Went to Harrogate for a business meeting many years ago, my driver pointed out this little non league ground behind some trees and informed me “That’s Harrogate’s ground” That was obviously prior to their promotion to the EFL, I’m stunned that they, like the Sutton’s & Barrow’s can be accepted into the EFL with such poor grounds.
Even more embarrassing that the likes of Chesterfield, Stockport, Wrexham & Torquay remain stuck in ‘non-league’.
I for one would like the EFL to introduce a Third Division, (to us older guys a Fifth Division). Then a system of ‘ground suitability’ could be introduced before accepting promotions. I know that might seem a little draconian, but it’s a thought.
To be honest the only reason Fellows Park was re-elected to the league so often was because of our enormous crowds at the the time.
Fantastic support again from the Saddlers travelling audience.
I’ve just booked seats in the home stand and there are precious few left. Not sure about the terraces.
Used my daughter’s Sheffield address to book, but given I opted for an e ticket not sure if i even needed to do that.
Looks very likely both teams will be in the same division next season, so I’ll be waiting a few months before visiting the EnviroVent 
Stadium
The seat situation is simply because they havn’t got many, there’ll be loads of room on the home terraces. Only once this season have they topped 3k all together and they rarely have more than 2k home fans for any game, usually less.
Some of these clubs facilities. Forest Green, Harrogate and Barrow to name 3 fall well short of league standards.
They must have passed the safety tests etc and have a license to play at their stadia, so how do they fall short and be able to do this?
What are these standards that they are falling short of?
Here are the requirements and timescales
https://www.efl.com/-more/governance/efl-rules--regulations/efl-regulations/appendix-1-membership-criteria-regulation-8/
Cheers
That’s clear then.
Not sure why they can’t send us a few more tickets on the basis they won’t sell out. Certainly lost revenue for them.
It is clear, but it also demonstrates the present inadequacies of some newly promoted grounds as the “membership criteria” is for a mimimum 5k capacity with 2k seats. In several cases this is going to require some pretty radical construction work within the 3 year timescale, as simply bolting seats onto existing terracing would surely further lower capacity. I think I’m right in saying both Harrogate and Sutton were promoted with artificial pitches which subsequently had to be replaced also. Does seem like the whole thing has gone from one extreme to another. To be perfectly honest grounds with a few hundred seats and a few thousand terrace capacity are simply non-league grounds that you will encounter way way down the pyramid from the National League. There were some right dives back in the 70’s and 80’s, places like Northampton for example after the main stand went, but I can’t recall many if any that literally couldn’t accommodate the demands of a moderate fourth division away following in either seats or overall capacity. Like I said further up, makes you wonder what might happen if they got a couple of quick promotions - or even one which seems likely in Sutton’s case.
Not sure why it is a big deal. The rules are in place and clubs are rightly, in my view, given time to adapt.
Ironically, without these rules that you think are inadequate, we wouldn’t now have an all seater stadium as reward for being in Division 2 for a few seasons.
All im saying is £1.89 a litre…
Might need a bank loan to get there.
Personally it isn’t, because I’ve got tickets, but for those that havn’t it’s a pain in the arse.
I wonder what it was like when they played Bradford? Attendance 2700 odd, 1400 off capacity? Seems ridiculous in those circumstances.
Not sure what the point is there. I’d much prefer it if we still had some terracing, and if traditional terracing was allowed at all levels, don’t really see how that has any relevance to a football league club only being able to offer seated accommodation to say 140 away fans plus a few steps of terracing, when they regularly have a couple of thousand unused - and likely never to be used capacity empty and idle in the home areas.
Maybe that last bit wasn’t clear. I would prefer us not to have an all seater stadium also, but we have because of them rules.
Well I would bring in an additional rule that regardless of capacity clubs entering the league should have the ability to cater for a minimum away allocation of say 1500 if asked for by the visiting club. And a pre-established work around should be in place regarding how. What you get with these very poorly supported clubs and their tiny grounds is a situation where the capacity is just for show, so in Harrogate’s case they have never exceeded 75 percent of their paltry capacity so effectively their useable capacity is 2.5 to 3k, which is ridiculous.
Irony is we didnt need to, we went down the same season we were legally bound to go all seater.
I reckon we should stick away fans in the lower Tile Choice and convert the away end to a home terrace, a la The Gilbert Alsop Stand.
This is both Barrow and Harrogate’s second season in the league. According to the rules, they have until the 31st April next yeae to increase the overall capacity of seats in their ground to 2000, while still maintaining an overall capacity of 5000. This is after making initial improvements over the past few seasons to make sure their grounds comply with the membership criteria.
As @geordiesaddler said its pretty radical regarding construction and would require quite a bit of financing one would think, which in turn would affect their playing budgets.
I thought the rule was after 3 seasons (not consecutive) you had to be all-seater, so 1999-00, 2001-02, 2002-03 meant we had to be all-seater by the summer 2003 when we were still there.
What the rule is now, I don’t know. Peterborough have surely spent more than the required 3 seasons in the Champ and still have the big old home terrace.