Jump to content

Recommended Posts

30 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

Hypothetically we'd love a stadium that holds at least £50,000. However if we're talking hypothetical this thread is redundant for serious discussion.

Well if the club has a windfall I'd want it spent on expansion.  I'd have liked to known where you saw the priority.  

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Barbe bleu said:

I have no idea what the accounts will say at the end of the year but lets say they show us £20-30 million in profit.  What should that mo ey be spent on

1)nothing, its important to have a buffer for the bad times (we can find ways to reduce corporation  tax).  This club has nearly gone bust in relatively recent years, have we learnt nothing?

2) the training ground.  We need first class facilities. It's pointless having  top quality academy products training in a bog when they graduate.

3) top players!  A club of our resources can only compete by putting every penny onto the pitch.  I don't see  Bournemouth suffering from not having 35,000 at a every game

4) a new stand.  We've reached a limit and demand is suppressed to the point that we risk the future of the club, just as others are growing.  Plus there are so many other benefits beyond extra match day income

5) support runs two ways.  Let's reduce prices and improve facilities at the stadium.  We may not be the biggest but we can give the best matchday experience.

The accounts to the accounting date will show a loss until the extra income catches up in 2020.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, Felixfan said:

The accounts to the accounting date will show a loss until the extra income catches up in 2020.

So at that point if we have say 20-30 million spare what would.you want the club to do?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Barbe bleu said:

So at that point if we have say 20-30 million spare what would.you want the club to do?

Depends what division we are in.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 minutes ago, Felixfan said:

Depends what division we are in.

Icompletion wouldn't be for several seasons from now so that will never be a known.    

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
5 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

The South stand rebuild roughly increased capacity from 23,000 to 27,000. In those six season since the debt had been paid off our average attendance figure was 26,400.

I am not sure that is entirely correct, the South Stand rebuild added 4000 seats which took capacity to 25k ish. Then we had the McNally added seats - extra rows put in various parts of the ground which added another say 2000 seats, plus I think we got another couple of hundred more when the new fire break between home and away support was brought in replacing the old material covering that took out several columns of seats.

So in the last 15 years or so the stadium has expanded by around 25% which has already absorbed quite a bit of latent support.

I really would like to see the Carrow Rd expanded through an enlarged City Stand which would give the ground more balance but only if those seats are occupied. I recall having the debate in the past about growing future support which is really really important. I also understand your point on payback periods. However I still remain to be convinced that there is the demand to justify an expansion project. It is only 12 months ago that the debate was around whether the full season ticket allocation would be taken up. We are now riding the promotion high which has brought this debate forward again. As such the current position is not the norm, and that is what the club needs to plan for.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
5 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

The South stand rebuild roughly increased capacity from 23,000 to 27,000. In those six season since the debt had been paid off our average attendance figure was 26,400.

Not quite correct Purple, the ground capacity was already 28.5k when the main stand burnt down in 1984. The result of this fire meant that the capacity had to be reduced to 23.5k until 1986 when the capacity went up to 26.8k

Safety regulations required restrictions in the South Stand and capacity hovvered between 20.3k and 21.2k right up until 2004 when the new (Jarrold) stand was completed in 2004. The new capacity was then 24.3k. Various additions, corner infils etc slowly brought capicity up to just over 27k.

Average attendances were under 25k every year between 2004 and 2010 and did not go over this figure until the following year at 25.2k when we were promoted to the Premier League. Since that date the average has been between 25.7k and 26.9k

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
6 hours ago, Barbe bleu said:

Well if the club has a windfall I'd want it spent on expansion.  I'd have liked to known where you saw the priority.  

 

If the club had a windfall I would definitely like to see the City Stand replaced. It would be a free hit so wouldn't matter if we built it and they didn't come. 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

If the club had a windfall I would definitely like to see the City Stand replaced. It would be a free hit so wouldn't matter if we built it and they didn't come. 

 

Perhaps they will have to sit on our laps while they build it.

Or I could share my seat with a fellow prostate struggler and take it in turns to nip out. That way I could hear about the goals I missed.😀

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, ricardo said:

Not quite correct Purple, the ground capacity was already 28.5k when the main stand burnt down in 1984. The result of this fire meant that the capacity had to be reduced to 23.5k until 1986 when the capacity went up to 26.8k

 

Remember back in 1986 that the Barclay stand and River End lower was terracing and all seater reduced the capacity ricardo.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
5 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Perhaps they will have to sit on our laps while they build it.

Or I could share my seat with a fellow prostate struggler and take it in turns to nip out. That way I could hear about the goals I missed.😀

I don't know about Tilly's prostate but you wouldn't want him on your lap....

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

City Stand replaced, would be the obvious one. The trouble with that is it's where all the Board members sit. Where would they sit, whilst the build was taking place ?  The ground is already almost full of season ticket holders who will not give up their seats.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
15 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Perhaps they will have to sit on our laps while they build it.

I'm not taking that laying down....

😛

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
9 minutes ago, lappinitup said:

I'm not taking that laying down....

😛

😀

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
20 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

Remember back in 1986 that the Barclay stand and River End lower was terracing and all seater reduced the capacity ricardo.

Yes thats right. Probably why the capacity was just a little over 20k. Mind you, the average gate during the eighties was seldom over 16k.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

What about a new ground altogether.

Play at Eaton Park until the building work is complete. Overruns could mean it takes ten years and cost £1.5 Billion but. . .

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Sussexyellow said:

I am not sure that is entirely correct, the South Stand rebuild added 4000 seats which took capacity to 25k ish. Then we had the McNally added seats - extra rows put in various parts of the ground which added another say 2000 seats, plus I think we got another couple of hundred more when the new fire break between home and away support was brought in replacing the old material covering that took out several columns of seats.

So in the last 15 years or so the stadium has expanded by around 25% which has already absorbed quite a bit of latent support.

I really would like to see the Carrow Rd expanded through an enlarged City Stand which would give the ground more balance but only if those seats are occupied. I recall having the debate in the past about growing future support which is really really important. I also understand your point on payback periods. However I still remain to be convinced that there is the demand to justify an expansion project. It is only 12 months ago that the debate was around whether the full season ticket allocation would be taken up. We are now riding the promotion high which has brought this debate forward again. As such the current position is not the norm, and that is what the club needs to plan for.

Sussex, I think you are right about the capacity figure arrived at at the time by the extra 4,000 in the South Stand. But I do not think it alters my point, which was that in the six seasons since the South Stand debt was paid off the vast majority of those extra seats were filled not by fans moving from other parts of the ground, but by new fans. Since the average overall attendance over those season was only a few hundred below capacity. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

What about a new ground altogether.

Play at Eaton Park until the building work is complete. Overruns could mean it takes ten years and cost £1.5 Billion but. . .

Yes, within biking distance.🚴‍♀️

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
41 minutes ago, SwindonCanary said:

City Stand replaced, would be the obvious one. The trouble with that is it's where all the Board members sit. Where would they sit, whilst the build was taking place ?  The ground is already almost full of season ticket holders who will not give up their seats.

retain the existing seating, and build a new tier at the back (assuming the road can be purchased and application approved)

no need to lose any capacity

I think Crystal Palace are about to do something like this, once they can get the section 106 (covering infrastructure upgrades) in place

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, PurpleCanary said:

Sussex, I think you are right about the capacity figure arrived at at the time by the extra 4,000 in the South Stand. But I do not think it alters my point, which was that in the six seasons since the South Stand debt was paid off the vast majority of those extra seats were filled not by fans moving from other parts of the ground, but by new fans. Since the average overall attendance over those season was only a few hundred below capacity. 

Purple I agree with that. The club has increased the capacity and people are sitting on those seats, that can only be extra people sitting on those seats not fans migrating round the ground.

However having already increased the capacity by circa 6.5k, can the trick be repeated again for another 4k. I accept that the break even accounting may mean that you do not to sell them all consistently for it to be financially worthwhile. But, and I think you have argued this in the past, gate receipts are a small percentage of overall income so there is a balance to be struck between the relatively minor financial gains and the intangible  atmospheric benefits of something close to a sold out stadium that at the moment is pretty much a given at Carrow Rd at the moment. That of course is something that can not be empirically tested. It does though seem to resonate with the players. See the club’s recent tweet of Mo Leitner’s Instagram comment of his most special moment of the season. For those of you that have not seen it, it refers to the crowd reaction after the Stoke loss at home game, which he says shows what a special club Norwich is.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
9 hours ago, Sussexyellow said:

Purple I agree with that. The club has increased the capacity and people are sitting on those seats, that can only be extra people sitting on those seats not fans migrating round the ground.

However having already increased the capacity by circa 6.5k, can the trick be repeated again for another 4k. I accept that the break even accounting may mean that you do not to sell them all consistently for it to be financially worthwhile. But, and I think you have argued this in the past, gate receipts are a small percentage of overall income so there is a balance to be struck between the relatively minor financial gains and the intangible  atmospheric benefits of something close to a sold out stadium that at the moment is pretty much a given at Carrow Rd at the moment. That of course is something that can not be empirically tested. It does though seem to resonate with the players. See the club’s recent tweet of Mo Leitner’s Instagram comment of his most special moment of the season. For those of you that have not seen it, it refers to the crowd reaction after the Stoke loss at home game, which he says shows what a special club Norwich is.

Sussex, some good points there. I agree about atmosphere, and to be clear I am not necessarily arguing for expansion. Just making the points that the new financial strategy might make it more feasible, and that you do not have to fill all the extra seats all the time for it to be worthwhile in the long run.

As to gate receipts being small as a percentage of income and so being not so important, I have actually argued the opposite. It doesn't apply below the Premier League, where gate receipts are the major source of income, and add to money from catering and commercial.

But even in the PL everybody gets the TV money, and we almost invariably get less than most. The way to make up the difference is by increased revenue from tickets/catering/commercial.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
13 hours ago, ricardo said:

Average attendances were under 25k every year between 2004 and 2010 and did not go over this figure until the following year at 25.2k when we were promoted to the Premier League. Since that date the average has been between 25.7k and 26.9k

Is this league attendances or including cup ties?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
12 hours ago, lappinitup said:

I'm not taking that laying down....

😛

Yeah but you wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Gate receipts (plus extras) will always be important to a club like NCFC, whatever the level.

They put money in the bank.

It was a big blow to clubs like City when, some time ago and at the time, the decision was made that the 'take' from the gate was to be mostly given to the home side and not divided up more equally between both combatants.

 

However, this probably only cost us whilst at the top table, otherwise in L.1.and in the Championship (for the most part) we would likely have been the beneficiaries.

(It would be interesting, though probably impossible to calculate the cost or gain here.)

The big boys weren't so disinterested in gate receipts when this decision was mooted.

We are a club who now seem to make a habit of getting promoted to the top league .... make as much hay as you can while the sun shines.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, king canary said:

Is this league attendances or including cup ties?

They are league attendances.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

We have been selling out the stadium and hitting the cap on season tickets virtually every year for (I think) 12 seasons. No other club outside the top six has that record. Both Doncaster and Bowkett stated that there was demand for 35k per game at City and Webber has stated that the main reason he came here was that we had clearly bigger potential than Huddersfield. So people are saying that we sell out a 25-26k stadium in League One and during poor seasons at the lower end of the Champs, but we could only expect a couple of thousand more in the Prem?! Incredible. People need to get it into their heads that having a handful of casual tickets available in areas of the ground where people don't particularly want to sit, completely changes the culture of attending football matches. If people try and fail to get 3-4 seats together for friends or family in an area you like and repeatedly fail, people stop trying. 

Also I see the old "we're not a large centre of population" argument has cropped up again. Again, ridiculous. Large centres of population have corresponding large numbers of professional clubs (and other sports) competing for the same pool of people. We have over a million people in Norfolk and Waveney with no competition- an enviable situation and one clued up people like Webber will be well aware of.

The caution regarding expansion and how to go about it is commendable and warranted, but if you gave a neutral a break down of demand/demographics etc of clubs outside the top six and asked which had the most obvious case for expansion, City would be top every time.

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

To those who say the ground should only be expanded from 27,000 to 31,000 I would have to ask whether you would be getting as much bang from your buck as you ought to be? If you are going to spend £30m on a new stand, would an increase of only 4,000 be worth it? The Bowkett plan assumed an 8,000 increase for £30m which is obviously far better value. The club does not want to make same mistake a third time. The City Stand is too small and history has proven the new South Stand to also be too small.

Secondly, if the club had 22,000 season ticket holders and 14,000 members last time in the EPL, surely you need a minimum capacity of 35,000 to ensure that most people get a chance to buy a ticket, especially for the big games. And of course this scenario does not even allow for those who would want to buy on General Sale. Norwich City Football Club is massively underestimating its potential support and I do subscribe to the view that a lot of people don't bother to buy tickets because they don't think they would get in, or not have much chance of getting a ticket in a preferred location. A bigger ground would open up the possibilities to these disenfranchised supporters.

Thirdly, to the poster who said City have only ever had less than a dozen gates over 35,000 and fewer still in the league, I would point out that these were at a time when City were a lower league club and cup games were taken far more seriously than they are now. Moreover, as the club has risen up the leagues, the trend has been for the stadium capacity to go down, so we have never been able to truly test the actual size of the club - especially in the last 20 years or so. I recall Norwich got 28,001 against Ipswich in 1983, which was a capacity crowd, and to this day it has never been possible to beat that because the stadium capacity has hovered somewhere between 21,000 to 27,000. I believe it all started to go down in the 1970s when seats were put in the old South Stand. Before then it was still possible to get gates over 30,000, but of course attendances at football games were in decline generally at that time, which contrasts markedly with the last 20 years or so, where there has been an upsurge in popularity of the game, especially among women, who were put off by the hooliganism in the 70s and 80s.

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Is there no simple way for the club to squeeze in a few hundred extra seats? Like a lowered front row at the front of the Jarrold, City and Barclay Stands, for example? Probably not practical, but we're at the stage where even a couple of hundred extra seats would be a big help, I reckon.

Clearly with hindsight the Holiday Inn wasn't a great option (or even without hindsight) though.

Edited by Grando

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
6 hours ago, Grando said:

Is there no simple way for the club to squeeze in a few hundred extra seats? Like a lowered front row at the front of the Jarrold, City and Barclay Stands, for example? Probably not practical, but we're at the stage where even a couple of hundred extra seats would be a big help, I reckon.

 

I think that we did this when McNally was in charge, almost to the extent that I worried about getting out if there was a fire!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...