I’d redo the family stand as others mentioned and create a space for the option for people to watch the game indoors. This would mean people would feel more comfortable to bring kids to their first game at a much younger age imo.
It’s what stops me from bringing my daughter to games as trying to pin an 18 month old to a seat for an hour and a half is impossible plus the noise and cold is overwhelming. It may also bring fans from other clubs to our ground to bring their young ones rather than having to take them out on the terraces at villa, baggies etc.
But this is purely selfish reasoning on my part, the expansion of the away end may be more financially viable.
Yeah - @Blazing_Saddler and I have had this discussion over the years about how some clubs have gone out the league and come back stronger - Luton are probably best example at the moment but Exeter, Lincoln, Bristol Rovers, Doncaster and the Sloppies could be said to have bounced back.
The Conference is a bloody hard league to get out of now though - long gone are the days where a club would get relegated out of the league and bounce back quickly.
I’m pretty sure that at some stage we had planning permission to develop the family stand, cantilever it and add more seats. Not a great increase in size, so as not to annoy our new neighbours who came to live next door, after Bescot was built. I suspect that, that application has lapsed now.
Actually, I’d demolish the main stand and rebuild it larger, without pillars and move it several yards further back, to allow a wider pitch, or more space if a manager didn’t want it. It would include better changing gym facilities for the team; better corporate / conference facilities and a camera position from where you could see corners being taken.
I’d rather focus on redeveloping the stadium and making it work first than extend it. It can barely cope when we’ve got 6 or 7k let alone 10. It needs some “modernisation”
Not sure if this has been said because I’m just catching up but doesn’t the answer to that question go back to the fact we have too many teams around us to ever get a larger fan base to attend the ground on a Saturday.Stockport have the Manchester clubs around them obviously but it’s a larger area to cope with those clubs than what we have in our vicinity isn’t it surely?
I may be showing some ignorance here, but I wonder if the Club ever thought of swallowing its pride and going on a fact-finding mission to these clubs to see what can be learned; then, crucially, making practical use of this knowledge. Doing so would be a U-turn in philosophy of celebrating balance sheets and making out that we know better, but frankly in the case of Rotherham, they’re doing better and have been for some time.
As for the thread topic, I’ve always felt it was in a bad location to begin with. I find it cold, out of the way, on its worst days apart from civilization itself, and despite the WS1 postcode doesn’t feel to me like Walsall heartlands. If there was big money available for stadium development, I couldn’t help but see it as throwing good money after bad to work on Bescot, and would prefer seeking an alternative site altogether.
The trouble there is that sites big enough, which better fit the criteria of being accessible to core support, are not exactly abundant. Reedswood now looks like it’s being developed after sitting unused for nigh-on 30 years. We had the maps out on a similar thread last year and found that there was almost nowhere a new ground could go which would be an improvement on Bescot; and that’s before we even start talking figures. We should have got onto the Crown Wharf when we had the chance!
I can see the attraction of being in the town centre, but there would be major downsides in terms of traffic for example which for me would outweigh the benefits.
Can anyone point me to any other clubs who have moved into a town centre from the outskirts? I can only think of Rotherham, and even they only moved a very short distance. Most seem to have gone the other way.
It was stated that Leigh Pomlett has talked to Bradford in regards to there marketing, season tickets and the Asian community to see what we could learn
Indeed. It would need the kind of investment and coordination with the Council which is probably beyond their abilities. With a neutral head on, why would they bother? I’m looking at it with my fan’s head on!
Not sure the police would like this as you’d get a lot of cross-over between sets of fans as they walked around the ground.
I think the club needs to seriously think about doing something, if it has ambitions of taking average attendances north of 7000. We need room to grow and allow for floating fans, and the away end is currently the biggest culprit, so a single tier stand, double the size of what it is at the moment would do the job nicely.
Otherwise my pet hate is the family stand which is well behind the times in terms of facilities, so I’d hope there’s ideas going round for some work there.
Here’s an offensively unscientific mock interview with the site of the former Showcase Cinema on Junction 10. Just about fits - maybe - but for all the trouble and investment we’re only moving a junction closer to Walsall proper…
We always got bigger crowds than Oldham in League 1, now they are bottom of the conference and getting crowds we can only dream of. It’s bizzare!
Other clubs seem to be able to ramp up attendances really quickly in a way we can’t. I think the last 10 years of Bonser really damaged perceptions of the club among floating fans and a really deep rooted apathy set in. However, the 30k that went to Wembley shows what’s possible.
I know we are on a bit of a high, but talk of expanding the stadium is way premature in my eyes. It’s half empty for 90% of games.
Loving this thread. This time last year we were debating life in the conference, now we’re debating a bigger stadium. Love it.
Let’s be honest, we’ll stick where we are, open the Saddlers club and then hopefully do something about improving the ground as is. Get rid of the pillars, improve the atmosphere, catering etc…
Rather spend the rest of our cash on our team right now.
Oldhams attendance upturn will be linked to their takeover.
Watched the Bunch of Amateurs episode when Dorking played Oldham earlier this season. Local chap Frank Rothwell took over at the start of the season from Abdallah Lemsagam, the fans feel like they’ve got their club back so they’ve returned.
