And another one has popped up! Turn my back on you East Standers and Ponte enders for a day and you've managed to slag my beloved West Stand off again.
I know quite a few people seem to think that building a small stand is best but I don't get the logic in that at all. What benefit is there of a small stand apart from a lower building cost? The cost is a curve anyway, the bigger it is the cheaper it is per seat. For me the benefit of a bigger stand is it give much more room for proper facilities. With one a similar size to the west you don't get much room underneath. With a east replica you can really make use of space and put some money making things in there. A shop, a restaurant, a bar, doctor's surgery, takeaways. It just gives room to make money while at the same time future proofing the ground
You say facilities, we can't fill our ground and we're still in a pandemic where a ground being full of fans may not even be legal at times. The only time I recall us filling our ground was the in the Premiership year and we had just over 18k capacity. You could fully close the West Stand if we're in the Championship and it would rarely make a jot of difference. We have changing rooms already. Why do we need a second lot? There is nothing wrong with the other 3 stands. Indeed, many clubs would envy them. The media facilities are a valid concern, absolutely. The rest of the points frankly are immaterial unless we are promoted and the main notion about the west stand is one of vanity and not wanting humiliation from opposing fans. What some, and seemingly you too, are wanting is for owners who don't own the ground, in a global pandemic when fans aren't allowed in, in a ground which is never full is to spend millions and millions on a stand to sit empty. I can tell you the commercial value of doing such a thing is pretty close to zero.
It’s a bit of a dilemma really, I suppose the upshot is,,, it could be very easy, after spending fortunes on asbestos disposal, to end up with a £1million stand that’s worth half a million.
I don't expect it done now, I'm talking long term which I think GO is too but the that about us only filling the ground on the premier League is wrong. We've sold out quite a few times since then
I would like our players to be air lifted into Oakwell/Grove Street one by one, dangling from a rope ladder attached to a red and white helicopter.
We simply don't need a bigger stand mate. "The bigger it is the cheaper the seat" makes no sense, cos we'd have to actually sell the seats to justify your statement. We would do that in the Prem, but the first issue is getting there, the second issue is staying there. Would we fill it purely because it is new? No, cos we don't have the fan base. The West currently has a stated capacity of 4,700. It is iconic purely with a nod to the past (I sit there - I love it). A replacement needs to be modern, straightforward, 4,500 - 5,000 seated comfortably, with a nod to the present. I keep harping on about the Burnley design and make no apologies for that. There would still be scope for decent facilities underneath, a tunnel would still be possible. But moreso the design of the dugouts could allow the 200 or so seats behind the current dugouts to actually see the game. In short, we need nothing more than a functional, modern, in-budget replacement. Should we sustain PL football, and crowds increase, then look at developing 3x unused corners - but we are way off even discussing that yet.
I don't know the answer to this, how many times have we since filled the capacity of the ground since we got relegated from the premiership?
Incorrect, I've stated when the ground ownership is sorted. I've remarked on quite a few of my threads over the months, nothing will get done with the current owners of Oakwell We will probably be back in the ground next season when the stand will be back in use again, the pandemic won't go on forever, Its a good excuse at the minute with no fans.
Probably because no bugger wants to sit in it. When I was a pay on the dayer there was zero chance of me sitting in the West Stand. I would check the online seating map and see if there were a couple of seats free in the East Stand, if there were I booked them, if not I didn’t go. The West Stand never gets many in unless it’s a big game and even then, the best seats in the East Stand goes first. Surely, if no one was bothered about it being inferior, the East and West should fill up equally with fans split across both in equal measure. Why would anyone pay around £30 to sit in there when they could pay the same for the East and have better facilities and be more comfortable? You’re comparing number of tickets sold now when fans are being put off with how many there could be if it was an up to date stand.
Personally, wip the old roof off, replace the top half of the old stand and put a new roof on. Why develop something else for changing rooms when they made modern ones in the North. Doesn't make any sense whatsoever to waste even more space. Space that could be freed up with stuff for fans
I agree with you on that its a stand many wouldn't want to go in if all other areas were taken up. The problem is, how often do we fill all other parts of the ground to make it worth upgrading? It's got to have a return on investment to warrant spending multi millions of pounds. I don't have the figures and my attendance at Oakwell a few dozen times over the last decade is no measure, but I've never had an issue getting a ticket. And thats before we even got to the point of seriously sorting the North stand to have some home fans in it.
Nah - it just changes the question to ‘how many times had the East Stand sold out?’. Which I reckon would be a similar answer. However, there’s a point missing; it still doesn’t allow for... a new and improved West Stand and associated match day experience could possibly increase the attractiveness of the event and therefore increase attendance. But like all business plans that’d be guess work dressed up as scientific research. It’s frankly a nightmare trying to predict crowds for sporting events, as the on field performance matters much more than any ‘additional attractions’. Last time I was in Oakwell and it was absolutely buzzing was a freezing cold night game against SunLun, the club put on a band, flags and fireworks, but I doubt very much that any of it added to the atmosphere greatly. We were on a promotion push, they were close rivals and filled the away stand.
The East and Ponty holds exactly 12,000 (not inc segregation) our average attendance at Championship level for the past two full seasons of attendance was around 12,000 home fans, the attendances in total have been 13,704 & 13,857 (1,937 away average). If it was closed we would struggle to fit in our average attendance at this level. No doubt we would have averaged 15k plus this season with the team doing so well. We averaged 12,527 in our last league 1 campaign, with barely any away fans we would have struggled to fit that crowd in with a closed West Stand.
Yes because that's the away end, we're on about home ends. Your argument is that the West Stand would be empty and it could be closed so I've pointed out that our average home support only fills both the East and Ponty. They also won't split the away end, especially in this division - it's been put to the them on a few of the fans forums. Something l did when l had time on my hands http://barnsleyfc.org.uk/threads/16-17-attendance-summary.255859/
It doesn't have to be the away end. It's a stand. I've been to plenty of grounds where the away fans have been moved to suit the home club. You could stick away fans in the west stand if there was potential to fill the rest of the ground with home fans. But we can't and haven't. The fact remains, we don't sell out our ground with its current capacity (which keeps getting reduced) and when analysed, our ground has one of, if not the most underutilised capacities in the division and probably the country.
