So now...Hotel or infill?

[can u sit down please 0]

Now that we have a reported 1300 season tickets up for grabs i just wondered what people would have thought if we had built the infill. As an estimate another 1500-2000 seats have been available/empty, surely this option at this time isnt the best one?

Lets not forget we still have other stands (if success ever returns) that we could develope which would be better options ie Jarrold/City.

The hotel now seems to make a little bit of sense. (cue prudence/ambition, its the borads fault for empty seats etc.....)

[Jonncfc 28]

Regardless of whether or not we fill the ground next season the hotel is an eyesore that the Club allowed to happen for a small short-term financial gain (I know that there will also be a ongoing income coming to the Club from the hotel but I suspect this will be minimal).  It costs more per seat to build a corner infill than a main stand and clearly it would therefore have taken longer to have paid for itself but even so, in the long term, the hotel was the wrong option.  If we really have the ambition of returning to the Premier League then continued ground development is essential.  As we have shown over the last few seasons, we can fill the ground comfortably (although the awful underperformance of the last couple of years is clearly now beginning to take its toll in terms of season ticket sales) and if we ever did manage to re-establish ourselves as a top-flight club then I see no reason why we wouldn''t attract more (30,000?).  Throwing away the option of a future corner infill was a very poor decision.

[BBFF 0]

[quote user="can u sit down please"]

Now that we have a reported 1300 season tickets up for grabs i just wondered what people would have thought if we had built the infill. As an estimate another 1500-2000 seats have been available/empty, surely this option at this time isnt the best one?

Lets not forget we still have other stands (if success ever returns) that we could develope which would be better options ie Jarrold/City.

The hotel now seems to make a little bit of sense. (cue prudence/ambition, its the borads fault for empty seats etc.....)

[/quote]

Prudence = empty seats. Real FOOTBALL ambition = full seats.

Not that hard to work out!!!!!!!!

FOOTBALL MUST COME FIRST

[Cheerio 0]

Infill was never an option, not allowed by planning due to proximity of away fans.... that was stated several years ago

[John Boubepo 0]

[quote user="Spilt Diesel"]Infill was never an option, not allowed by planning due to proximity of away fans.... that was stated several years ago[/quote]I don''t buy into that excuse at all, if that was the case every football club would  either have a blank space or a crappy hotel in the corner of their stadiums just to keep rival supporters apart. All the top clubs have stadiums which have evolved over the years and are stadiums to be proud of, we in contrast have turned our stadium into a joke - A hotel should not be pitch side of a football stadium, end of story!

[Jonncfc 28]

A corner infill wouldn''t have been allowed on planning grounds?  Sorry but I think you''ve almost certainly got that wrong.  OK, there may have had to have been a few changes to how the away supporters were accomodated but there are many many grounds which have all corners filled in so I can''t see how or why we would have been any different.  The Club will live to regret the hotel decision.

[Cheerio 0]

Its fact - call the club.....A percentage in a very needed and viable business is genius for an otherwise dead piece of land

[burn down the ipswich 0]

ok so old trafford in that sense is against the law is it?

[Cheerio 0]

Fine, call the clubThe hotel was a smart move

[Syteanric 1]

[quote user="John Boubepo"][quote user="Spilt Diesel"]Infill was never an option, not allowed by planning due to proximity of away fans.... that was stated several years ago
[/quote]

I don''t buy into that excuse at all, if that was the case every football club would  either have a blank space or a crappy hotel in the corner of their stadiums just to keep rival supporters apart. All the top clubs have stadiums which have evolved over the years and are stadiums to be proud of, we in contrast have turned our stadium into a joke - A hotel should not be pitch side of a football stadium, end of story!
[/quote]

so how come an infill with a brick wall is frowned upon yet all it takes is a bit of tape to separate home fans from away fans at most grounds... i agree with john

 

jas :)

[Dame to Blame 108]

I hate the thing and like a lot have said it has no place near a football ground ,it would not have been so bad had the design been better but it is just a  big square ugly box absolutly hate it.

[Dowp End 0]

Spilt Diesel states'''' we have turned our stadium into a joke'''' could not agree more.I live out of the area but still travel to every home game and have always been proud of our ground-----the response from local people to me and colleagues who have visited Carrow Rd has always been complimentary and one of suprise as to how good our ground is.However having given a crowd of colleagues directions to parking etc to attend the recent concert as none of them had been there before I was met the following morning with one long p*** t*** over ''''what sort of football club uses its space like that'''' They all felt that the concept and the finished article are completely laughable and a joke '''' ----the first time I have heard anything derogatory against our ground from first time visitors.I know that money and need allowing we can develop elsewhere but we have to look at it every other week . Are the people that make the decisions really interested in the football or just the business ?

[Dowp End 0]

Sorry ! meant to say John Boubepo wrote in response to Spilt Deisel !

[Pyro Pete 2,353]

Stands are part of a football club''s infrastructure. They are an investment in the future. I think an incremental building policy is a good thing for the development of a club our size. Planning an infill for the Barclay/Jarrold stands would have been a good idea. If we can''t currently afford it, we should have made provision for it in the future. The hotel removes that possibility.

[a1canary 0]

Why do we keep revisiting the same subjects? We''ve been over this.The cost of the infill was going to be 2-3 million. The number of seats was going to be 700. Does that really have a serious impact on our capacity? But lets just suppose we fill every one of those seats every fortnight. Then take a very generous average price per seat of £20. That makes 560,000 a season.Based on those fag packet calculations, it''s going to take 3.5 years to pay an initial £2m outlay. Then bare in mind that we won''t fill every seat, that with concessions, season tickets etc it won''t be anything like £20 a seat, then bare in mind the interest charges on the loan to raise the initial £2m capital outlay, and we''re talking more  like 5 years to pay it off. And that''s also assuming that every penny of revenue raised from the infill goes on paying back the loan. For FIVE years. No doubt most of you lot would expect the infill to pay for a new striker after a year. In reality of course, some kind of finance package would be arranged, and the repayment arranged over 15 years or something, making the total amount payable many times what we originally paid, plunging us further into debt, directing more resources into loan repayments and all for the sake of 700 seats. We''d end up like them down the road, in a position where revenues will never be sufficient to match debt repayments, let alone run the club and buy and pay players. Is that what we want?Now consider the hotel option. Firstly, there''s no capital outlay. We RECEIVE £1.5 million (around that - can''t recall exact figuret. Then, we get a 30% stake in the business. A permanent revenue stream and £1.5 million. I would congratulate the board but it''s such a total NO BRAINER of a decision to make, that a 5 year-old could have made it. But not, it appears, some of you lot!!!

[Cheerio 0]

Right so the club decided to turn 1500 extra weekly ticket sales into a long term hotel investmentYeah right. You must be correct about the fact that the planning autority turned the infill down.The club got it wrongThat must be itWHat a silly mistakeSack the board

The Hotel was the only option. What else would have got planning and continued to bring long term interest in eh?

[Citizen Journalist Foghorn 0]

[quote user="Spilt Diesel"]Infill was never an option, not allowed by planning due to proximity of away fans.... that was stated several years ago
[/quote]

what a load of old twaddle....  So we can''t have a proper football ground like many other clubs???  twaddle...

[Dowp End 0]

I for one would rather have a proper football ground !!good business decision or not !How many other clubs have taken this route and built a money making eyesore as an integral part of it''s ground much to the dismay of many of our own supporters and other clubs alike.We should be concentrating on getting it right on the pitch and supporting Grant. How much of this ''''good business'''' decisions revenue will be spent where we need it ? in a direction to take us onwards and upwards or maintain the status quo and stand still .

[BBFF 0]

[quote user="a1canary"]Why do we keep revisiting the same subjects? We''ve been over this.

The cost of the infill was going to be 2-3 million. The number of seats was going to be 700. Does that really have a serious impact on our capacity? But lets just suppose we fill every one of those seats every fortnight. Then take a very generous average price per seat of £20. That makes 560,000 a season.

Based on those fag packet calculations, it''s going to take 3.5 years to pay an initial £2m outlay. Then bare in mind that we won''t fill every seat, that with concessions, season tickets etc it won''t be anything like £20 a seat, then bare in mind the interest charges on the loan to raise the initial £2m capital outlay, and we''re talking more  like 5 years to pay it off. And that''s also assuming that every penny of revenue raised from the infill goes on paying back the loan. For FIVE years. No doubt most of you lot would expect the infill to pay for a new striker after a year. In reality of course, some kind of finance package would be arranged, and the repayment arranged over 15 years or something, making the total amount payable many times what we originally paid, plunging us further into debt, directing more resources into loan repayments and all for the sake of 700 seats. We''d end up like them down the road, in a position where revenues will never be sufficient to match debt repayments, let alone run the club and buy and pay players. Is that what we want?

Now consider the hotel option. Firstly, there''s no capital outlay. We RECEIVE £1.5 million (around that - can''t recall exact figuret. Then, we get a 30% stake in the business. A permanent revenue stream and £1.5 million. I would congratulate the board but it''s such a total NO BRAINER of a decision to make, that a 5 year-old could have made it. But not, it appears, some of you lot!!!
[/quote]

It was £1.1mil for 150 years lease that''s £7330 a year or 700 seats at £20, say 23 games a year over 150 years......that''s about £48mil. We don''t get a penny from the every day running of the hotel, just a dividend on the shares we hold, a third of the total. NCPLC said the real income will be when the hotel is sold in the future, but remember after that we have no control of the infill what so ever, well not for 150 years anyway!

Apart from seeing the back of an hotel every single home game when there should be a bank of yellow and green singing "on the ball city" its again the perception of yet another none FOOTBALL enterprise pushing FOOTBALL for the real true supporter to the back of the list of must haves at Carrow Rd. When supports see the quality of teams the club are putting out and the dismal performance they produce, we have the right to ask the decision makes at the club (NCPLC) where their priority''s lie?

 

FOOTBALL MUST COME FIRST  

[Mr.Carrow 394]

I have alot of problems with the way our club has been run in the last few years but i actually think the hotel decision was a good one. I would MUCH rather have seen an infill there but at a cost of £3million+ i don`t think the club will be in a position to build it for a long time yet-at least without neglecting the team even more than they have been.

At least with the hotel once the land deal was complete the building/running of it was taken out of the clubs hands. All the other non-football ventures instigated by the board take up time,money and effort which should be focussed on improving the deteriorating situation on the pitch.

Incidently the infill at the other end of the South stand holds 1500 i believe, so i don`t know where the 700 figure comes from?

 

[megson 0]

[quote user="Mr.Carrow"]

I have alot of problems with the way our club has been run in the last few years but i actually think the hotel decision was a good one. I would MUCH rather have seen an infill there but at a cost of £3million+ i don`t think the club will be in a position to build it for a long time yet-at least without neglecting the team even more than they have been.

At least with the hotel once the land deal was complete the building/running of it was taken out of the clubs hands. All the other non-football ventures instigated by the board take up time,money and effort which should be focussed on improving the deteriorating situation on the pitch.

Incidently the infill at the other end of the South stand holds 1500 i believe, so i don`t know where the 700 figure comes from?

 

[/quote]

The 700 figure comes from the fact that the club needs to keep pitch access for emergency vehicles and the like which is done from that corner.

This means any infil would of had to keep this access underneath meaning a large chunk of it would of been a tunnel onto the pitch, thus restricting the seat numbers.

[Pyro Pete 2,353]

[quote user="BB FOOTBALL FIRST"][quote user="a1canary"]Why do we keep revisiting the same subjects? We''ve been over this.The cost of the infill was going to be 2-3 million. The number of seats was going to be 700. Does that really have a serious impact on our capacity? But lets just suppose we fill every one of those seats every fortnight. Then take a very generous average price per seat of £20. That makes 560,000 a season.Based on those fag packet calculations, it''s going to take 3.5 years to pay an initial £2m outlay. Then bare in mind that we won''t fill every seat, that with concessions, season tickets etc it won''t be anything like £20 a seat, then bare in mind the interest charges on the loan to raise the initial £2m capital outlay, and we''re talking more  like 5 years to pay it off. And that''s also assuming that every penny of revenue raised from the infill goes on paying back the loan. For FIVE years. No doubt most of you lot would expect the infill to pay for a new striker after a year. In reality of course, some kind of finance package would be arranged, and the repayment arranged over 15 years or something, making the total amount payable many times what we originally paid, plunging us further into debt, directing more resources into loan repayments and all for the sake of 700 seats. We''d end up like them down the road, in a position where revenues will never be sufficient to match debt repayments, let alone run the club and buy and pay players. Is that what we want?Now consider the hotel option. Firstly, there''s no capital outlay. We RECEIVE £1.5 million (around that - can''t recall exact figuret. Then, we get a 30% stake in the business. A permanent revenue stream and £1.5 million. I would congratulate the board but it''s such a total NO BRAINER of a decision to make, that a 5 year-old could have made it. But not, it appears, some of you lot!!![/quote]

It was £1.1mil for 150 years lease that''s £7330 a year or 700 seats at £20, say 23 games a year over 150 years......that''s about £48mil. We don''t get a penny from the every day running of the hotel, just a dividend on the shares we hold, a third of the total. NCPLC said the real income will be when the hotel is sold in the future, but remember after that we have no control of the infill what so ever, well not for 150 years anyway!

Apart from seeing the back of an hotel every single home game when there should be a bank of yellow and green singing "on the ball city" its again the perception of yet another none FOOTBALL enterprise pushing FOOTBALL for the real true supporter to the back of the list of must haves at Carrow Rd. When supports see the quality of teams the club are putting out and the dismal performance they produce, we have the right to ask the decision makes at the club (NCPLC) where their priority''s lie?

 

FOOTBALL MUST COME FIRST  

[/quote]Now, now, BB FOOTBALL FIRST. Don''t start using logic and reason to win an argument. You may start a trend...

[Syteanric 1]

[quote user="BB FOOTBALL FIRST"][quote user="a1canary"]Why do we keep revisiting the same subjects? We''ve been over this.

The cost of the infill was going to be 2-3 million. The number of seats was going to be 700. Does that really have a serious impact on our capacity? But lets just suppose we fill every one of those seats every fortnight. Then take a very generous average price per seat of £20. That makes 560,000 a season.

Based on those fag packet calculations, it''s going to take 3.5 years to pay an initial £2m outlay. Then bare in mind that we won''t fill every seat, that with concessions, season tickets etc it won''t be anything like £20 a seat, then bare in mind the interest charges on the loan to raise the initial £2m capital outlay, and we''re talking more  like 5 years to pay it off. And that''s also assuming that every penny of revenue raised from the infill goes on paying back the loan. For FIVE years. No doubt most of you lot would expect the infill to pay for a new striker after a year. In reality of course, some kind of finance package would be arranged, and the repayment arranged over 15 years or something, making the total amount payable many times what we originally paid, plunging us further into debt, directing more resources into loan repayments and all for the sake of 700 seats. We''d end up like them down the road, in a position where revenues will never be sufficient to match debt repayments, let alone run the club and buy and pay players. Is that what we want?

Now consider the hotel option. Firstly, there''s no capital outlay. We RECEIVE £1.5 million (around that - can''t recall exact figuret. Then, we get a 30% stake in the business. A permanent revenue stream and £1.5 million. I would congratulate the board but it''s such a total NO BRAINER of a decision to make, that a 5 year-old could have made it. But not, it appears, some of you lot!!!
[/quote]

It was £1.1mil for 150 years lease that''s £7330 a year or 700 seats at £20, say 23 games a year over 150 years......that''s about £48mil. We don''t get a penny from the every day running of the hotel, just a dividend on the shares we hold, a third of the total. NCPLC said the real income will be when the hotel is sold in the future, but remember after that we have no control of the infill what so ever, well not for 150 years anyway!

Apart from seeing the back of an hotel every single home game when there should be a bank of yellow and green singing "on the ball city" its again the perception of yet another none FOOTBALL enterprise pushing FOOTBALL for the real true supporter to the back of the list of must haves at Carrow Rd. When supports see the quality of teams the club are putting out and the dismal performance they produce, we have the right to ask the decision makes at the club (NCPLC) where their priority''s lie?

 

FOOTBALL MUST COME FIRST  

[/quote]

Fantastic post BB! I have been opposed to the idear of a hotel from day 1. and seeing these figures is just more proof of what a gaffe the board have made.

A1 Canary says about the 30% stake.. im sure he realises that there is a chance we can lose money on a stake just as likely we can make money.. what gaurentee do we all have the the hotel will succeed apart from a whim and a prayer by the club.

 if its losing money a company like Holiday Inn wont give 2 hoots and will happily close down at a moments notice.. leaving the club with an empty shell tacked onto the ground.. Holiday Inn can afford to lose 1 hotel in a sleepy backwater, this isn''t central london.

 Terracing would of made money from Tickets as BB mentioned, yet there would also of been programme sales, Alcohol sales, food Sales, soft drinks etc that would of made the club even more money... 700 extra shirts bought in the club shop at £50 each is an extra £35,000.

so the hotel is there and "COULD" make money.. well i "COULD" win the lottery, i "COULD" get hit by a buss, i "COULD" wake up next to Kate Beckinsale tommorow. none of these are guarenteed to happen... but they "could".

An infil "WOULD" of made money for the club.. different to could isnt it?

jas :)

[megson 0]

[quote user="jas the barclay king"][quote user="BB FOOTBALL FIRST"][quote user="a1canary"]Why do we keep revisiting the same subjects? We''ve been over this.

The cost of the infill was going to be 2-3 million. The number of seats was going to be 700. Does that really have a serious impact on our capacity? But lets just suppose we fill every one of those seats every fortnight. Then take a very generous average price per seat of £20. That makes 560,000 a season.

Based on those fag packet calculations, it''s going to take 3.5 years to pay an initial £2m outlay. Then bare in mind that we won''t fill every seat, that with concessions, season tickets etc it won''t be anything like £20 a seat, then bare in mind the interest charges on the loan to raise the initial £2m capital outlay, and we''re talking more  like 5 years to pay it off. And that''s also assuming that every penny of revenue raised from the infill goes on paying back the loan. For FIVE years. No doubt most of you lot would expect the infill to pay for a new striker after a year. In reality of course, some kind of finance package would be arranged, and the repayment arranged over 15 years or something, making the total amount payable many times what we originally paid, plunging us further into debt, directing more resources into loan repayments and all for the sake of 700 seats. We''d end up like them down the road, in a position where revenues will never be sufficient to match debt repayments, let alone run the club and buy and pay players. Is that what we want?

Now consider the hotel option. Firstly, there''s no capital outlay. We RECEIVE £1.5 million (around that - can''t recall exact figuret. Then, we get a 30% stake in the business. A permanent revenue stream and £1.5 million. I would congratulate the board but it''s such a total NO BRAINER of a decision to make, that a 5 year-old could have made it. But not, it appears, some of you lot!!!
[/quote]

It was £1.1mil for 150 years lease that''s £7330 a year or 700 seats at £20, say 23 games a year over 150 years......that''s about £48mil. We don''t get a penny from the every day running of the hotel, just a dividend on the shares we hold, a third of the total. NCPLC said the real income will be when the hotel is sold in the future, but remember after that we have no control of the infill what so ever, well not for 150 years anyway!

Apart from seeing the back of an hotel every single home game when there should be a bank of yellow and green singing "on the ball city" its again the perception of yet another none FOOTBALL enterprise pushing FOOTBALL for the real true supporter to the back of the list of must haves at Carrow Rd. When supports see the quality of teams the club are putting out and the dismal performance they produce, we have the right to ask the decision makes at the club (NCPLC) where their priority''s lie?

 

FOOTBALL MUST COME FIRST  

[/quote]

Fantastic post BB! I have been opposed to the idear of a hotel from day 1. and seeing these figures is just more proof of what a gaffe the board have made.

A1 Canary says about the 30% stake.. im sure he realises that there is a chance we can lose money on a stake just as likely we can make money.. what gaurentee do we all have the the hotel will succeed apart from a whim and a prayer by the club.

 if its losing money a company like Holiday Inn wont give 2 hoots and will happily close down at a moments notice.. leaving the club with an empty shell tacked onto the ground.. Holiday Inn can afford to lose 1 hotel in a sleepy backwater, this isn''t central london.

 Terracing would of made money from Tickets as BB mentioned, yet there would also of been programme sales, Alcohol sales, food Sales, soft drinks etc that would of made the club even more money... 700 extra shirts bought in the club shop at £50 each is an extra £35,000.

so the hotel is there and "COULD" make money.. well i "COULD" win the lottery, i "COULD" get hit by a buss, i "COULD" wake up next to Kate Beckinsale tommorow. none of these are guarenteed to happen... but they "could".

An infil "WOULD" of made money for the club.. different to could isnt it?

jas :)

[/quote]

That''s a poor one from you Jas.

The infill COULD of made money if we sold all 700 tickets every week. Which is fully dependant on us challenging for promotion this year, which is by no means certain.

Those 700 fans COULD all buy shirts to raise that £35,000 and they COULD buy programs, soft drinks etc etc.

That''s a lot different from WOULD as well isn''t it?

The fact is neither way is guranteed, but the option taken is safer, and finacially much more vialbe at the time the decsion was made, and gave the club an income boost on £1.2 million straight off, rather than a capital outlay on 3 times that.

An outlay that, without doubt, would of been much better spent on the playing side. Whether it was or not is another matter, but you can''t start assuming we''d sell all these tivkets every week and that every fan who went would buy a shirt!

[Tumbleweed 106]

So why couldn''t the road facing (and therefore the outer curve) part been a hotel with the side facing the pitch (ie the inner curve) filled with terracing. Maybe a slightly higher cost and the need for an entry point separate from the hotel, but surely when you can build tunnels under the channel a design which encompassed both would not have been beyond the wit of an architect..........

Visaully, the hotel is an eyesore. But then a club which replaces its Main Stand with something designed for the republic of Lilliput what should we expect?

[7rew 0]

Tumbleweed - you clearly haven''t met many architects, the one I have met certaily couldn''t/wouldn''t think of that.

[a1canary 0]

Jas, how do you conclude that the infil WOULD have made money when it would have cost £2-3m to build in the first place? It''s like me saying i WOULD make money if i bought a house and did it up to sell on. All well and good but I still gotta find the cash to buy it and to do it up!Glad you like BBFF''s post but like yours it''s deeply flawed. He conveniently avoids the small matter of the cash required to build the infil, the resultant debt we''d have to take on to find that cash, and the fact that 700 is 2.6% of current ground capacity. It would represent a cost per seat of over £3,500 (vs £813 for the south stand) and putting it on a par with the new Wembley. If the whole stadium was built on that basis, it would have cost £92 million to build. The Reebok cost £32m (and has a hotel), St Mary''s Southampton £35m. It''s just really BAD business, simple as that. And whatever anyone says and however many yellow and green tubs they may thump, the basic rules of business still apply to a football club. Plenty of people think they don''t, even those running football clubs, and the result is what you have at Bradford, Ipswich, Leeds...I really don''t understand your logic - you go on about football first and even put it in your user names, yet you are in favour of spending 2-3mil on seats, that add just 2.6% to overall capacity, instead of being given a lump some in excess of a million pounds, for a small square of land, that can go towards PLAYERS. It''s not like we''re selling our chances of future expansion down the Wensum as the existing stands allow for this when the time and the finances are right. P.S. That''s brilliant by the way BBFF, your calculation. Tell you what, lets just build the infil, wait 150 years, and then we''ll have £48m to build a whole new stadium!

[a1canary 0]

[quote user="Tumbleweed"]

So why couldn''t the road facing (and therefore the outer curve) part been a hotel with the side facing the pitch (ie the inner curve) filled with terracing. Maybe a slightly higher cost and the need for an entry point separate from the hotel, but surely when you can build tunnels under the channel a design which encompassed both would not have been beyond the wit of an architect..........

Visaully, the hotel is an eyesore. But then a club which replaces its Main Stand with something designed for the republic of Lilliput what should we expect?

[/quote]THAT, i can accept could have been a good idea if we could have got a similar deal and put the lump sum towards the infil cost. But that would still require an outlay much the same again as the lump sum and I just wonder if the board wanted the money for players/wages to keep the pressure off selling players.

[Branston Pickle 4,149]

I have to agree with 90% of what a1 Canary says, and I can''t believe we are still going over this old ground again.  I''m sure everyone connected with the club would prefer that we had built an infill on aesthetic grounds, but for me the simple fact is that it didn''t really make much sense from any other standpoint, be it business, financial or footballing.

What I can''t quite understand is that people who were moaning ad infinitum about our debt only a few months ago seem to think it would have been a good idea to increase it by a further c£3m, and those saying "it must be football first" somewhat contradicting themselves by saying we should undertake another building project, turn down £1.1m cash + a no-risk stake in the hotel, whilst tieing ourselves into this extra debt.   Surely the ''putting football first'' option was to take the money and invest it in players at a time when we were going to be losing £6m parachute money. 

[Syteanric 1]

[quote user="a1canary"]Jas, how do you conclude that the infil WOULD have made money when it would have cost £2-3m to build in the first place? It''s like me saying i WOULD make money if i bought a house and did it up to sell on. All well and good but I still gotta find the cash to buy it and to do it up!

Glad you like BBFF''s post but like yours it''s deeply flawed. He conveniently avoids the small matter of the cash required to build the infil, the resultant debt we''d have to take on to find that cash, and the fact that 700 is 2.6% of current ground capacity. It would represent a cost per seat of over £3,500 (vs £813 for the south stand) and putting it on a par with the new Wembley. If the whole stadium was built on that basis, it would have cost £92 million to build. The Reebok cost £32m (and has a hotel), St Mary''s Southampton £35m. It''s just really BAD business, simple as that. And whatever anyone says and however many yellow and green tubs they may thump, the basic rules of business still apply to a football club. Plenty of people think they don''t, even those running football clubs, and the result is what you have at Bradford, Ipswich, Leeds...

I really don''t understand your logic - you go on about football first and even put it in your user names, yet you are in favour of spending 2-3mil on seats, that add just 2.6% to overall capacity, instead of being given a lump some in excess of a million pounds, for a small square of land, that can go towards PLAYERS. It''s not like we''re selling our chances of future expansion down the Wensum as the existing stands allow for this when the time and the finances are right.

P.S. That''s brilliant by the way BBFF, your calculation. Tell you what, lets just build the infil, wait 150 years, and then we''ll have £48m to build a whole new stadium!
[/quote]

even better still lets just wait 150 years and we can sell the shell of the hotel to make a profit! it will all go round in Circles...

Your right Megson, but bear in mid that the extra 700 seats would be tacked onto the Barclay which always sells out regardless how badly we are doing then money would of drifted in from it.

Supposing the hotel does lose money, what will happen then??? the club is likely to bleed more money this way than it would from the seats.

If the hotel doesn''t make money then the club loses millions. as we dont owe the land and only hold part of a stake what then? It could really harm the club financially.

The clubs with hotels are all established Premiership clubs, Bolton, Chelsea, Reading,... the one difference between us and them is that they own, manage and run their hotels... we are relying on a 3rd party.... Where as if Chelsea or Readings hotel is losing money then their board of directors and hotel management (the staff of those clubs..on the pay roll), If Holiday Inn make changes to the hotel and the hotel starts losing money then the club is powerless...

 Id of been a lot happier if were actually managing the hotel themselves. not hoping things come good... theres an old saying "if u want anything done properly do it urself".. in that sense why are we relying on others to do it for us?

Given the team is piss poor and we are a mediocre championship side then why the hell have we even considered a hotel? if we do get relegated then we will look stupid with our empty stadium and prawn sandwich brigade for the visit of shrewsbury town.

jas :)