Match tomorrow was in serious doubt apparently

It's a red wall.

Amazes me how such sentimentality can be attributed to a wall, sorry, but I really don't understand it.

It honestly wouldn't bother me if the entire ground was levelled in order to build a community stadium that's able to be used every day, something that would provide the club with a constant source of substantial income.

 

There have been serious safety issues with the stands at Hillsborough for years.

They were built facing the pitch.

 

They'll email you at 2 o'clock.

 

I honestly don't get the angst about Oakwell. Went to Bolton Tuesday, exactly the same in terms of concourse, plastic seats, concrete steps up, turnstiles in. A stadium is a stadium. What the older ones have is history.

 

What’s the issue at Birmingham? The two stands that look shut appear to be the two biggest most modern ones to the right and opposite the away end

 

It's like triggers broom...

 

If ever a new stand was built there I personally would love them to retain the old wall and turnstiles as an historic artefact.
That's our history, like the cottage is at Fulham and the old walls were at Arsenal. They've been retained so our little old wall and bogs could be too. It just needs the will to do it.
I like the image of the red wall when the ground is depicted but to show it along side a new stand would be brilliant.

 

I worked on the foundation designs for retaining the Highbury listed facades and entrance hall, interesting stuff back in the day. Personally, I’m not particularly bothered about the Oakwell walls, but I do think retaining the old stand/roof structure has merit.

 

Good god no!!!!
I can see the attachment to the design of the West Stand and wouldn't mind a modern reworking of it but the wall? It's just a horrible eyesore and always has been. In my eyes anyway.
Maybe, if it ever goes the individual bricks could be auctioned off to those who have a sentimental attachment to it. By the sounds of it they might make a mint.

 

Structural repairs that were under way have taken longer/found more. So delayed the completion.

A football stand is basically a large steel structure with concrete castings on it - similar to a bridge. It will always require maintenance and isolated repairs throughout its life. And that’s before you look at the fit out and services part of it.

The feeling at Birmingham, is that the owners knew about the additional repairs, but were waiting for money to come in to cover it.

 

Do you work for the club or something? You always seem to know details of which company is laying the pitch, how much maintenance costs, any maintenance issues found etc. Are you the groundsman or something?

 

We should have knocked it down and rebuilt something during the year no fans were allowed in! I'd like a new modern stand with a bit of an older west stand look. I find it crazy that today's game is all-ticket, so something must have happened! It's bonkers that a 6000 away end is all ticket and they haven't even shifted 2000. Same with Bolton the other night, are these clubs mental making it all ticket whilst 1000s of seats are left unsold, must like tossing away money!

 

Maybe you’d prefer it built in Sheffield or Wakefield, after all what’s with the sentimentality of it being on Grove St?

We are what we are. Some things remind us of our boyhood experiences of our trips to Oakwell. The smells, the noise, the massive bloke who sat next to you…. It all is our identity. Some things have gone at Oakwell, some remain. I prefer the West Stand, it’s just “comfier”.

As for the guy who said it was ok to reduce the capacity to 18000. I believe you shouldn’t go backwards. Especially if you are wanting to push on and make progress.

 

Why on earth would I want a new stadium building anywhere but Barnsley? Not sure why, or how you've come to that conclusion?

 

Just showing the different things that sentimentality does….

 

I'm not fussed if it remains on Grove St. But a team should play within the boundaries of its town/city.

 

It’s time for it to go. I know we all have affection for it but it’s an eyesore. And a cause of lost revenue. We could incorporate features like the wall into a new design. Improve it. Install some safe standing. Use it for away fans with smaller followings. Use North as additional home area most weeks.

 

The old west girl is mainly wooden and has seen her best days. It makes a degree of sense, but could equally be nonsense. Might be the internal politics raising its head again regarding who owns what and which bit is called Grove Street, as opposed to Oakwell. If the old west stand is the issue, there really should be an agreement that it should be demolished and replaced, or maybe just demolished. It wouldn't necessarily mean a fancy, state-of-the-art stand in its place, but just something like Northampton Town most recently built. It would serve the purpose. I have a surveyor friend who reckoned that the seating in the old west stand was genuine oak. If true, it would be worth a bit. I find it hard to believe, but he seemed pretty sure.

 

My comment is replying to a query about the 2 stands at Brum, not Oakwell.

 

Birmingham have two stands shut that will cost two to three million pounds to get back open. Fulham fans haven't got their season ticket cards back because they got made abroad and getting them back to the club has been held up.

We aren't the only club with farcical issues.