Home Park Redevelopment

[Ian Coath]

According to a friend of mine who is an engineer and involved with the sandy park development, the way the roof is going to be supported is a restriction on size/capacity of the stand. To make it bigger you either need the type of supports that stick out the back of the horseshoe or pillars. Support at the back needs space which may not be available due to the ice rink, depending on the width of the ealkway. The other alternative is the curved front such as at brightons new stadium but this wouldnt really fit in with the rest of the design and can also restrict the number seats.

 

[derbygreen]

According to a friend of mine who is an engineer and involved with the sandy park development, the way the roof is going to be supported is a restriction on size/capacity of the stand. To make it bigger you either need the type of supports that stick out the back of the horseshoe or pillars. Support at the back needs space which may not be available due to the ice rink, depending on the width of the ealkway. The other alternative is the curved front such as at brightons new stadium but this wouldnt really fit in with the rest of the design and can also restrict the number seats.

That does make perfect sense and yet another factor to prove the stand isn't going to be the quality we all hope and want it to be. This really worries me that the main part of the Higher Home Park Development which is expendable seems to be the stand

 

[Rush Goalie]

Back to basics.
This season in the Championship 8 clubs average over 18500 with 5 of those averaging over 22000. :think:
I think the proposal for HP is OK.

15 of the 24 Championship clubs have had gates over 20,000 this season, that's why a 17,500 seater stadium is inadequate.

And yet the overall average in the Championship is 17,247, below the proposed capacity of the new Home Park.

Any thoughts on the restrictions that the proposed road development will place on further future expansion, or do you see 17.5k (with a real world lower capacity for segregation) the limit of Argyle's ambitions?

Curious, as you seem to 100% back these plans.

 

[Dalton Is God]

Quoting averages is misleading. Not every single Championship match gets an exact attendance of 17,247. Attendance vary with clubs league position, who the opposition are, weather etc. To get an average of 17,247 there would be many gates over 20,000, as I said 15 of the 24 clubs have had attendances over 20,000 this season but for all but nine of them their average is less than 20,000. If every stadium only had a capacity of 17,247 than the average would be far less.

Don't forget segregation will also reduce the available capacity. So if we had a 17.5k ground we could lose anything from 500-1k+ due to segregation/closing of blocks.

Doesn't change the fact in six Years of championship football we only had ten gates higher than the proposed New capacity three of those were FA cup fixtures, also I think for three of those seasons the mayflower was a standing terrace with prices of around eleven quid. 18k is about what our fanbase requires on a week to week basis for championship football, we'd all like a 20k+ stadium but market forces dictate in the end.

But that's on our previous historic gates with no period of sustained success in the Championship.

If we have several years as a top end Championship side we'd likely see our gates increase to an average pushing close to 20k not to mention the increase after a new stand/facilities have been built. Look at Reading as a prime example - years ago Argyle fans wouldn't consider them a bigger club than us but these days they very much are.

As I was bored and interested in a morbidly statto way... I've worked out a table based on percentage populations of the current Championship sides from their town's population (boroughs for London sides) and their average gate this season. I'm no statistician so not sure if this is the correct way to sample but the average comes to around 8.44% for the division and based on the population of Plymouth it comes out as 21,867.

Of course, this doesn't take into fact proximity of other clubs and also includes edge cases such as Birmingham (1.53%) and Burnley (17.74%).

Place	Population	Average	% Pop
Brighton & Hove	273000	25705	9.42%
Sheffield Weds	552000	23391	4.24%
Derby	249000	23100	9.28%
Nottingham Forest	304000	22583	7.43%
Cardiff	346000	22373	6.47%
Wolverhampton	250000	21709	8.68%
Leicester	441000	21674	4.91%
Leeds	751000	21534	2.87%
Charlton (greenwich)	256000	18487	7.22%
Bolton	139000	17715	12.74%
Ipswich	133000	16902	12.71%
Hull	256000	16796	6.56%
Crystal Palace (Bromley)	311000	16751	5.39%
Middlesbrough	138000	16594	12.02%
Birmingham	1074000	16452	1.53%
Huddersfield	146000	15086	10.33%
Blackburn	105000	14666	13.97%
Blackpool	142000	13824	9.74%
Bristol City	428000	13129	3.07%
Watford	90000	13037	14.49%
Burnley	73000	12953	17.74%
Millwall (tower hamlets)	256000	10623	4.15%
Barnsley	74000	10006	13.52%
Peterborough	185000	7692	4.16%
		Average	8.44%
Plymouth	259000	21867.21039

The proposed ground capacity would leave only Peterborough with a smaller ground in the current set of Championship teams!

 

[Mike Greening]

Be thankful that JB is willing to do something for our club and city. Cannot see anyone else queuing up the do the same.

 

[X Isle]

Zackly :clap:

 

[Greenskin]

Quoting averages is misleading. Not every single Championship match gets an exact attendance of 17,247. Attendance vary with clubs league position, who the opposition are, weather etc. To get an average of 17,247 there would be many gates over 20,000, as I said 15 of the 24 clubs have had attendances over 20,000 this season but for all but nine of them their average is less than 20,000. If every stadium only had a capacity of 17,247 than the average would be far less.

Don't forget segregation will also reduce the available capacity. So if we had a 17.5k ground we could lose anything from 500-1k+ due to segregation/closing of blocks.[/quote]
Doesn't change the fact in six Years of championship football we only had ten gates higher than the proposed New capacity three of those were FA cup fixtures, also I think for three of those seasons the mayflower was a standing terrace with prices of around eleven quid. 18k is about what our fanbase requires on a week to week basis for championship football, we'd all like a 20k+ stadium but market forces dictate in the end.[/quote]

But that's on our previous historic gates with no period of sustained success in the Championship.

If we have several years as a top end Championship side we'd likely see our gates increase to an average pushing close to 20k not to mention the increase after a new stand/facilities have been built. Look at Reading as a prime example - years ago Argyle fans wouldn't consider them a bigger club than us but these days they very much are.

As I was bored and interested in a morbidly statto way... I've worked out a table based on percentage populations of the current Championship sides from their town's population (boroughs for London sides) and their average gate this season. I'm no statistician so not sure if this is the correct way to sample but the average comes to around 8.44% for the division and based on the population of Plymouth it comes out as 21,867.

Of course, this doesn't take into fact proximity of other clubs and also includes edge cases such as Birmingham (1.53%) and Burnley (17.74%).

Place	Population	Average	% Pop
Brighton & Hove	273000	25705	9.42%
Sheffield Weds	552000	23391	4.24%
Derby	249000	23100	9.28%
Nottingham Forest	304000	22583	7.43%
Cardiff	346000	22373	6.47%
Wolverhampton	250000	21709	8.68%
Leicester	441000	21674	4.91%
Leeds	751000	21534	2.87%
Charlton (greenwich)	256000	18487	7.22%
Bolton	139000	17715	12.74%
Ipswich	133000	16902	12.71%
Hull	256000	16796	6.56%
Crystal Palace (Bromley)	311000	16751	5.39%
Middlesbrough	138000	16594	12.02%
Birmingham	1074000	16452	1.53%
Huddersfield	146000	15086	10.33%
Blackburn	105000	14666	13.97%
Blackpool	142000	13824	9.74%
Bristol City	428000	13129	3.07%
Watford	90000	13037	14.49%
Burnley	73000	12953	17.74%
Millwall (tower hamlets)	256000	10623	4.15%
Barnsley	74000	10006	13.52%
Peterborough	185000	7692	4.16%
		Average	8.44%
Plymouth	259000	21867.21039

The proposed ground capacity would leave only Peterborough with a smaller ground in the current set of Championship teams![/quote]

Interesting statistic, not sure how it fits with Argyle though as there must be a significant %age of support from Cornwall, if we had a city which had a prolific support of their local team then I perfectly understand the rhetoric for a greater capacity main stand.
But Plymouthians basically do not support their team, beggar I would like a greater capacity but as a previous poster very ably stated on a previous post, I also would not like to be gazing at the current stand in 5 years time, which is a risk.
I also don't accept that increasing capacity within the horseshoe is not possible in the future, if this club ever became as successful as say Swansea then I'm bleddy sure some smart designer would overcome that hurdle, bleddy hell we've just renewed a railway footbridge at Dawlish in a resin material (plastic to you and I) who would have thought of that a few years ago, so for me lets get on with it.[/quote]


There was a study carried out a few years ago which found that 23% of Argyle's support came from Cornwall,which i'm sure you'll agree is a reasonably significant figure but not an earth shattering one.And anyway,when i went to watch Argyle at Carrow Road [the Buzz double free kick game]there was an article in the programme by the club secretary which stated that 70% of Norwich support actually came from outside the city.It doesn't really matter where the support comes from-there are 1.8M people in Devon and Cornwall and that is the catchment area which needs to be tapped into,not just Plymouth alone.As has been said before,almost to the point of distraction,previous support for many clubs who built new stadia was as fickle and unstable as Argyle's but it didn't stop the work from going ahead in anticipation of success.

 

[BadBoy]

And there's the crux "Several years at the top end of the championship" your advocating someone else spends an extra couple of million on the off chance we may at some point do something we have never been close to doing before. No one would be against provision for expansion and as posted earlier I would imagine some bright spark could sort the lyndehurst if necessary, I just want it built. The fact someone else is paying makes it an even nicer proposition. We must be the only fanbase in the country that would oppose this sort of opportunity.

 

[esmer]

Quoting averages is misleading. Not every single Championship match gets an exact attendance of 17,247. Attendance vary with clubs league position, who the opposition are, weather etc. To get an average of 17,247 there would be many gates over 20,000, as I said 15 of the 24 clubs have had attendances over 20,000 this season but for all but nine of them their average is less than 20,000. If every stadium only had a capacity of 17,247 than the average would be far less.

Don't forget segregation will also reduce the available capacity. So if we had a 17.5k ground we could lose anything from 500-1k+ due to segregation/closing of blocks.

Doesn't change the fact in six Years of championship football we only had ten gates higher than the proposed New capacity three of those were FA cup fixtures, also I think for three of those seasons the mayflower was a standing terrace with prices of around eleven quid. 18k is about what our fanbase requires on a week to week basis for championship football, we'd all like a 20k+ stadium but market forces dictate in the end.

We were, apart from one season under Holloway, a poor team playing poor football, fighting relegation and unable to win many of our home games throughout our time in the Championship. As has been said before we can't base our plans on our under achieving past we must plan for what we want to be in the future, what we aspire to. If we have aspirations to establish ourselves in the top half of the Championship and make a play for the Premier League, something we have never done before, we need far more than a 17,500 capacity. Fifteen teams in the Championship have had gates over 20,000 this season, if we were established as one of the better sides in that League why would we not do the same?

 

[esmer]

And there's the crux "Several years at the top end of the championship" your advocating someone else spends an extra couple of million on the off chance we may at some point do something we have never been close to doing before. No one would be against provision for expansion and as posted earlier I would imagine some bright spark could sort the lyndehurst if necessary, I just want it built. The fact someone else is paying makes it an even nicer proposition. We must be the only fanbase in the country that would oppose this sort of opportunity.

Some of us see it as realistic ambition not an "off chance". Why shouldn't a city our size boast a good Championship team, what so far fetched about that?
Also, it mustn't be forgotten that nobody is giving us anything. Building the stand is payment for the development site

 

[Greenskin]

Quoting averages is misleading. Not every single Championship match gets an exact attendance of 17,247. Attendance vary with clubs league position, who the opposition are, weather etc. To get an average of 17,247 there would be many gates over 20,000, as I said 15 of the 24 clubs have had attendances over 20,000 this season but for all but nine of them their average is less than 20,000. If every stadium only had a capacity of 17,247 than the average would be far less.

Don't forget segregation will also reduce the available capacity. So if we had a 17.5k ground we could lose anything from 500-1k+ due to segregation/closing of blocks.

Doesn't change the fact in six Years of championship football we only had ten gates higher than the proposed New capacity three of those were FA cup fixtures, also I think for three of those seasons the mayflower was a standing terrace with prices of around eleven quid. 18k is about what our fanbase requires on a week to week basis for championship football, we'd all like a 20k+ stadium but market forces dictate in the end.

But that's on our previous historic gates with no period of sustained success in the Championship.

If we have several years as a top end Championship side we'd likely see our gates increase to an average pushing close to 20k not to mention the increase after a new stand/facilities have been built. Look at Reading as a prime example - years ago Argyle fans wouldn't consider them a bigger club than us but these days they very much are.

As I was bored and interested in a morbidly statto way... I've worked out a table based on percentage populations of the current Championship sides from their town's population (boroughs for London sides) and their average gate this season. I'm no statistician so not sure if this is the correct way to sample but the average comes to around 8.44% for the division and based on the population of Plymouth it comes out as 21,867.

Of course, this doesn't take into fact proximity of other clubs and also includes edge cases such as Birmingham (1.53%) and Burnley (17.74%).

Place	Population	Average	% Pop
Brighton & Hove	273000	25705	9.42%
Sheffield Weds	552000	23391	4.24%
Derby	249000	23100	9.28%
Nottingham Forest	304000	22583	7.43%
Cardiff	346000	22373	6.47%
Wolverhampton	250000	21709	8.68%
Leicester	441000	21674	4.91%
Leeds	751000	21534	2.87%
Charlton (greenwich)	256000	18487	7.22%
Bolton	139000	17715	12.74%
Ipswich	133000	16902	12.71%
Hull	256000	16796	6.56%
Crystal Palace (Bromley)	311000	16751	5.39%
Middlesbrough	138000	16594	12.02%
Birmingham	1074000	16452	1.53%
Huddersfield	146000	15086	10.33%
Blackburn	105000	14666	13.97%
Blackpool	142000	13824	9.74%
Bristol City	428000	13129	3.07%
Watford	90000	13037	14.49%
Burnley	73000	12953	17.74%
Millwall (tower hamlets)	256000	10623	4.15%
Barnsley	74000	10006	13.52%
Peterborough	185000	7692	4.16%
		Average	8.44%
Plymouth	259000	21867.21039

The proposed ground capacity would leave only Peterborough with a smaller ground in the current set of Championship teams![/quote]

Interesting statistic, not sure how it fits with Argyle though as there must be a significant %age of support from Cornwall, if we had a city which had a prolific support of their local team then I perfectly understand the rhetoric for a greater capacity main stand.
But Plymouthians basically do not support their team, beggar I would like a greater capacity but as a previous poster very ably stated on a previous post, I also would not like to be gazing at the current stand in 5 years time, which is a risk.
I also don't accept that increasing capacity within the horseshoe is not possible in the future, if this club ever became as successful as say Swansea then I'm bleddy sure some smart designer would overcome that hurdle, bleddy hell we've just renewed a railway footbridge at Dawlish in a resin material (plastic to you and I) who would have thought of that a few years ago, so for me lets get on with it.[/quote]




Understand what you say, mind you Norwich have always attracted generous crowds, but your almost substantiating my concern and that is our average of circa 6.5k crowds this season out of 1.8 million across both counties is not a particularly great %age and not good supporting evidence for a business plan, I understand the call for a greater capacity stadium which i would also like but I a have a greater wish for Phase 2 to be completed and not to be still discussing it in another 5 years or so[/quote]

Argyle v Norwich has been done to death over the years,suffice to say that Norwich's gates were no better than Argyle's until they reached the first division for the first time,which in turn gives a fairly obvious reason why Argyle's fanbase has never been developed to the optimum and to the same extent as theirs.I want to see the old stand pulled down and new facilities put in but if those new facilities act as a millstone around the clubs neck for the next 40 years or whatever, then frankly i'd rather wait until it could be done properly,whether it took 5,10 or 15 years.And still the question of those clubs representing cities of roughly the same size as Plymouth, with identical or lower attendance records over a period of many years, building stadia with a capacity to anticipate success hasn't really been addressed.

 

[Don't Panic]

Argyle v Norwich has been done to death over the years,suffice to say that Norwich's gates were no better than Argyle's until they reached the first division for the first time,which in turn gives a fairly obvious reason why Argyle's fanbase has never been developed to the optimum and to the same extent as theirs.I want to see the old stand pulled down and new facilities put in but if those new facilities act as a millstone around the clubs neck for the next 40 years or whatever, then frankly i'd rather wait until it could be done properly,whether it took 5,10 or 15 years.And still the question of those clubs representing cities of roughly the same size as Plymouth, with identical or lower attendance records over a period of many years, building stadia with a capacity to anticipate success hasn't really been addressed.

So if the capacity won't be increased up to around the 20,000 mark you'd happily wait in hope that someone else may come along to do something whether that takes 5,10 or 15 years...possibly longer if not at all? I can't see how that would help us reach the top of the championship/premier league any quicker due to less non-match day revenue & be seen as showing any of the ambition people claim to want to see.

 

[Adam R]

How many of the "25k+ Brigade" were also prepared to watch a a Pheonix Club in a field somewhere not so long ago? I've never met JB, never will, but now he has saved the club, prepared to fund a new stand with no (financial) cost to the club yet people are still complaining it is too small.

If/When, 50% of the Devon and Cornwall population finally decide to watch Plymouth (which appears to be the assumption), as has been mentioned, some clever so-and-so will think of a plan. Brighton had to relaocate to build their new stand. Im sure we could as well if necessary.

Perspective: 2 years ago, we had the prospect of Non-League football of the poorest quality in the Dr Pepper SW League Division 8, probably not even being played at HP due to cost and low attendances. Now we are hopfully looking to rebuild as a League team with the potential of a shiney new stand to complete what the M7 couldn't/wouldnt do. Reality check peoples.

 

[Greenblooded1]

And there's the crux "Several years at the top end of the championship" your advocating someone else spends an extra couple of million on the off chance we may at some point do something we have never been close to doing before. No one would be against provision for expansion and as posted earlier I would imagine some bright spark could sort the lyndehurst if necessary, I just want it built. The fact someone else is paying makes it an even nicer proposition. We must be the only fanbase in the country that would oppose this sort of opportunity.

Some of us see it as realistic ambition not an "off chance". Why shouldn't a city our size boast a good Championship team, what so far fetched about that?
Also, it mustn't be forgotten that nobody is giving us anything. Building the stand is payment for the development site

The strange thing is, that's what JB was saying when he took over. Why has the tune changed?

Let's be quite clear. If this development was about Plymouth Argyle, it would not be done in the way it is, this design is all about maximising return on investment.

Just how much will also be taken in addition to the Grandstand "land steal", will become apparent as more details are released, you would have thought cramping us in was price enough, now there's talk of even taking units from beneath the stand. Outrageous.

 

[crownhill pilgrim]

How many of the "25k+ Brigade" were also prepared to watch a a Pheonix Club in a field somewhere not so long ago? I've never met JB, never will, but now he has saved the club, prepared to fund a new stand with no (financial) cost to the club yet people are still complaining it is too small.

If/When, 50% of the Devon and Cornwall population finally decide to watch Plymouth (which appears to be the assumption), as has been mentioned, some clever so-and-so will think of a plan. Brighton had to relaocate to build their new stand. Im sure we could as well if necessary.

Perspective: 2 years ago, we had the prospect of Non-League football of the poorest quality in the Dr Pepper SW League Division 8, probably not even being played at HP due to cost and low attendances. Now we are hopfully looking to rebuild as a League team with the potential of a shiney new stand to complete what the M7 couldn't/wouldnt do. Reality check peoples.

:clap:

Then again, let's spend 10million of someone else's money on a 8000 seater triple tiered stand in the vain hope we'll ever make the Premier League, just so we can strut round the bottom 2 divisions for the next 5 years bragging about how we're a 'big club'