Sleeping Giant

"build it speccy and they will come"

No they fecking won't. All the crowds being spoken about in this thread are years ago. How many times in the last 14 years or, since 2000, have these mega crowds appeared at Home Park? Answers in the affirmative on the head of a pin please. Why do people try to invent history?

hairy j wrote:

Bandwagon wrote:

hairy j wrote:

If the Blackburn game was the 92 game under Shilton, it was just under 18,000.

74 hairy!!

Like Tring's point, that's irrelevant - that's 40 years ago in a mainly non-seated stadium with much cheaper ticket prices - things have changed.

Well it certainly seems like a blur now - each to his own!!

Sensiblegreeny wrote:

"build it speccy and they will come"

No they fecking won't.    All the crowds being spoken about in this thread are years ago.    How many times in the last 14 years or, since 2000, have these mega crowds appeared at Home Park?    Answers in the affirmative on the head of a pin please.     Why do people try to invent history?

It might have been a tight squeeze trying to get 38000 or even 27000 people into a stadium with a maximum capacity of 20000.

When was that Greenskin? Was it last season or the season before? Was it when we were in the Championship? Was it this Millenium?

The elephant in the room with a paltry 17000 capacity is the pressure to move out of the park in the medium term should any sort of success return at all in the next 20 years. And with that would be the destruction of that part of the park, whilst needlessly handing a property bonanza to some greedy unsocial git.
And why, oh why, steal the corners of the stadium ? It will do nothing for the atmosphere. The park does not need a school. Only Brent's pocket and a property sliding agenda needs a school right next to the corner flag.

Winter Green wrote:

The elephant in the room with a paltry 17000 capacity is the pressure to move out of the park in the medium term should any sort of success return at all in the next 20 years. And with that would be the destruction of that part of the park, whilst needlessly handing a property bonanza to some greedy unsocial git.
And why, oh why, steal the corners of the stadium ? It will do nothing for the atmosphere. The park does not need a school. Only Brent's pocket and a property sliding agenda needs a school right next to the corner flag.

Not to mention the feckin dentist and the student "hotel" .

Argyle could be a huge club but sadly the boat was missed a long time ago. Eternal non top flight football is our destiny.

punchdrunk wrote:

Winter Green wrote:

The elephant in the room with a paltry 17000 capacity is the pressure to move out of the park in the medium term should any sort of success return at all in the next 20 years. And with that would be the destruction of that part of the park, whilst needlessly handing a property bonanza to some greedy unsocial git.
And why, oh why, steal the corners of the stadium ? It will do nothing for the atmosphere. The park does not need a school. Only Brent's pocket and a property sliding agenda needs a school right next to the corner flag.

Not to mention the feckin dentist and the student "hotel" .

Im still yet to see anything to suggest why we need a dentist there at all. I was under the impression a hotel was going to be not 5 star but of decent stanard but at the moment a youth hostel has more facilities in it.

Yet all of these are prefered to be sandwiched into a clusterfuck over decent facilities for real fans of the club and future ambitions.

Elias wrote:

Argyle could be a huge club but sadly the boat was missed a long time ago. Eternal non top flight football is our destiny.

A decent championship club that flirts with the premiership is still possibility but alas nandos is more important than attracting football fans.

Angry wrote:

punchdrunk wrote:

Winter Green wrote:

The elephant in the room with a paltry 17000 capacity is the pressure to move out of the park in the medium term should any sort of success return at all in the next 20 years. And with that would be the destruction of that part of the park, whilst needlessly handing a property bonanza to some greedy unsocial git.
And why, oh why, steal the corners of the stadium ? It will do nothing for the atmosphere. The park does not need a school. Only Brent's pocket and a property sliding agenda needs a school right next to the corner flag.

Not to mention the feckin dentist and the student "hotel" .

Im still yet to see anything to suggest why we need a dentist there at all. I was under the impression a hotel was going to be not 5 star but of decent stanard but at the moment a youth hostel has more facilities in it.

Yet all of these are prefered to be sandwiched into a clusterfuck over decent facilities for real fans of the club and future ambitions.

You know what?!
That photo that was in the Herald summed it up, the one that was taken immediately after the rigged council decision to award Brent the rights to annihilate any future chance that Argyle might have had of making it to the Premier League.
15-20 ageing grinning selfish fools sat with the speccy banker completely oblivious to the fact that they have just shafted generations upon generations of Argyle supporters of ever seeing their team do a Hull, Swansea or a Reading.
Most of them are on greens on screen on a weekly basis.
treachery of the most extreme so it is.

Angry wrote:

Elias wrote:

Argyle could be a huge club but sadly the boat was missed a long time ago. Eternal non top flight football is our destiny.

A decent championship club that flirts with the premiership is still possibility but alas nandos is more important than attracting football fans.

Sadly it isnt unless someone seriously overpays to buy the club.

Clubs of a similar size catchment wise have inspired their potential fanbases.

Hull, Swansea, Cardiff, Reading, Brighton etc etc. to name a few recently.

We box our ground in to lower league bully boy level and put dentists and schools in the corners. How totally village.

There is certainly something in the water. Attendances in the past do have relevance particularly for a club with no top flight history.
I repeat........... for one family in particular, Cardiff, Swansea and Hull were no better supported than Argyle in similar positions.
What they did was build to inspire. PCC could have done the same and demanded that whomsoever they chose for the development, would do it well and do it with the wow factor or don't do it at all.

Cardiff are completely in debt to Mr Tan - that's a terrible example based upon one simple factor; they're in the Premier League. Bolton could be added to your list there Tring - they're over £150m in debt - they have a nice stadium though. Brighton are completely different too - the disposable income in their catchment area is far above that in Plymouth. Swansea's ground is under 21,000 and cost £27m to build.
Port Vale, aptly, has a similar "record attendance" [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and they've got a worse historic record than we do.
If you want to talk facts, talk facts but don't talk rhetoric.
I'd love the club to be attracting the size of crowds that Sunderland do and be competing every other week against teams like Arsenal and Chelsea but we are a fourth tier club at the moment and we're attracting between 6 and 7,000 people.
Looking at the 50s to prove a point isn't at all constructive - it's a diferent World. Building a 40,000+ stadium for 5,000 season ticket holders would be ridiculous.
Look at the facts.

Greenskin wrote:

Sensiblegreeny wrote:

"build it speccy and they will come"

No they fecking won't.    All the crowds being spoken about in this thread are years ago.    How many times in the last 14 years or, since 2000, have these mega crowds appeared at Home Park?    Answers in the affirmative on the head of a pin please.     Why do people try to invent history?

It might have been a tight squeeze trying to get 38000 or even 27000 people into a stadium with a maximum capacity of 20000.

I suppose that is the problem with statistics, they can be twisted to 'anyones' agenda - this is a good analogy though as perhaps the important message is that in those days of the 70's (and before) the population was marginally less(?) than today and those fans did actually turn up in droves!! I do however realise that younger fans that didn't experience these can be sceptical and only look at the future based on their start of the journey in supporting this club!!

Sensiblegreeny wrote:

When was that Greenskin?    Was it last season or the season before?   Was it when we were in the Championship?    Was it this Millenium?

You specified the years from 2000-2014 and my reply was geared towards that period.During that time,Argyle had sell outs against QPR,Colchester,West Ham,Leeds and Watford.Stapes himself said that 35000 tickets could easily have been sold for the QPR game and i seem to remember that there was quite a demand for Leeds and West Ham when the momentum was still with Argyle in the early CCC days.The examples are few and far between but nonetheless emphasise that the demand is still there when either success or perceived top class opposition is the order of the day,which is the way it's always been at Argyle and any other club with a history of comparative non achievement.And i wouldn't underestimate the "new stadium bounce" either,although in Argyle's case it would obviously be "new stand bounce".I did some work on the subject some time ago,a bit of research into the cases of Hull,Reading,Swansea,Cardiff etc after they built their new grounds and the results were a bit of an eye opener-the aforesaid bounce was certainly there even when success on the field did not automatically follow.

hairy j wrote:

Cardiff are completely in debt to Mr Tan - that's a terrible example based upon one simple factor; they're in the Premier League. Bolton could be added to your list there Tring - they're over £150m in debt - they have a nice stadium though. Brighton are completely different too - the disposable income in their catchment area is far above that in Plymouth. Swansea's ground is under 21,000 and cost £27m to build.
Port Vale, aptly, has a similar "record attendance" [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and they've got a worse historic record than we do.
If you want to talk facts, talk facts but don't talk rhetoric.
I'd love the club to be attracting the size of crowds that Sunderland do and be competing every other week against teams like Arsenal and Chelsea but we are a fourth tier club at the moment and we're attracting between 6 and 7,000 people.
Looking at the 50s to prove a point isn't at all constructive - it's a diferent World. Building a 40,000+ stadium for 5,000 season ticket holders would be ridiculous.
Look at the facts.

A 25k stadium with a proper grandstand and related money making facilities, with further expansion easily possible at a later date, would likely have the same bounce effect mentioned previously by Greenskin, as happened at the other clubs.
For a club with no top flight exposure, belief, and being inspired is everything. Argyle has never had that.

I blame PCC most of all, as they could have got the job done well by utilising Cottage Field. The Trust's WG plans wouldn't have cost much more , even by Akerron's admission and would have made a world of difference to the whole impact of HHP.
The difference between keeping the dream alive and eternal Avivafesting, lording it over Exeter and Torquay.
Brent is in this purely for himself and his chosen fans' reps are in it for themselves. They are too dim to see or care about the bigger picture.

I thought you were supposed to be intelligent Hairy ?

Lets be clear about this from the start. I would love a 25000 stadium along with great money making facilities that would benefit the football side 100% and in that I am no different from anyone else.

However, wanting it and justifying it out of somebody else's money is another thing altogether. There is simply no evidence over recent times that can be produced that would convince even the softest accountant Argyle would warrant what everyone wants. 5 matches over all of those years is not an argument to build anything bigger. You would need to be able to demonstrate those sort of crowds for at least 50% of the time to make bigger pay. The argument being used is not supported by anything other than wishing. We could get promoted, alternatively we may not. We might increase the crowds or we may not even if successful. It's all presented on what might be and whilst I'd join in the dream of it I'm not convinced in the certainty of it as some would have us believe. Build it and it's sorted.........Hmmmmm!!!!

Sensiblegreeny wrote:

Lets be clear about this from the start.    I would love a 25000 stadium along with great money making facilities that would benefit the football side 100% and in that I am no different from anyone else.

However, wanting it and justifying it out of somebody else's money is another thing altogether.    There is simply no evidence over recent times that can be produced that would convince even the softest accountant Argyle would warrant what everyone wants.    5 matches over all of those years is not an argument to build anything bigger.    You would need to be able to demonstrate those sort of crowds for at least 50% of the time to make bigger pay.    The argument being used is not supported by anything other than wishing.    We could get promoted, alternatively we may not.    We might increase the crowds or we may not even if successful.    It's all presented on what might be and whilst I'd join in the dream of it I'm not convinced in the certainty of it as some would have us believe.    Build it and it's sorted.........Hmmmmm!!!!

FFS !!! Swansea, Cardiff, Hull, Reading, Brighton in recent times were no different to us attendance wise like for like, pre new stadia. Home Park already has a great location and with the ground finished well, with room for future expansion, the all important belief would be there.

The clusterfuck screams lower league, the Fans' Trust plans didn't. Why can't you understand ? In terms of Brent's Plymouth based developments, both he and the council 'could' do it well at HHP but in typical Plymouth fashion they think small and without vision, just like Brent's jamboys. It's an absolute tragedy.

Sensiblegreeny wrote:

Lets be clear about this from the start.    I would love a 25000 stadium along with great money making facilities that would benefit the football side 100% and in that I am no different from anyone else.

However, wanting it and justifying it out of somebody else's money is another thing altogether.    There is simply no evidence over recent times that can be produced that would convince even the softest accountant Argyle would warrant what everyone wants.    5 matches over all of those years is not an argument to build anything bigger.    You would need to be able to demonstrate those sort of crowds for at least 50% of the time to make bigger pay.    The argument being used is not supported by anything other than wishing.    We could get promoted, alternatively we may not.    We might increase the crowds or we may not even if successful.    It's all presented on what might be and whilst I'd join in the dream of it I'm not convinced in the certainty of it as some would have us believe.    Build it and it's sorted.........Hmmmmm!!!!

Oh come on Sensi, you know damn well that even modest success would lead to higher attendances, if we did get to league one and were pushing for promotion to the championship we could attract 15+ thousand and at championship level against the more attractive teams or in big cup draws we're capable of attracting 20+ thousand. The trouble is Jimmy's plans don't allow for that and the biggest concern is the inability to easily expand the stadium if needed thus stifling future growth.

Why can't you read Tring? I already answered the "you don't understand" bit. I think I do.

Jack, your post is true and I haven't said it isn't. There are two things though I would point out. One is that the improved attendance would have to be sustained and it was already dropping off in the Championship before we fell out of it and the second is the word you use "if". It is based on an assumption of us getting promotions and staying up.

Put yourself in the shoes of a hard nosed businessman. You want to be convinced that super plans are for you and will give a return. Somebody tells you that if you spend £10m you will get it all back and maybe will make a profit if you build what is being built. Somebody else tells you that you could go down in folklore and be loved forever but it will cost you twice that and you may never see anything back at all it being based on a might be. Be loved and risk it all compared with a more certain outcome????? IF it was you what would you really do. I would like him to chose love and gratitude but would I do it like that if it was my money.

It's not just Brent's choice though. PCC should be looking for the best they can get for the city, not the shambles they have agreed to. There's £150 million of development at least, earmarked for Brent in Plymouth and the release of Cottage Field plus a couple of million extra for a decent grandstand is nothing in the bigger picture. I'm certain many fans would have bought in to help if necessary but PCC lack vision and Brent is only interested in his own profits and keeping ownership between him and his missus.

@sensi
You keep on saying that this is a £10m stadium if you compare to other stadiums that have been built recently then that would suggest that Argyle are paying for the at least the excavation and disposal of spoil for the underground car park, which in turn is the footprint/groundwork for the hotel. I would also suggest that that Argyle are paying for the groundwork/excavation for the retail units under the stand from which they are to gain no or little net benefit. I would suggest that if we had a full £10m for the stand we could do a much better job but then you would have to sway the emphasis on doing what is best for the club not for your mate James.
Ps. I wish you'd talk about the football more often.

What about the vast majority of Plymothians who are not the slightest interested in what happens to Argyle?    Do they get ignored because "the fans" buy in?    It is Brent's choice mainly because Brent is the owner and it is his cash on the line ultimately.    You have invested nothing at all yet you want to have a say on how he spends his.    And the reason he should listen to you is?

Two things Iggy, firstly James Brent isn't my mate and second is I didn't say anything about a £10m stadium. The price is the overall cost of everything.

Sensiblegreeny wrote:

Why can't you read Tring?    I already answered the "you don't understand" bit.    I think I do.

Jack, your post is true and I haven't said it isn't.    There are two things though I would point out.    One is that the improved attendance would have to be sustained and it was already dropping off in the Championship before we fell out of it and the second is the word you use "if".    It is based on an assumption of us getting promotions and staying up.

Put yourself in the shoes of a hard nosed businessman.    You want to be convinced that super plans are for you and will give a return.    Somebody tells you that if you spend £10m you will get it all back and maybe will make a profit if you build what is being built.    Somebody else tells you that you could go down in folklore and be loved forever but it will cost you twice that and you may never see anything back at all it being based on a might be.     Be loved and risk it all compared with a more certain outcome?????    IF it was you what would you really do.    I would like him to chose love and gratitude but would I do it like that if it was my money.

In my opinion it's better to show ambition, take a bit of a gamble, speculate to accumulate, call it what you will. Even if you fail at least you tried...........and hard nosed businessmen should never expect to earn money from owning football clubs, especially lower league ones, unless they intend to use what was club owned land to develop other monstrosities !!

No you mentioned £10m in your post, I was just pointing out that Brent is very cagey about the figures and there is no Glasnost openess anywhere in this whole build, the £10m figure is also widely accepted as the cost of the stand. I think that you have swallowed a line about the cost. Apart from two loans to the club the general consensus is that Brent has put non of his own money in nor will he, it's called "enabling". Feckin crap Tory you are.