Ground enlargement

[AG7]

Thanks a lot for that AG7. Interesting to know how the club chooses its direction. Are you a ST holder, Blue Member, or something else? Anyone else from here get an invite?

I am a Blue member, I live in London and at times work on weekends too and travel overseas for work a lot, so can't make all the games all the time but make about 5-6 home games a season. Does shit for my points ... but that's another story.

As I said I am not sure what criteria they had for sending the mail out. I am pretty sure it included season ticket holders as I met a few there and I think they might have picked up on who's holding a Spurs ticket and then picked some at random out of that. Most were men, but there were women too and all ages so I can't really pin point if they had chosen a specific sample and not sure if they might be running a few more focus groups ...

Again, the most important thing from their perspective seemed to question on 'additional' offerings on matchdays, i.e. food, beverage, parking, betting outlets, etc. etc. Very little on expansion of seats as such came from the club. As for the fans, most were interested in becoming bigger and better than everyone else as of yesterday so obviously the discussion kept diverting to increasing stadium size or a new stadium and on our performances and Mancini should or shouldn't be doing, which the guys running the focus group politely kept diverting back to their agenda.

Oh, I forgot to mention ... a suggestion also came to cover the whole stadium with WiFi coverage ... as with 50,000 people in the venue on game days the 3G is almost unusable. I have tried with Three and with O2 both it's shit when everybody is using the same cell tower for data, which means I have to wait for a few minutes till my twitter feed comes through (important, I want to see the team sheets), same for updating facebook/foursquare/instagram check-ins ... can hardly update text statuses, forget picture uploads or small video clips ... oh well, maybe that's why it doesn't work during games, they fear we'd broadcast games live out of our phones and stream to those back home or to friends etc. using FaceTime or Skype, lol.

[bobby brows]

I'm all for expansion of the ground, greater supply of tickets, weakens demand, therefore ticket prices may reduce!

[Ted Hughes]

I'm all for expansion of the ground, greater supply of tickets, weakens demand, therefore ticket prices may reduce!

Unless we expand the ground by a huge amount, that won't happen.

[bobby brows]

I'm all for expansion of the ground, greater supply of tickets, weakens demand, therefore ticket prices may reduce!

Unless we expand the ground by a huge amount, that won't happen.

then I'm all for massive expansion of the ground then! My genuine fear is after the opening day price of £52 and Champions League away tickets of £60 (I know City went to negotiate with both Madrid and Ajax to reduce it) but I fear being priced out one day soon

[Peter Doherty (AGAIG)]

120K you say?

... And that's just the Family Stand ....

[Beefymcfc]

120K you say?

... And that's just the Family Stand ....

Oh my Lord, imagine the size of the South Stand!!!

[Swales4ever]

We don't struggle to fill 47k. We keep selling out weeks in advance.

We don't have to fill a 60k or even 80k stadium. Barca hardly ever fill theirs but it doesn't seem to do them any harm.

60k is too small imo, as once it's built they are likely to start work on building all the stuff around it & then it's unlikely any further work can be done to elarge the stadium again in the future.

We will end up in ten years like Arsenal with a 60k stadium charging £100 minimum a ticket.

Inter averaged 59, 484 last season. AC Milan averaged 53.916. The San Siro holds 80,018. Nobody gives a fuck that they don't fill it every week but the space is available if the demand is there.

We can pull much bigger crowds if we match the kind of success those teams have had.

60k is not big enough.

Think this is the way to look at it.

absolutely agreed.
and obliged thanks to AG7 for bringing a sad news for johnny forinniers like me. was so excited looking at OP!

also adding to Ted's, Club should look after developing a selling network throughout overseas fanbase organized around City core centers like the Mad Hatter in NY

[john@staustell]

I can never understand the lack of vision of people who are negative to this idea.

Firstly we have sold out all home league games for 2 seasons, and well before the games, which suggests a certain demand not catered for and opportunity wasted.
Secondly new capacity always attracts new fans (dunno why, but it does)
Thirdly we are not talking about opening it next week, but planning for a few years with sustained success. Do we always want to be playing catch-up with people unable to get tickets?
Fourthly, as Ted says, who on earth says we have to fill it every cup match, European clubs most certainly dont?
Lastly, wash afterwards, but have a little look at the Scum crowd stats before 1992. They used to get their 46,000 capacity against City and Liverpool - end of. Some of them were in the 30,000s.

Foresight chaps, a bit of foresight!

[Swales4ever]

Hat off, Chapeau, Monsieur Jean de Saint Austell!
Reading that post made me feel a little less sad in the wake of Sir John's laptop breakdown. I am sure You get the compliment to full extent

[Blue Since 76]

I can never understand the lack of vision of people who are negative to this idea.

Firstly we have sold out all home league games for 2 seasons, and well before the games, which suggests a certain demand not catered for and opportunity wasted.
Secondly new capacity always attracts new fans (dunno why, but it does)
Thirdly we are not talking about opening it next week, but planning for a few years with sustained success. Do we always want to be playing catch-up with people unable to get tickets?
Fourthly, as Ted says, who on earth says we have to fill it every cup match, European clubs most certainly dont?
Lastly, wash afterwards, but have a little look at the Scum crowd stats before 1992. They used to get their 46,000 capacity against City and Liverpool - end of. Some of them were in the 30,000s.

Foresight chaps, a bit of foresight!

Agreed. When Manchester was going for the Olympics, they wanted to build a 100,000 seated stadium when the Trafford Centre now stands. To avoid the white elephant that London now has, they wanted the rags to move into it. I remember my rag uncle at the time saying there was no point; it'd be half empty for most games; it'd ruin the atmosphere etc etc.

They could have had a 100,000 seated stadium about 10 years before the swamp got to 75,000 and it would have cost them very little. Thank god they didn't have the vision to realise what football would become once Sky got involved.