Regarding a town centre stadium, I personally think the only place it could have been would have been the old broomwade site that stretched from Morrisons all the way to Hughenden Park. You may well have just about been able to squeeze a stadium and infrastructure for parking or excellent public transport links there and the train station and bus station being walking distance (or indeed bus station based at that site instead of where it was relocated when Eden was built).
But seeing as they stuck students and Old folks as neighbours (which I always thought was an interesting mixture) and a housing estate, that idea has long gone. And what was actually built was probably vastly more profitable for the council.
Well done for finding this excellent summary of the problems the club faced, they were even worse than I remembered. I particularly liked the bit about how a successful football club can enhance the image and reputation of a town that otherwise would mean nothing to most people outside High Wycombe.
There are many things that can be improved and tweaked but I think right now our focus should be 100 per cent on the next 15 games. If they go well then a lot of the issues surrounding our attendances will become a lot easier to solve.
Agreed. Game by game, tick off the wins, and see if we can make an even more glorious ascent to the 2nd tier.
Last time was brilliant, but very few got to experience anything in the flesh and whilst Wembley is a glorious way to go up - again none of us were there (apart from a few hangers on).
To go up automatically, and be at the grounds is mouth watering.
Then we can worry about how massively chaotic 8-9,000 every week is going to be.
It'll need more than one bus in and those 80 spaces at a school a mile away!
Remember the brass neck of Wycombe District Councillors appearing on the balcony of the council offices to bask in the reflected glory of our FA Trophy win in 1991?
The thousands of Wycombe fans there let them know exactly what we thought of them. I've rarely been prouder to be a Wycombe fan.
Football these days is a business so to find an answer to the conundrum you have to think about the problem from a business perspective.
First establish the objective - which seems to be to have a high Championship low premiership club capable of earning revenues to support a high quality academy.
ok - what do you need to deliver that? 1) a rich owner willing to invest 2) a strong fan base 3) a good quality accessible stadium 4) a good quality training complex.
we really only tick the first of those boxes . The stadium is poorly located and the fan base. Looking at local competitors , Reading have the ground and the training pitch and to some extent the support base but have a terrible owner, Oxford have decent sized support base and a current Championship place but have worse stadium issues.
The solution is surely obvious. Get Lommy to buy up and merge the three clubs and with our owner, Oxfords status, Readings facilities and a combined fan base we have all we need. We could call the combined club the Tenge Valley Royals.
(for absence of doubt this is not intended to be a serious proposal!)
I'm sure we could squeeze a stadium into the Town Centre, if it was just a Stadium and limited parking. So many empty shops now, that are unliklely to ever get filled or converted to housing.
Do grounds really need huge amounts of parking spaces if public transport links are significantly improved. With the bus station and rail station so close, there could be a huge reduction in cars going to games.
Some planning is so illogical, it doesn't follow common sense. As an example, I do not understand the B&Q /Boots / Next shopping area on the Bath Road in Burnham. It has 30+ parking spots for disabled drivers in one row. I absolutely get if you have one shop having adequate disabled parking is a must. I also understand that the parking should be close to the shop but does each shop really need it's five spaces each so we have 30 oddspaces in a row, with only ever 5-6 filled at best.
Moving this thinking forward, do we need the same number of parking spaces for Hillbottom Road that you would for a Town Centre Stadium.
I think if we make the Championship the average gate would be around 7.5k without us having to do much advertising.
There would be plenty of available land close to the town centre if not for Wycombe Abbey. The amount of land occupied by private schools is nothing short of obscene.
Plenty of stadiums around with very limited parking - AFC Wimbledon and Brentford both come to mind with basically no on site parking for fans, from what I can remember
We have a large Asian population, some of whom have been promoting a boycott of the club on social media for the last couple of years due to JJ’s comments around the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The current footprint of Adams Park will fit in the Frogmoor area/Chilterns Centre and part of Castle Street. Albeit I realise this would mean three roads potentially being closed off and a huge amount of buildings demolished. Economically may not be viable but there are some grounds in the world on top of shopping centers or that have roads running under them, so not impossible.
The footprint also only takes up about one third of the current Rye. I'd build it there, as close to this end of Town as possible.
Comments
Regarding a town centre stadium, I personally think the only place it could have been would have been the old broomwade site that stretched from Morrisons all the way to Hughenden Park. You may well have just about been able to squeeze a stadium and infrastructure for parking or excellent public transport links there and the train station and bus station being walking distance (or indeed bus station based at that site instead of where it was relocated when Eden was built).
But seeing as they stuck students and Old folks as neighbours (which I always thought was an interesting mixture) and a housing estate, that idea has long gone. And what was actually built was probably vastly more profitable for the council.
Well done for finding this excellent summary of the problems the club faced, they were even worse than I remembered. I particularly liked the bit about how a successful football club can enhance the image and reputation of a town that otherwise would mean nothing to most people outside High Wycombe.
It's £6 for a pint of IPA in the Vere that's keeping the crowds down I'm telling ya.......
The council seemed all too keen when it was Wasps who were going to be the key recipients of a stadium, not that many years ago.
Obviously it would have been disastrous for the football club - not owning a ground, paying rent and barely making anything out of it.
But you'd think with a proper big businessman now in charge that the wheels could definitely be "greased" if he so desired it.
There are many things that can be improved and tweaked but I think right now our focus should be 100 per cent on the next 15 games. If they go well then a lot of the issues surrounding our attendances will become a lot easier to solve.
A cut-price crowd, urban yet simple, dwelling
Where only salesmen and relations come
From the poem Here by Philip Larkin.
Agreed. Game by game, tick off the wins, and see if we can make an even more glorious ascent to the 2nd tier.
Last time was brilliant, but very few got to experience anything in the flesh and whilst Wembley is a glorious way to go up - again none of us were there (apart from a few hangers on).
To go up automatically, and be at the grounds is mouth watering.
Then we can worry about how massively chaotic 8-9,000 every week is going to be.
It'll need more than one bus in and those 80 spaces at a school a mile away!
'Top of the League and we're only getting 8,000...what is going on?'
Remember the brass neck of Wycombe District Councillors appearing on the balcony of the council offices to bask in the reflected glory of our FA Trophy win in 1991?
The thousands of Wycombe fans there let them know exactly what we thought of them. I've rarely been prouder to be a Wycombe fan.
Football these days is a business so to find an answer to the conundrum you have to think about the problem from a business perspective.
First establish the objective - which seems to be to have a high Championship low premiership club capable of earning revenues to support a high quality academy.
ok - what do you need to deliver that? 1) a rich owner willing to invest 2) a strong fan base 3) a good quality accessible stadium 4) a good quality training complex.
we really only tick the first of those boxes . The stadium is poorly located and the fan base. Looking at local competitors , Reading have the ground and the training pitch and to some extent the support base but have a terrible owner, Oxford have decent sized support base and a current Championship place but have worse stadium issues.
The solution is surely obvious. Get Lommy to buy up and merge the three clubs and with our owner, Oxfords status, Readings facilities and a combined fan base we have all we need. We could call the combined club the Tenge Valley Royals.
(for absence of doubt this is not intended to be a serious proposal!)
I'm sure we could squeeze a stadium into the Town Centre, if it was just a Stadium and limited parking. So many empty shops now, that are unliklely to ever get filled or converted to housing.
Do grounds really need huge amounts of parking spaces if public transport links are significantly improved. With the bus station and rail station so close, there could be a huge reduction in cars going to games.
Some planning is so illogical, it doesn't follow common sense. As an example, I do not understand the B&Q /Boots / Next shopping area on the Bath Road in Burnham. It has 30+ parking spots for disabled drivers in one row. I absolutely get if you have one shop having adequate disabled parking is a must. I also understand that the parking should be close to the shop but does each shop really need it's five spaces each so we have 30 oddspaces in a row, with only ever 5-6 filled at best.
Moving this thinking forward, do we need the same number of parking spaces for Hillbottom Road that you would for a Town Centre Stadium.
I think if we make the Championship the average gate would be around 7.5k without us having to do much advertising.
There would be plenty of available land close to the town centre if not for Wycombe Abbey. The amount of land occupied by private schools is nothing short of obscene.
Plenty of stadiums around with very limited parking - AFC Wimbledon and Brentford both come to mind with basically no on site parking for fans, from what I can remember
Brentford is an impressive one - it's basically a triangle of land boxed in by railway lines that they've built on
We have a large Asian population, some of whom have been promoting a boycott of the club on social media for the last couple of years due to JJ’s comments around the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Ridiculous in my view but can’t be helping.
What did JJ say?
Basically (completely correctly) criticising the Hamas attacks and the hostage taking.
He had to have security protection for a while due to threats.
Ah yeah, I remember that now. Pretty bleak that it had to come to that.
Watford is another example of limited parking excepting the Town Centre.
I'm not sure, @Commoner, that relocating the ground into a series of empty shops in the town centre is going to work.
Bleak is indeed the word for the whole sh**show.
Two stations within walking distance though!
whilst simultaneously failing to criticise the 40 year military occupation of Palestine I presume?
Arguably 3 if you include Bushey
This may need to move to Not Football.
Ironically it's very much like football, in that you choose a side and support it no matter what.
The current footprint of Adams Park will fit in the Frogmoor area/Chilterns Centre and part of Castle Street. Albeit I realise this would mean three roads potentially being closed off and a huge amount of buildings demolished. Economically may not be viable but there are some grounds in the world on top of shopping centers or that have roads running under them, so not impossible.
The footprint also only takes up about one third of the current Rye. I'd build it there, as close to this end of Town as possible.
They're building a load of flats where the Chilterns centre is
And you can't really go building on a park - especially one that's prone to flooding!
So he was fair game for threats, was he?