OutByEaster? Posted January 21 Moderator Share Posted January 21 5 minutes ago, foreveryoung said: Is this fact. Cause it's a good excuse for the councill to claim some freebie investment. The planning permissions are done - the club doesn't have to contribute anything further, the club doesn't have to wait for the train station or for improvements to the roads - there was nothing in the planning permissions dependent on improving transport. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thabucks Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 9 minutes ago, nepal_villan said: Feels to me like adding additional capacity of 2,000 or so seats will be a complex undertaking that will still cost millions. Might as well go all the way instead of settling for a half-baked solution. It’s relatively simple and could be done over the summer - Liverpool reprofiled the lower tier of of the new main stand over a summer. Arsenal added extra rows to the front of their bowl stands as well without any impact on matchday or loss of seats. As I said they could easily add an extra 6-8 rows to the lower trinity and 2/3 to the upper trinity tiers with minimal structural changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted January 21 Moderator Share Posted January 21 13 minutes ago, nepal_villan said: Feels to me like adding additional capacity of 2,000 or so seats will be a complex undertaking that will still cost millions. Might as well go all the way instead of settling for a half-baked solution. I am yet to be convinced that the club will add the two or three thousand seats they've mentioned, I'm not 100% convinced they have any intention to try. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted January 21 Moderator Share Posted January 21 8 minutes ago, thabucks said: It’s relatively simple and could be done over the summer - Liverpool reprofiled the lower tier of of the new main stand over a summer. Arsenal added extra rows to the front of their bowl stands as well without any impact on matchday or loss of seats. As I said they could easily add an extra 6-8 rows to the lower trinity and 2/3 to the upper trinity tiers with minimal structural changes. I'm interested in how this would work - the Arsenal one was a complicated project but they did a really good job of doing it in two phases across a couple of summers and putting extra rows onto their overhanging club tier. It might be possible for us to do that with the Upper Holte and bring the Upper Holte forward a couple of extra rows - but it would require quite an investment for a limited number of seats. I'm not sure how you'd do that with the Trinity - there's no existing overhang, so anything brought forward from the Upper Tier would immediately affect the view from the boxes underneath - it wouldn't be possible to do what Arsenal did with the Trinity Road Stand. For the Lower Trinity, we could in theory I guess essentially get rid of the lower walkway that divides the first and second parts of the lower tier - simply concrete across and seat the area - but I'm not sure that would leave us with enough vomitories for the health & safety regulations, and more critically, we'd need to move the disabled seating somewhere and create a new disabled section - which would probably take away a good chunk of any benefit on new seats. Again, price would be restrictive on that. It's worth noting that Arsenal gained around 680 seats, which they sell for £3,300+ per season - a couple of rows on the Upper Holte wouldn't give you anything like that sort of return. Possibly also worth noting that Liverpool lost some seats when they re-profiled their lower tier. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul514 Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 (edited) Whatever, I’m frustrated. we want to compete with the financial titans and we are basically hamstringing ourselves by being 100m a year behind on the ground alone. edit - even if our owners don’t want to or can’t pay for the stadium infrastructure needed to massively close that gap we could at least borrow it knowing that it would be paid off in 15 years or something Edited January 21 by paul514 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain_Townsend Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 (edited) It's good to see more people coming around to my position that the pre Christmas comms around 'pausing' the much publicised new stand was complete and utter B.S. How do you get from openly stating in 2022 that you require a minimum of 50k with new corporate/revenue making capacity to a garbled 'we will cram more into the existing footprint and make do' 18 months later? There is something they aren't telling us. The strategy has changed and it's either a case of ramping up prices on what we have and pricing some out or, and I desperately hope this isn't it, they want to move the club to a new stadium. Attendances are the best in about 40 years and we need to have fans spending more of their money at Villa Park to compete with peer clubs so the actual comms we have had do jot add up. Edited January 21 by Captain_Townsend Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meregreen Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 1 hour ago, paul514 said: they can't get the current lot away from the ground never mind the extra people, hence why the local stations needed upgrading. Prior to all seating, Villa Park was often attracting upwards of 60,000 fans.I myself attended. 62,000 crowd matches 50, 000 was not unusual. It’s a myth that people couldn’t cope. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villabromsgrove Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 In my opinion growing the financial base has to be at least a decade long project. It would take regular 'Champions League' involvement for several years and would then mean that a new stadium with state of the art infrastructure would become inevitable. I've attended Villa Park for a very long time including standing on the surging Holte terraces. I've struggled into and out of Aston so many times that it finally wore me out. VP is still an historically great venue, but sadly it's reaching the end of its ability to cope with the logistics required to qualify as a genuine top club. If we want to become (and remain) a top four club, then due to ground restraints it has to be team and player and coach focussed first, to attain a regular top four league position. If we make the final 'top tier' step successfully then considerably increased sponsorship and regular 'huge' prize money from the CL involvement will drive the investment in an impressive new stadium. A couple of years ago I would not have dreamt that I would post this, but if NSWE, Unai and Monchi remain committed I can see AVFC reaching the pinnacle (but not at B6 6HE). 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveAV1 Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 3 hours ago, villabromsgrove said: In my opinion growing the financial base has to be at least a decade long project. It would take regular 'Champions League' involvement for several years and would then mean that a new stadium with state of the art infrastructure would become inevitable. I've attended Villa Park for a very long time including standing on the surging Holte terraces. I've struggled into and out of Aston so many times that it finally wore me out. VP is still an historically great venue, but sadly it's reaching the end of its ability to cope with the logistics required to qualify as a genuine top club. If we want to become (and remain) a top four club, then due to ground restraints it has to be team and player and coach focussed first, to attain a regular top four league position. If we make the final 'top tier' step successfully then considerably increased sponsorship and regular 'huge' prize money from the CL involvement will drive the investment in an impressive new stadium. A couple of years ago I would not have dreamt that I would post this, but if NSWE, Unai and Monchi remain committed I can see AVFC reaching the pinnacle (but not at B6 6HE). My head agrees but my heart objects, I guess I’m not alone in wanting a lovely big cake and eating every crumb? UTV! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fun Factory Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 (edited) 4 hours ago, Captain_Townsend said: There is something they aren't telling us. The strategy has changed and it's either a case of ramping up prices on what we have and pricing some out or, and I desperately hope this isn't it, they want to move the club to a new stadium. I think it's option one. I believe the new stadium idea would be a hugely complex and expensive project, far more than the one they have just scrapped. It would be well into the billions. Heck clearly see us mortals who go to the game as of secondary importance. Global marketing/branding/sponsorship is far more important. In the meantime, some cheap and cheerful tweaks at Villa Park, coupled with massive ticket price rises. If demand is higher than supply then why not test it? The logistics could be solved at Villa with an improved train station and actual competent match day travel management. Which the club consulted us on about 2 years ago. But one of those is dependent on public bodies and the other would cost Villa money to implement, which is against Heck's remit since he joined us. It is stadium within walkable distance of two stations and the motorway. I wouldn't pin your hopes on a 60,000 Villa Park Superdome coming any time soon. Edited January 21 by The Fun Factory Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveAV1 Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 Just now, DaveAV1 said: My head agrees but my heart objects, I guess I’m not alone in wanting a lovely big cake and eating every crumb? UTV! The good news is that Wes in particular knows a thing or two about building new sports stadia and Nas’s family about construction and development, so once again we’re in good hands. Building a new stadium thst will Last well beyond their lifetime is an understandable ambition for ambitious owners building a legacy but The NAWE Villa Park would be hard to begrudge them, given what they’ve done for our club. They can afford to build it and the sponsorship deals would be huge!! So I wouldn’t rule it out no matter how hard my heart strings are pulled. You can’t take sentiment to the bank, or we’d all be loaded!! UTV!! at the end of the day I’d prefer memories on the pitch that I can keep forever, so whatever that takes in the modern football world today, we should go with it and trust the current custodians to get us there. I don’t think we’ve been closer in my lifetime, let alone since Sky invented football in 1992. I think NSWE believe that Heck is the man to get us there business wise and Unai, with Monchi the guys to build the team, which since we’re a football club isn’t insignificant either!! UTV!!! Football and money are intrinsically linked, wether we like it or not, look where we’ve come from, a few years ago we nearly ceased to exist, which is unthinkable and almost unbelievable now! We’re on our way and as supporters that may take some getting used to. So let’s all be brave and enjoy the ride! UTV!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thabucks Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 (edited) 5 hours ago, OutByEaster? said: I'm interested in how this would work - the Arsenal one was a complicated project but they did a really good job of doing it in two phases across a couple of summers and putting extra rows onto their overhanging club tier. It might be possible for us to do that with the Upper Holte and bring the Upper Holte forward a couple of extra rows - but it would require quite an investment for a limited number of seats. I'm not sure how you'd do that with the Trinity - there's no existing overhang, so anything brought forward from the Upper Tier would immediately affect the view from the boxes underneath - it wouldn't be possible to do what Arsenal did with the Trinity Road Stand. For the Lower Trinity, we could in theory I guess essentially get rid of the lower walkway that divides the first and second parts of the lower tier - simply concrete across and seat the area - but I'm not sure that would leave us with enough vomitories for the health & safety regulations, and more critically, we'd need to move the disabled seating somewhere and create a new disabled section - which would probably take away a good chunk of any benefit on new seats. Again, price would be restrictive on that. It's worth noting that Arsenal gained around 680 seats, which they sell for £3,300+ per season - a couple of rows on the Upper Holte wouldn't give you anything like that sort of return. Possibly also worth noting that Liverpool lost some seats when they re-profiled their lower tier. My understanding was with the re-profiling of the lower tier was that the final 3/4 rows of the full length of lower tier would then have direct access to lounges as they will remove the majority of private boxes to create these areas. Alcohol cannot be consumed over looking the pitch when the game is in action so by creating an overhang all that be lost would be a clear view of the whole stadium - the view of the pitch wouldn’t be effected at all. In terms of lower tier itself, the seat spacing meets current code unlike Anfield so no loss there and sections of the current walkway would be kept either end crucially just for disabled seating and not as an walkway. The rake of the lower tier wouldn’t be altered, just new concrete rakers installed over the existing and it we’d gain 6-8 new rows by doing so. The plans of the trinity road meeting new north stand show an increased number of rows. It’s doable and an easier solution than a new end stand. As well as living in boring paces I’m a stadium geek and had previously spoken with Simon Inglis about how they could add additional seats to the ground as was without major reconstruction. His opinion was that the current layout and design wasn’t the best nor most efficient and Doug wanting it done as cheaply as possible meant a compromised design layout. When Lerner was out owner Atkins were asked to come up with solutions to expand the ground to its maximum as was and they came up with a number of proposals which included the squaring off of the trinity & Holte, this included extending angled upper tier toward the North Stand - similar to Lucas Oil Stadium. This wouldn't have connected to the north stand preserving the 4 stands look. It wouldn’t have been cheap and nowadays not worth the ROI but again would be doable if the will was there. Another was to lower the pitch by building a retaining wall and sinking the pitch to get over the issue with the water table. This isn’t viable now as they’ve raised the pitch since to aid drainage. Edited January 21 by thabucks 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain_Townsend Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 Or we could just do the North Stand as we intended? Have a New North Stand that is 'fit for purpose' and see how we go- if we need to go again to get to 60,000 we see what is possible with the other sides of the ground? I Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul514 Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 7 hours ago, meregreen said: Prior to all seating, Villa Park was often attracting upwards of 60,000 fans.I myself attended. 62,000 crowd matches 50, 000 was not unusual. It’s a myth that people couldn’t cope. that was then and this is now, i have no idea what the services were like for buses and trains pre the early 90's changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaVilla Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 1 hour ago, sidcow said: As I've said earlier in this thread. I've worked for and with Americans frequently. Some of them would give you a big warming white toothed smile and reassure you there is absolutely no plans to move whilst typing an email about the move to a new stadium. yeah, i have seen a lot of Americans (a few years ago now) where i worked, they are a very different breed from my experience. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Captain_Townsend Posted January 21 Popular Post Share Posted January 21 We have an excellent location and it is steeped in our history. Just go ahead with the redevelopment lads. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Villa Gaffa Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 Even if we make improvements/renovations and add some extra seats somehow, the North Stand will still have to be replaced ? I've never been to Villa Park so I'm assuming it will still have to be upgraded eventually (hopefully soon) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allani Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 17 hours ago, Captain_Townsend said: It's good to see more people coming around to my position that the pre Christmas comms around 'pausing' the much publicised new stand was complete and utter B.S. How do you get from openly stating in 2022 that you require a minimum of 50k with new corporate/revenue making capacity to a garbled 'we will cram more into the existing footprint and make do' 18 months later? There is something they aren't telling us. The strategy has changed and it's either a case of ramping up prices on what we have and pricing some out or, and I desperately hope this isn't it, they want to move the club to a new stadium. Attendances are the best in about 40 years and we need to have fans spending more of their money at Villa Park to compete with peer clubs so the actual comms we have had do jot add up. I think there could be lots of valid reasons why something that looked like a good idea 18 months ago might not make as much sense now - without it having to be some kind of huge conspiracy theory. For a start we are probably 3 years ahead of where the Board expected us to be on the playing side of things. 24 months ago we were probably looking at next season being the earliest that we might qualify for European football. Then you'd probably be looking at 2 more seasons before we could think about potentially challenging for the Champions League. As it is we have already had 5 extra home matches in Europe this season and we'd be disappointed if there were not at least 2 more. We're also looking at a situation where (bar a terrible end to the season) we should have Europa League football next season - with a chance (especially if the PL is awarded a 5th spot) of Champions League football. That in itself (especially with the new format of those competitions) would allow us to significantly increase our short-term match day revenues with the same capacity. Then you look at the fact that FFP rules are tightening and over the next couple of seasons every £ lost in revenue is likely to make it harder for us to comply with FFP AND improve the first team squad. The situation with Everton means there are now bigger question marks about what dispensation a club can get for offsetting development expenses and / or reduced revenues through redeveloping stands. This definitely raises some concerns that maybe the next two seasons are not the best time to complicate FFP calculations even further by adding a big redevelopment project into the mix. Finally, 24 months ago we were looking at revenue streams like the Castore shirt deal, dodgy shirt sponsors, etc - now we have already proved that we are ripe for investment should we require it (see Atairos deal), we've got ourselves out of the Castore deal and signed with Adidas (terms yet to be disclosed but the worst rumour I have heard is still multiple times better than Castore), we've also brought some merchandising income back in house. It is not unreasonable to suggest that - based on those two deals - we won't be able to significantly improve our shirt sponsorship deal in the near future, Atairos's expertise / heritage within media also suggests that we should/could make huge strides in that area (especially in new markets / the USA). All of which are likely to mean that if the stadium redevelopment ROI was based on increasing our revenue by x% - that either we will have exceeded that figure through other (less costly) means, our increased match day revenues will have already increased by more than that %age due to the extra European matches (and maybe it was felt that playing in a stadium that was being redeveloped might impact on the atmosphere and give us less of a home advantage both in the league and in Europe) or that because we are earning more money elsewhere that a 10% increase in match-day revenue is now forecast to have a much lower impact as our other streams improve. All of which would see the business case for the stadium redevelopment at this time get weaker. It doesn't mean that redevelopment isn't needed. But it doesn't need to be sinister. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 9 hours ago, Captain_Townsend said: We have an excellent location and it is steeped in our history. Just go ahead with the redevelopment lads. we could have an excellent location if they sorted out the infrastructure around the ground as it is the trains don't work because they aren't frequent enough, the roads are congested, personally I think the club should do more in terms of making walking and cycling a viable option from the city centre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mic09 Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 (edited) 40 minutes ago, villa4europe said: we could have an excellent location if they sorted out the infrastructure around the ground as it is the trains don't work because they aren't frequent enough, the roads are congested, personally I think the club should do more in terms of making walking and cycling a viable option from the city centre I used to live by 5 ways for years and walk to the ground. I now live in Lichfield and catch the train or drive in. I really don't think VP is bad to get in to/get out of. There are 2 train stations to choose from - there are buses, there are taxis, there is plenty of parking 10/15 min radius from the ground to make an easy escape if you drive in. You can walk to the city centre easily, it's 35-40 mins. You can of course drive right up to the stadium and wonder why you are stuck in traffic for 60 mins. At the end of the day, its 42k people leaving one small place in one go. How much better can we make it? Will getting an additional 2 trains from each station really make THAT big of a difference? I think we should be looking to improve it (of course we should!) but in my opinion it's not too bad at all. I will not argue it can handle another 10k people - I don't know if that's true. But I think we can handle 42k rather well. Edited January 22 by Mic09 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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