Forest are extending there ground to be the largest in the East Midlands. It does look proper impressive. However some wag put on face book a picture of what Notts County's ground will look like next year once it has gone into administration. It was a photo of ASDA. PMSL.
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Hi Tash - not Forest, but a Premiership team up north in Gods country.
However I do go to most of the East Midlands grounds throughout the season.
Best atmosphere is definitely the City Ground.
 
MetalMickie said:
Until last season I cannot recall Fulham ever bringing more than a couple of coachloads of fans to St Andrews so you would have been pretty safe.

Trouble only occurs when there's an opposition presence.
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Coming as a Wolves fan, the walk back to the station could have gone a little better if I'm honest.
 
Liverbirdie said:
Was he the ex.bank robber?

New grounds have better facilities, rarely a better atmosphere though. Spurs ground may possibly be an exception.
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I saw a few pics the other day, it’s looks fantastic from outside. With the amount of space they had originally around WHL, I’m amazed at how they’ve changed it around.

Still a nightmare to get too though.
 
Stuart_C said:
I saw a few pics the other day, it’s looks fantastic from outside. With the amount of space they had originally around WHL, I’m amazed at how they’ve changed it around.

Still a nightmare to get too though.
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I believe a highly unfortunate razing to the ground of a neighbouring business helped, somewhat.:p
 
The new SPurs stadium does look pretty good and a lesson in how it can be done within the same location. However the transport links remain very poor, through no fault of the club and so getting in and out will be as hard as ever. Get past that and it looks top notch and looking forward to going to a game. Take my chances walking back to a station/tube compared to the walk back to New Street. Mind you, idiots at every ground and remember we got into bother at Plough Lane of all places having just won 3-1 and a group of teens started getting a bit lippy. Even their fans thought they were funny which was only winding them up more. Fortunately, before it could get silly the local plod took an interest and intervened. I'm certainly glad those dark days are behind us. Yes it still goes on, but nowhere near as bad as it did, and definitely not in the grounds on a regular basis
 
Liverbirdie said:
Was he the ex.bank robber?

New grounds have better facilities, rarely a better atmosphere though. Spurs ground may possibly be an exception.
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That's the one, had a chipboard company nearby making millions as well at the time.
 
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