While we all madly want to get to the Championship, the carnage around the ground, minimal busses and the likes of Birmingham charging huge ticket prices does loom large.
When a student in Manchester in the mid 60's when leaving Old Trafford there were say 30 buses queuing up to go to the city. If we were to really push bus use we should have 5 or 6, not just one.
We have a town in a narrow valley 7 miles long half a mile wide. In the late 50's there was talk about moving the club so that the hospital could expand. I thought then Hazlemere would be good but it was reserved for housing. It is very difficult to think of any spare space large enough for a stadium and decent parking. Any possible sites, say Cressex, have been used for other things. It is difficult to think of anywhere except on top of the surrounding hills large enough. Then there is the problem of the Heathrow flight paths and floodlights!
I have not been able to think of anywhere which is large enough and close enough to the town centre. Perhaps the Brighton example of out of town and plenty of free/cheap transport from the city centre is the way to go?
We certainly don't need a bigger one. I can't imagine how bad an out of town 20,000 stadium we can't even half fill would be. It would kill the club
Make Adams Park as good as it can be, would be my ideal. Yeah, put on some more buses and negotiate with all of the local businesses to open up their site for parking.
But just ask yourself, in 35 years at Adams Park, how many times have we ever sold out?..... 3?....4?
Celebrate what we are, don't moan about what we're not
Back to the prospect of dramatic reduction in ticket prices at AP I would say that although it's affordable for ML to cover the lost income however as a club it might not.
Gate revenue is a significant part of turnover. Increased turnover will be necessary to be able to fund the club going forward since FFP rules will limit the amount of money ML can pump into the club.
Sadly, the opportunity to grab a significantly increased supporter base may be already too late. I hope I'm wrong.
Great to see the news that the Family Stand is almost sold out for Saturday's game v Wigan - Quid a Kid is a great idea and to me one of the most disappointing things about the Couhig era (even though he did good stuff) was the veto on Quid a Kid.
That kind of thing could be so vital to capturing the imagination of future generations of fans, especially at a time when we have this level of squad to offer.
I just think that if you even capture a few minds out of the kids that attend, that it gets paid back many times over in terms of the future support base.
The quid a kid days, or the free ticket when with an adult used to cause a commotion of excitement in school days.
Locking in Wycombe's kids has to be the best way of ensuring tomorrow's fans. It sounds so obviously simple to say doesn't it, yet not always cared about by the management.
Cheap tickets for 13-18 school kids, and some sort of special Bucks Uni 18-21 prices would help too
(I dare say there are cheaper tickets already, but properly cheap ones like I used to enjoy - i remember a 3 year season ticket for £120 for goodness sake - obviously inflation factor that!)
You've hit the nail on the head. For better or worse we're not going to sell out a 10,000 capacity ground on a regular basis unless we're in the Premier League. Part of why the abortive Booker scheme was so unpalatable (aside from how poor a deal it was for WWFC) was that we'd be moving to a ground we had no hope of filling built for the benefit of a rugby franchise with no connection to the area.
The squad we have at the moment is a golden opportunity not seen since the O'Neill era to get a new generation hooked like so many of us were in the early 90s. I'm too young to remember how much marketing had to be done, the coverage we had in the BFP sold it to me when I managed to get the paper off the old man when he had finished with it. These days the local media landscape is more like a wasteland and kids would know as much about newspapers as I would about washboards and mangles.
We have to work so much harder to get the attention of youngsters these days, with the financial backing provided by Lomtadze we should at least be able to provide more football in the community-type initiatives to get our name out there and have a few more cheap ticket deals for families to come along and get the bug.
When you look at how much land the hospital buildings and associated buildings cover, there's surely not nearly enough land at the Adams Park ground and carpark site
Whoever said Lommy should just buy the whole Hillbottom Road area, would this be viable? If so, surely that would be a way to increase parking significantly, and it sounds like it could be much cheaper than building a new stadium anyway?
He could do, but it'd sort of be utterly pointless to spend millions to buy land just for parking?
And probably a bit fanciful to think he'll build a Man City "village" around it with sports facilities, eateries, a river system and loads of other stuff.
Hence why I was asking if it was "viable" in the initial question, in response to the hypothetical scenario presented previously. Not holding myself out as an expert in stadium development and business relocation.
Any new stadium would be further from the town centre - a ground in the town centre is the stuff of fantasy; I just can't see a remotely viable location - which wouldn't be a bad thing with the right infrastructure. Brighton have done it pretty well, haven't they?
If all goes to plan and we become this successful championship club with a new stadium then the size of the town won’t be a problem, there’s plenty of people in the general area who would love a bandwagon to jump on.
Comments
Superb stroke ward too. Which i was very appreciative of for a relative that could easily have been life or death.
Presumably because they're under pressure to then get back for a later pick up? Although sounds daft.
But the last time I tried to take the last pick up time from the station the bus didn't manage to get back due to the traffic carnage.
Luckily some yoofdem had some app for uber, beckoned a cab and me and an old boy all hopped in.
The young gentleman was going to pay the whole fee but we wouldn't hear of it!
While we all madly want to get to the Championship, the carnage around the ground, minimal busses and the likes of Birmingham charging huge ticket prices does loom large.
Glad to hear it still serves some purpose, though it really is a disgrace that a town the size of Wycombe has no A&E.
When a student in Manchester in the mid 60's when leaving Old Trafford there were say 30 buses queuing up to go to the city. If we were to really push bus use we should have 5 or 6, not just one.
We have a town in a narrow valley 7 miles long half a mile wide. In the late 50's there was talk about moving the club so that the hospital could expand. I thought then Hazlemere would be good but it was reserved for housing. It is very difficult to think of any spare space large enough for a stadium and decent parking. Any possible sites, say Cressex, have been used for other things. It is difficult to think of anywhere except on top of the surrounding hills large enough. Then there is the problem of the Heathrow flight paths and floodlights!
I have not been able to think of anywhere which is large enough and close enough to the town centre. Perhaps the Brighton example of out of town and plenty of free/cheap transport from the city centre is the way to go?
But apart from the brilliant cardio ward, superb nurses, excellent doctors, superb stroke ward and life saving staff....
...what has Wycombe hospital ever done for us?
When a student in Manchester
The North, where public transport is an acceptable way of travelling.
Down in the South the car is king and the maximum number of people that can be in a car at the same time is 2.
Yet another reason AP is a difficult ground to access.
We don't need a new ground do we?
We certainly don't need a bigger one. I can't imagine how bad an out of town 20,000 stadium we can't even half fill would be. It would kill the club
Make Adams Park as good as it can be, would be my ideal. Yeah, put on some more buses and negotiate with all of the local businesses to open up their site for parking.
But just ask yourself, in 35 years at Adams Park, how many times have we ever sold out?..... 3?....4?
Celebrate what we are, don't moan about what we're not
Back to the prospect of dramatic reduction in ticket prices at AP I would say that although it's affordable for ML to cover the lost income however as a club it might not.
Gate revenue is a significant part of turnover. Increased turnover will be necessary to be able to fund the club going forward since FFP rules will limit the amount of money ML can pump into the club.
Sadly, the opportunity to grab a significantly increased supporter base may be already too late. I hope I'm wrong.
I don't think it's ever too late.
Great to see the news that the Family Stand is almost sold out for Saturday's game v Wigan - Quid a Kid is a great idea and to me one of the most disappointing things about the Couhig era (even though he did good stuff) was the veto on Quid a Kid.
That kind of thing could be so vital to capturing the imagination of future generations of fans, especially at a time when we have this level of squad to offer.
I just think that if you even capture a few minds out of the kids that attend, that it gets paid back many times over in terms of the future support base.
100% that.
The quid a kid days, or the free ticket when with an adult used to cause a commotion of excitement in school days.
Locking in Wycombe's kids has to be the best way of ensuring tomorrow's fans. It sounds so obviously simple to say doesn't it, yet not always cared about by the management.
Cheap tickets for 13-18 school kids, and some sort of special Bucks Uni 18-21 prices would help too
(I dare say there are cheaper tickets already, but properly cheap ones like I used to enjoy - i remember a 3 year season ticket for £120 for goodness sake - obviously inflation factor that!)
I think Micra's first season ticket was a shilling t'ppny ha'penny
I bet he owned one of these as well!
You've hit the nail on the head. For better or worse we're not going to sell out a 10,000 capacity ground on a regular basis unless we're in the Premier League. Part of why the abortive Booker scheme was so unpalatable (aside from how poor a deal it was for WWFC) was that we'd be moving to a ground we had no hope of filling built for the benefit of a rugby franchise with no connection to the area.
The squad we have at the moment is a golden opportunity not seen since the O'Neill era to get a new generation hooked like so many of us were in the early 90s. I'm too young to remember how much marketing had to be done, the coverage we had in the BFP sold it to me when I managed to get the paper off the old man when he had finished with it. These days the local media landscape is more like a wasteland and kids would know as much about newspapers as I would about washboards and mangles.
We have to work so much harder to get the attention of youngsters these days, with the financial backing provided by Lomtadze we should at least be able to provide more football in the community-type initiatives to get our name out there and have a few more cheap ticket deals for families to come along and get the bug.
If we are to play regularly in the Championship I would be happy with a slightly larger and newer AP, about 12000 should do.
In 3 years I suspect we will be down to a capacity of around 8700 when the terrace goes.
This would be ok in my eyes if we could get the access road.
Valley End - Safe Standing 2000
Frank Adams - 4000
Old Main - 3000
Away - 3000
We would easily average 7000+ in the Championship
Maybe do a “home swap” with the hospital…
The Frank Adams, I assume you mean the whole of the Woodlands?, I believe still has a current capacity of 5,000.
When you look at how much land the hospital buildings and associated buildings cover, there's surely not nearly enough land at the Adams Park ground and carpark site
Whoever said Lommy should just buy the whole Hillbottom Road area, would this be viable? If so, surely that would be a way to increase parking significantly, and it sounds like it could be much cheaper than building a new stadium anyway?
He could do, but it'd sort of be utterly pointless to spend millions to buy land just for parking?
And probably a bit fanciful to think he'll build a Man City "village" around it with sports facilities, eateries, a river system and loads of other stuff.
Everyone keeps forgetting that everything is being done to improve Kazakhstan football.
I doubt the Hillbottom Road is part of the plan. But who knows?
Wouldn't it solve the access issue a little if you had a large parking system with different entry points?
Edit: I didn't even realize Man City had a village!
It's still down one long road though in the "bahooky" end of town. That wouldn't be resolved even if you had eleventy separate entries to the road.
We have loads of entries onto the road now, just with fewer cars involved.
It could actually make it even more of an arse to get away. Just easier to park!
I was suggesting a redevelopment of all the stands if we were to stay.
if we are to move I would prefer the town centre rather than out of town or god forbid out of Wycombe district.
You know those are actual businesses that make stuff and employ people yeah?
Hence why I was asking if it was "viable" in the initial question, in response to the hypothetical scenario presented previously. Not holding myself out as an expert in stadium development and business relocation.
Any new stadium would be further from the town centre - a ground in the town centre is the stuff of fantasy; I just can't see a remotely viable location - which wouldn't be a bad thing with the right infrastructure. Brighton have done it pretty well, haven't they?
If all goes to plan and we become this successful championship club with a new stadium then the size of the town won’t be a problem, there’s plenty of people in the general area who would love a bandwagon to jump on.
We’re talking building and planning stuff? Where’s @DevC ?