Stadium Expansion

[howser]

Clever move though, IF we manage to stay in the Premiership, then, to get more experienced players this will require higher wages, and that will be achieved by increasing season ticket prices, in doing so this will allow the club to move forward with a subsidised expenditure by the fans, add to this the massive revenue from TV for a third Premiership season, which I susperct is already earmarked for the new stand, rather than new players and we will have achieved three seasons in the top division without breaking the bank to stay there and totally justifying the managemant regime beliefs that you dont have to spend to stay there, albeit cilnging on by our teeth.

[Coppelled Streets]

JM puts the cost at £35m whereas Bristol City are building a new 40,000 seater less than a mile from Ashton Gate for £30m.

"The plan is to have the stadium with us for the start of 2011/12, with 2009 being the deadline for work to begin.

"It will be a 30,000 seater initially with the option to take it up to 40,000, which is a requirement for World Cup football. It may turn out cheaper just to build a 40,000 seater rather than adding on 10,000 seats a few years down the line.

"These are all things we need to look at, along with other things like naming rights, what the final cost will be and how to fund it."

[Platypuss]

Nigel Howe once said:

"The Stadium must expand so that more people from the local community can
share in the Club’s success and play a part in our continued development. Reading
Football Club has serious ambitions to become one of the leading forces in English
football – this goal can not be achieved in a 24,500 seater stadium."

[North Somerset Royal]

JM puts the cost at £35m whereas Bristol City are building a new 40,000 seater less than a mile from Ashton Gate for £30m.

"The plan is to have the stadium with us for the start of 2011/12, with 2009 being the deadline for work to begin.

"It will be a 30,000 seater initially with the option to take it up to 40,000, which is a requirement for World Cup football. It may turn out cheaper just to build a 40,000 seater rather than adding on 10,000 seats a few years down the line.

"These are all things we need to look at, along with other things like naming rights, what the final cost will be and how to fund it."

OK I take your point that at the moment the City figures are estimates and they have yet to finally decide whether to go for 30,000 or 40,000. However the City stadium has already been earmarked for the 2018 World Cup which would require a minimum capacity of 40,000. However I think that the sort of figures being quoted by City and also Rovers who are planning a new stadium demonstrate that it would not make sense to spend £35m on extending the Mad Stad. As it stands the stadium is not a viable size in Premiership terms and even if it were extended there is no evidence that attendances would grow in any event. The realisation of this has led to JM & Co to decide to maintain a Championship level budget and to try and hang on in the top tier for as long as possible whilst accepting the inevitability of a return to the Championship sooner or later. As someone who fought against Robert Maxwells attempt to move the club to Didcot personally I would sooner settle for life in the Championship rather than having some foreign investor ship us off to a bigger stadium in a better catchment area as happened to Wimbledon.

[STAR Liaison]

£35 million is more than it cost to build the rest of the ground, and we have been told the piling foundations are already in place I believe.

STAR have been asking about this regularly and the increase in cost is certainly one of the factors that resulted in the decision that the expansion is not happening now. We also understand that the expansion is most definitely postponed rather than cancelled and is not a matter of the current on pitch form as we were aware there could well be a postponement a while ago and certainly long before we dropped into the relegation zone.

We are also assured that we can look forward to consulting with the club on the further plans at the appropriate time. As we feel we need the expansion to enable new and young supporters to be able to buy seats regularly and with more flexible pricing policies, we will be continuing to keep it on our agenda. And no I do not want to free up seats by relegation I would much prefer to keep selling out to watch Premier League football.

[Platypuss]

So what criteria does the RFC board believe need to be satisfied for expansion to be taken forward?

[Baines]

So what criteria does the RFC board believe need to be satisfied for expansion to be taken forward?

Increased demand

[Coppelled Streets]

So what criteria does the RFC board believe need to be satisfied for expansion to be taken forward?

Increased demand

He had that when we were doing well last season, people were lucky to get a ticket in the South Stand.

And while clubs reduced ticket prices, we upped ours so of course now we're struggling, even loyal fans are thinking twice about what they do with their money, especially those that bring kids with them.

If we go down we know Madejski wont reduce ticket prices, but he should. We were told there would be a capacity increase, Coppell had £10m or so to spend and the increase in prices would fund it all and was nessasary - NEITHER HAPPENED.

Next season average gates of 17,000 and away ends of 4000 to whoever can fill it.

.sdrawkcab gniog er'eW

[floyd__streete]

Reading
Football Club has serious ambitions to become one of the leading forces in English
football

Sacking you would be a start in the right direction then, Nige!

[Mr. Mad's Mad Maid]

Lock this Mutha, please.

[RoyalBlue]

So, at the end of the day it was yet more big talk about ambition to add to the 'enable us to compete effectively at this level'!

Well here's a few more words for Yam Yam.

Put your money where your mouth is.
Walk the talk.
Actions speak louder than words.

There are some on here that are confident that we will not be relegated at the end of this season and that even if we are, we will bounce straight back.

Clearly JM & NH do not have that same level of confidence or fear about our league status and lack of future demand would not have deterred them from proceeding with the expansion.

[Schards#2]

I'm sure there was some bloke on here who's been arguing we shouldn't expand from the start.

Respect to whoever that was.

[T.R.O.L.I.]

Respect to whoever that was.

I'd heard it was some utterpcunter...

[Wycombe Royal]

I'm sure there was some bloke on here who's been arguing we shouldn't expand from the start.

Respect to whoever that was.

If only everyone had used the same crystal ball. The things that have led to the expansion being postponed (not cancelled) hadn't occurred when that person started arguing his point.

I am fully confident that if we were currently in the top half of the table then this expansion would be going ahead but we aren't. But of course you KNEW that we would be in the relegation zone last summer didn't you?

[Schards#2]

I'm sure there was some bloke on here who's been arguing we shouldn't expand from the start.

Respect to whoever that was.

If only everyone had used the same crystal ball. The things that have led to the expansion being postponed (not cancelled) hadn't occurred when that person started arguing his point.

I am fully confident that if we were currently in the top half of the table then this expansion would be going ahead but we aren't. But of course you KNEW that we would be in the relegation zone last summer didn't you?

I also seem to remember some clowns arguing the we should expand come what may hard to believe isn't it?

[Wycombe Royal]

I'm sure there was some bloke on here who's been arguing we shouldn't expand from the start.

Respect to whoever that was.

If only everyone had used the same crystal ball. The things that have led to the expansion being postponed (not cancelled) hadn't occurred when that person started arguing his point.

I am fully confident that if we were currently in the top half of the table then this expansion would be going ahead but we aren't. But of course you KNEW that we would be in the relegation zone last summer didn't you?

I also seem to remember some clowns arguing the we should expand come what may hard to believe isn't it?

I don't think I was ever in that camp though. A relegation battle was always going to lead to the postponement of any expansion, all I have ever argued is that the demand is still sufficient to warrant an expansion, but it won't be if we are in the Championship.

[West Stand Man]

I'm sure there was some bloke on here who's been arguing we shouldn't expand from the start.

Respect to whoever that was.

--- and he got it totally wrong, in true SDR style (are they related in some quaint way?).

The club is quite clearly stating that expansion is on the cards - but not this summer. There are those on here who have always said that the decision would be a hard-nosed business one - respect to those, whoever they were.

[Schards#2]

I'm sure there was some bloke on here who's been arguing we shouldn't expand from the start.

Respect to whoever that was.

--- and he got it totally wrong, in true SDR style (are they related in some quaint way?).

The club is quite clearly stating that expansion is on the cards - but not this summer. There are those on here who have always said that the decision would be a hard-nosed business one - respect to those, whoever they were.

do you believe in fairies at the end of the garden too?

[West Stand Man]

--- and he got it totally wrong, in true SDR style (are they related in some quaint way?).

The club is quite clearly stating that expansion is on the cards - but not this summer. There are those on here who have always said that the decision would be a hard-nosed business one - respect to those, whoever they were.

do you believe in fairies at the end of the garden too?[/quote]


You must read posts before making brainless retorts to them. Mine doesn't say I believe that there will be an expansion, it simply states the FACT that NH has not said the project is dead and that he has said that decisions are based on hard-nosed business cases. I may or may not believe him - but he said it. Surely even a non-middle-class fool can understand that bit of the discussion?

[Schards#2]

--- and he got it totally wrong, in true SDR style (are they related in some quaint way?).

The club is quite clearly stating that expansion is on the cards - but not this summer. There are those on here who have always said that the decision would be a hard-nosed business one - respect to those, whoever they were.

do you believe in fairies at the end of the garden too?

You must read posts before making brainless retorts to them. Mine doesn't say I believe that there will be an expansion, it simply states the FACT that NH has not said the project is dead and that he has said that decisions are based on hard-nosed business cases. I may or may not believe him - but he said it. Surely even a non-middle-class fool can understand that bit of the discussion? [/quote]

I'm struggling with this one.

Do you believe the club still intend the expansion to go ahead one day or not?