No to the corner stands

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plenty of fans are happy with this news from what i've seen. Makes you think why on earth didnt anyone speak sense into the reluctant one before kissing his arse when he announced the mankover. Knock it down and build it new with corners in future.

from the link wrote:

The Pilgrims will be in the Championship next season after playing in front of regular home sell-outs in League One this term

Argyle are currently in the early stages of two substantial capital expenditure projects, for a permanent home for their youth academy at the Brickfields in Devonport, and a training centre for the first team at what used to be called the Goals Soccer Centre off Outland Road and is now being rebranded as Harpers.

Hallett estimated that combined they would cost twice the amount of the £10 million-plus redevelopment of the Mayflower Grandstand.

So as far as increasing capacity at Home Park is concerned, Hallett's view is 'We have got to stick with what we have got by and large', with the project at the Brickfields the priority and the extensive works schedule there set to begin in early 2024.

The capacity at Home Park has become an issue after Argyle enjoyed their second highest attendance figures in the last 60 years as they have secured promotion to the Championship.

There were 16,000-plus home sell-out crowds for the last 10 games at the Theatre of Greens this season as fans flocked to watch the Pilgrims in action.

Argyle's average league attendance this season was 15,579, but there is little scope to improve on that in the Championship next season.

The upper tier of the Mayflower Grandstand is set to continue at less than 100 per cent capacity due to entry and exit issues and seating comfort.

Hallett told Plymouth Live: "There are two ways in which we can increase capacity. One is by filling in the corners and one is by taking care of the Mayflower upstairs.

"But we are about to embark on an £11 million our share of a £20million-plus expansion at the Brickfields, and we have got Harpers, formerly known as Goals, lined up for investment and our first team training facility.

"We have got the upper Mayflower which still needs sorting out, though it was good to see a couple of hundred extra seats being used there on Saturday (for the promotion-clinching 1-0 win against Burton Albion).

"Even back of the envelope numbers suggest that filling in the corners doesn't make any sense financially. I expect Home Park to be pretty full in the Championship next year, but the relationship between results on the pitch and attendances is still there.

"So the year after I would doubt if we would have 16,000 here. I hope we do but I somehow doubt it, and filling in the corners now would cost a great deal of money.

"We haven't costed it to the nearest hundred thousand but we know it would be a great deal of money and there is absolutely no way it would be financially viable, unless we could guarantee people were going to be there every week, and we can't guarantee that, so we have got to stick with what we have got by and large."

Hallett continued: "We want to get as many people in here as we can, but we are limited by the fact this is a 70-year-old stadium, there are safety issues that have to be carefully thought about. I think under-lying it is that all clubs that do well hit full capacity.

"One of the things we have done is increase the value for money coming to Argyle. The football is better, the experience is better, the entertainment is better, the seats look better, the place looks better, so the value has gone up.

"We have been pretty good about not having very significant price increases. If you get that gap between very good value and very good pricing more people are going to want to come.

"It's a problem we have created for ourselves and I'm sorry we can't get another 1,000 or so people in immediately, but that's just how things are. It's in a way a nice problem to have."

Argyle were allowed to use 85 per cent of the seats in the upper Mayflower on a trial basis against Burton, up from 75 per cent as was the case for the rest of the season, but Hallett does not expect that to increase to 100 per cent next term.

Hallett said: "I don't think so, there are just so many things going on. There are so many ways in which you can spend your money at a football club with an old stadium.

"And we don't have the infrastructure yet that is appropriate for a sustainable Championship club. The first team training facilities need to be improved, our academy doesn't have a permanent home, our women's team don't have a permanent home, so the Brickfields is a game changer. That's going to be the priority."

Hallett believes the redevelopment of the Brickfields will be a game changer as far as Argyle are concerned but stressed there was still a lot of planning to be done before work could begin.

He said: "I'm excited but I'm a bit daunted. This is the biggest project the club has ever taken on and it has got several stakeholders - it's us, it's the (Argyle) Community Trust, it's Plymouth City Council, it's Plymouth Albion.

"There is a lot of moving parts so it's daunting but if we manage to execute it as well as the team has executed almost everything else it's going to be an absolute game changer.

"It's going to mean we can integrate our women's team more closely. Our women's team just managed to avoid relegation with a great performance on Sunday (a 3-0 win away to MK Dons).

"Our academy has improved beyond measure over the last couple of years. I don't think the women's team are going to be providing resources for the rest of the club in any significant way over the next couple of years, but on a five-year view it's important our academy be an outstanding one, and I think we are well on the way to getting there.

"We want players growing up in a well-established academy with a proper site to play in so we can attract the best talent from around the region.

"We are competing with Exeter, who have done a fantastic job with their academy, and I think they would forgive me for saying we are starting to catch up, but I think we are.

"We have got to overtake them and get the kind of revenues out of the academy players they have managed to achieve over the last few years.

"It won't happen overnight. We haven't even got full planning permission yet so things are not going to start getting dug up for a while. It will require a lot of planning before things start getting dug up."

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As for the Harpers project, the Argyle chairman said: "The long-term plan is that it become a first class training centre for our first team. Before that, though, we have got work to do.

"We will be putting a proper gym in on a medium term basis that won't be at Harpers. The actual timing of Harpers we haven't yet planned for.

"We have got enormous cap ex (capital expenditure) plans here that dwarf in aggregate anything that Argyle has ever done. In total we are looking at amounts that are twice the refurbishment of the grandstand. We need to get the timings sorted out and then the cash flows coming in."

He continued: "Going forward X-years, and I don't know what X is at the moment, Harpers will be the place where the players get fit, where they change, where they shower, from where they stroll to the training pitches at Harper's Park.

"But in the meantime Harpers is a pretty good asset. It generates revenues at quite a high level, we didn't pay I don't think too much for it, so we are getting a good financial return and some of that money can go back into other projects or indeed into the first team squad.

"It has been a good acquisition which will provide money and resources, and something for our fans. We are already having pre-match stuff for kids there. We use it as a venue for birthday parties and all that kind of stuff."

Disappointing, but not surprising, 'community first' is all the rage with these types, no matter that we are a mens football club first and foremost ... or maybe I'm mistaken.

Typical "small club" mentality.

"Ooh well we won't do well in the Championship so attendances will fall."

"Bought Brickfields a few months ago and at the time we didn't think we would get promoted"

"Let's not get too ambitious as that might be expensive, better to be a League 1 Club and sell all our good young players"

The Yanks need to give SH a nudge or Steve S will be scanning the Situations Vacant adverts in a few months time.

Then Hallett needs to find potential owners who will put in the necessary investment to increase capacity (and invest in the playing side) and then he can disappear off into the sunset

Grovehill wrote:

Typical "small club" mentality.

"Ooh well we won't do well in the Championship so attendances will fall."

"Bought Brickfields a few months ago and at the time we didn't think we would get promoted"

"Let's not get too ambitious as that might be expensive, better to be a League 1 Club and sell all our good young players"

The Yanks need to give SH a nudge or Steve S will be scanning the Situations Vacant adverts in a few months time.

''

Seem to remember Schuey saying in an interview some time ago that the club "can go as far as they want it to go"-he would be well advised to keep a close watch on the level of ambition shown by the upper powers in the club bearing in mind how many previous managerial careers have foundered at HP. As you say, there isn't much of a hint in that interview of any ambition to move further than at best treading water in the championship-even the production of high standard players from the academy is referred to in terms of producing revenue rather than possible building blocks of a high standard first team. How Albion or the womens team are getting on is of concern to most fans only in a peripheral way-good luck to them but Argyle will always essentially be the first team and no amount of "community" involvement will alter that.

i get we need to invest in training facilities as our current ones are not good never have been and areas where the club can generate money but to dismiss building the corners i feel will be a mistake especially if attendances remain high even if we go straight backdown next season which i think they will.

I think Argyle are missing a trick here. Not necessarily financially, because I get that it probably doesn’t ‘add up’ in terms of cost to build versus additional revenue the corner seats create. But for thousands of Argyle fans, myself included, filling in the corners would almost psychologically demonstrates tangible positive intentions

The Demport/Grandstand corner is an ongoing embarrassment, even more so now with the tv cameras trained on it from the Lyndhurst gantry.

I distinctly recall an interview Hallett did where he directly referenced possible further investment from our minority Yank shareholders that may be forthcoming in the future. I wonder if conversations are being had.

I wonder if the solution would be to build 20,000 capacity at Brickfields. A brownfield site, still close to the city and decent public transport links.

And the crappy corner thing is being picked up by non- Argyle supporters seeing the state of it on the highlights.

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im not sure what to make of these announcements lately since we won promotion. So far i gather we arent interested in spending money to make money and build in the two corner stands because we want to spend money to build up training facilities for all areas of the club and we wont be spending much money in the championship so we can be more sustainable than the other teams there (that its worth noting all have revenue streams beyond match days and we are still to make that £1m from the mankover a season)

I can forgive the corners not being addressed as a priority, but not tidying up bobbys cabbage patch and fixing the upper mayflower mankover is unforgivable.

Personally i would rather get the academy and the training facilities up to championship standard than add more seats (though i would love to fill the corner in if we had the dosh.) I'm also glad that uncle Si aint the sort to start paying stupid wages to journeymen players, the championship is littered with skint clubs loaded with massive debts, but these are glory days bheys, a far cry from six years in the fourth division under the Brentmare.

Yet how are we to become a "sustainable" CCC club? Not by punching above our weight for all eternity, sooner or later some big cnut will deck us. Without extra capacity we will just see more of the elitist evergreen crap we have seen this season, I have failed to get tickets to at least six games this campaign and it will be almost impossible for people like me the get tickets now despite attending more games in my life than most other Argyle fans with the Janner banners.
Si and the Yanks have utterly lost their way with their investment plan and I reckon in two years we will be back in league 2 with crowds of 4k. We are a football team not a property portfolio.
I don't want us to borrow a hundred million quid but some money towards the playing squad would be welcome reward for the investment us fans have made.

until the club generates money on and off the field and not just on match days we will never be a sustainable championship club that was what nearly killed us the last time we where in this league and where a stable championship club on the pitch we had no revenue streams going into the club bar transfers out, sponsorship of various kinds and match days.

Wages will be higher next season and to get the players we will need to be competitive on the pitch the transfers will be higher too. Are the board prepared for this i wonder.

Do the likes of Ipswich achieve their massive (in comparison) budgets by building non match day revenue streams? I always thought their advantage was having more than double our capacity?
Ridsdale was right when in the Stapes/Brent changeover he said that Argyle yave forgotten they are a football club. As true today as it was then.
The bit that really grips my shit is that Sigh is saying that we won't sustain sell out crowds in the CCC, we would only need to survive first season and improve second season. This smacks to me of planning for relegation.

"Sustainable" doesn't just mean spending as little money as possible, investments can be made to increase income as well.

A couple of years of not spending when necessary will lead to poorer on field performances, dwindling crowds and a relegation. back to League One.

It's been seen so many times at Home Park.

But we've never see the impact of at least trying to reach for the sky

Grovehill wrote:

"Sustainable"  doesn't just mean spending as little money as possible,  investments can be made to increase income as well.

A couple of years of not spending when necessary will lead to poorer on field performances, dwindling crowds and a relegation.  back to League One.

It's been seen so many times at Home Park.

But we've never see the impact  of at least trying to reach for the sky

Not strictly true. Argyle reaching for the sky put us £17m in debt by doing stuff like paying Mpenza £10k a week to lie on the medical couch. At least this season we got half a mill for a crock. :-)

One thing’s for sure, if dampening expectations is the aim then it’s successfully being implemented.

Earwegoagain wrote:

Do the likes of Ipswich achieve their massive (in comparison) budgets by building non match day revenue streams? I always thought their advantage was having more than double our capacity?
Ridsdale was right when in the Stapes/Brent changeover he said that Argyle yave forgotten they are a football club. As true today as it was then.
The bit that really grips my shit is that Sigh is saying that we won't sustain sell out crowds in the CCC, we would only need to survive first season and improve second season. This smacks to me of planning for relegation.

This article is a couple years old, but gives an insight into the huge money behind Ipswich currently. Coupled with their old owner writing off £80m owed to him, (while still not achieving Prem status after blowing all that) it gives an idea of the sort of financial clout we’ll be up against on a regular basis next season.

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Czarcasm wrote:

Grovehill wrote:

"Sustainable"  doesn't just mean spending as little money as possible,  investments can be made to increase income as well.

A couple of years of not spending when necessary will lead to poorer on field performances, dwindling crowds and a relegation.  back to League One.

It's been seen so many times at Home Park.

But we've never see the impact  of at least trying to reach for the sky

Not strictly true. Argyle reaching for the sky put us £17m in debt by doing stuff like paying Mpenza £10k a week to lie on the medical couch. At least this season we got half a mill for a crock. :-)

One thing’s for sure, if dampening expectations is the aim then it’s successfully being implemented.

I'd say it was more a case of an unpopular Board giving a Manager (Sturrock) an open cheque book.

He then spent like a sailor at Diamond Lil's (ask your father) on players he hadn't checked out properly (eg bought Walton purely on QPR manager Dowie's saying he was a good 'un. It would have been funny if it hadn't scuppered the Club.

Czarcasm wrote:

Grovehill wrote:

"Sustainable"  doesn't just mean spending as little money as possible,  investments can be made to increase income as well.

A couple of years of not spending when necessary will lead to poorer on field performances, dwindling crowds and a relegation.  back to League One.

It's been seen so many times at Home Park.

But we've never see the impact  of at least trying to reach for the sky

Not strictly true. Argyle reaching for the sky put us £17m in debt by doing stuff like paying Mpenza £10k a week to lie on the medical couch. At least this season we got half a mill for a crock. :-)

One thing’s for sure, if dampening expectations is the aim then it’s successfully being implemented.

thats the forbidden fact that argyle fans arent allowed to voice just how bad sturrock v2.0 recruitment of players in the championship was and how much that contributed to the £18m debt.

when he was bringing in mpenza on that wage who did next to jackshit and couldnt get his dick hard (he was on Viagra as one of the reasons he didnt play much according to luggy's book) £500.000 on maclean who was total dogshit and £750,000 on walton who finally did good for us in his last season but was forever injured and loaned out the rest of the time. Of course there was folly and many others all on big wages and didnt deliver.
lets not forget the money he spent on players he then publicly denounced them and never played them again who either stayed and collected their high wage or left for peanuts less than what we paid to go be star players elsewhere Puncheon for one stack another.

he did sign some good players to be fair bwp for one noone, bolasie to name a few but the point im making the board, schuey and jimmy dickson need to learn lessons from the past and be wise with budget while bringing in the players we need to be competitive in the championship and making sure they make the impact we want and arent going to be lying on the physio's table often. They have to find that balance of doing that without comprimising the clubs finances when the revenue streams arent all there and producing to pay the extra costs.

Grovehill wrote:

Czarcasm wrote:

Grovehill wrote:

"Sustainable"  doesn't just mean spending as little money as possible,  investments can be made to increase income as well.

A couple of years of not spending when necessary will lead to poorer on field performances, dwindling crowds and a relegation.  back to League One.

It's been seen so many times at Home Park.

But we've never see the impact  of at least trying to reach for the sky

Not strictly true. Argyle reaching for the sky put us £17m in debt by doing stuff like paying Mpenza £10k a week to lie on the medical couch. At least this season we got half a mill for a crock. :-)

One thing’s for sure, if dampening expectations is the aim then it’s successfully being implemented.

I'd say it was more a case of an unpopular Board giving a Manager (Sturrock) an open cheque book.

He then spent like a sailor at Diamond Lil's (ask your father) on players he hadn't checked out properly (eg bought Walton purely on QPR manager Dowie's saying he was a good 'un. It would have been funny if it hadn't scuppered the Club.

And Steve Maclean, seems it’s bit different these days

Genuine question but why is it known as Bobby's Garden?

Greenlander wrote:

Genuine question but why is it known as Bobby's Garden?

Bobby Williamson used to grow his neeps and tatties there to make him feel at home.

Czarcasm wrote:

Earwegoagain wrote:

Do the likes of Ipswich achieve their massive (in comparison) budgets by building non match day revenue streams? I always thought their advantage was having more than double our capacity?
Ridsdale was right when in the Stapes/Brent changeover he said that Argyle yave forgotten they are a football club. As true today as it was then.
The bit that really grips my shit is that Sigh is saying that we won't sustain sell out crowds in the CCC, we would only need to survive first season and improve second season. This smacks to me of planning for relegation.

This article is a couple years old, but gives an insight into the huge money behind Ipswich currently. Coupled with their old owner writing off £80m owed to him, (while still not achieving Prem status after blowing all that) it gives an idea of the sort of financial clout we’ll be up against on a regular basis next season.

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Believe me I am aware of walleted owners but Portman Rd has a capacity of nearly 30,000 wich will give double to money from seats sold. Sadly we wouldn't sell 30,000 seats because the floaters won't buy into Sighs CCC football on the cheap. We needed more capacity this campaign we will definitely need more seats in the CCC.

Earwegoagain wrote:

Czarcasm wrote:

Earwegoagain wrote:

Do the likes of Ipswich achieve their massive (in comparison) budgets by building non match day revenue streams? I always thought their advantage was having more than double our capacity?
Ridsdale was right when in the Stapes/Brent changeover he said that Argyle yave forgotten they are a football club. As true today as it was then.
The bit that really grips my shit is that Sigh is saying that we won't sustain sell out crowds in the CCC, we would only need to survive first season and improve second season. This smacks to me of planning for relegation.

This article is a couple years old, but gives an insight into the huge money behind Ipswich currently. Coupled with their old owner writing off £80m owed to him, (while still not achieving Prem status after blowing all that) it gives an idea of the sort of financial clout we’ll be up against on a regular basis next season.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Believe me I am aware of walleted owners but Portman Rd has a capacity of nearly 30,000 wich will give double to money from seats sold. Sadly we wouldn't sell 30,000 seats because the floaters won't buy into Sighs CCC football on the cheap. We needed more capacity this campaign we will definitely need more seats in the CCC.

And Ipswich are looking into expanding portman road, not frittering millions on wimins football or yoga classes for big jenny from pembroke street.

Earwegoagain wrote:

Czarcasm wrote:

Earwegoagain wrote:

Do the likes of Ipswich achieve their massive (in comparison) budgets by building non match day revenue streams? I always thought their advantage was having more than double our capacity?
Ridsdale was right when in the Stapes/Brent changeover he said that Argyle yave forgotten they are a football club. As true today as it was then.
The bit that really grips my shit is that Sigh is saying that we won't sustain sell out crowds in the CCC, we would only need to survive first season and improve second season. This smacks to me of planning for relegation.

This article is a couple years old, but gives an insight into the huge money behind Ipswich currently. Coupled with their old owner writing off £80m owed to him, (while still not achieving Prem status after blowing all that) it gives an idea of the sort of financial clout we’ll be up against on a regular basis next season.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Believe me I am aware of walleted owners but Portman Rd has a capacity of nearly 30,000 wich will give double to money from seats sold. Sadly we wouldn't sell 30,000 seats because the floaters won't buy into Sighs CCC football on the cheap. We needed more capacity this campaign we will definitely need more seats in the CCC.

we will need more seats no matter where we are as the demand is outgrowing supply and the club is attracting alot of youngsters the good kind and the bad ones in order for the club to keep making money and not drive them away due to low demand they are going to have to sort it out but again they should have thought about this when they green lighted the mankover and poo pooed any talk that it was too small and wont be fit for purpose when fans on here and elsewhere stated it.