Letter from club - West Stand closed until further notice

Derek Acora.

 

Mmm I can see why some would advocate this but you have to put aside the fact that both of those examples are, how can I put this .................. an absolute pile of soulless garbage. With Donny's being a particularly good example of a ground on the road to nowhere.

 

Chuckling....

 

It's **** or bust time for the consortium and the club, this is a long term investment project, I suspect its going to expose the true commitment of them to our club...............

 

As others have pointed out, for example, last Wednesday was hardly a dazzling atmosphere at Oakwell - the crowd make the atmosphere, and having only 3 sides open is going to be pretty depressing, reminds me of the "one stand" days.

 

My old man and uncle have already chalked it considering only options for our group of 6 tickets was Ponte or away end of ESL.

Be interesting how many else will.

 

Maybe he could have got a better seat in ESL if this had been said before new season ticket renewals.

 

This is what annoyed about, we're just left to pick over the dregs now.

 

Derek Nudger, more like.

 

I'm not sure it's as simple as that for the Crynes and the council.

Isn't the BFC lease on Oakwell up soon? If so, their rental income will decrease fairly dramatically when it comes to be renewed, possibly to no rent at all with the club looking elsewhere, unless something is done.

At the moment, it is a 14,000 capacity stadium that gives opportunity to bring money in 23 times a year (+ cup games). It's not worth a lot when you take out sentimental value.

 

I've lost track of threads - but why are the media able to sit in the stand but the directors can't? That seems a bit odd to me - if anything, I'd expect that club staff could, but the media could not.

 

I could be wrong, but I thought there was quite a while for the lease to run, hence why ConLee wanted to renegotiate terms.

 

I've never really understood the "soulless" description of grounds. Rugby League fans tend to use it to just say "not a dump".

Go to any of the remaining stands at Oakwell, go through a turnstile where there's a person holding a scanner to scan your barcode (what's the point of that?!), then walk through a breezeblock concourse, where the amount of space and number toilets / kiosks doesn't really suit the capacity of the stand, then make your way to the seat. Not entirely sure where the soul is in that.

 

Still not been I'm afraid.

 

That was built in 2017 wasn't it? While they were there.

 

Possibly to do with internet/radio/phone connections only being in that stand.

How do i get a media pass?

 

I've sat in the West Stand on many occasions (only once at the back before the all-seater rule came in), though not as often as the Ponty. Only ever sat in the North stand once (the day it opened) and the East stand a couple of times. It'll be sad to see it go but inevitable in the end. Hopefully this will sharpen the will on both sides of the dispute to get together and sort it out.

 

The thing is though, they're all designed like that, post 2000. I don't have enough faith to say we'll keep a similar sort of design to now.

I agree with your final sentence entirely. I'm surprised that they've not done anything on that front yet, but maybe the ground ownership issue prevents them from exploring that avenue.