Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Swello]

I think whoever made the point earlier in the thread was correct - with the current management at the club and in the fan ownership era, they are painfully aware that doing something that is pretty much universally not wanted by our fanbase (plastic pitch, lego stadium) will just rip the arse out of everything and I can't see them going down that road...

[thisGRAEME]

Whatever we do, give us some mad floodlights or something.

[Swello]

Apart from Lionel Ainsworth goals, the time of year when pictures of random stadiums of between 8 and 12k capacity that could potentially be stuck next to a Lidl at Ravenscraig get posted is my favourite time.

I've always liked Molde's 11.5k seater - looks 'spensive though

14 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

Whatever we do, give us some mad floodlights or something.

Totally agree with this - as long as they aren't modelled as mini Ravenscraig cooling towers.

 

[Al B]

16 minutes ago, Swello said:

Apart from Lionel Ainsworth goals, the time of year when pictures of random stadiums of between 8 and 12k capacity that could potentially be stuck next to a Lidl at Ravenscraig get posted is my favourite time.

I've always liked Molde's 11.5k seater - looks 'spensive though

 

Quick check shows just over 17.5 mill.

[ropy]

Often when a new National Stadium is discussed the suggestion is that it should be sited in Stirling, we should aim for no less for a new stadium for the ‘Well.

[Swello]

7 minutes ago, Al B said:

Quick check shows just over 17.5 mill.

That doesn't sound too bad - I'll have one of those please

[well fan for life]

49 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

Whatever we do, give us some mad floodlights or something.

Huge fan of these efforts at the Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Stadion in Berlin. 

 

[Al B]

53 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

Whatever we do, give us some mad floodlights or something.

Was just looking at this there...weirdly those floodlights are the only things being kept from the old stadium!

[Kapowzer]

4 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

That's what we done, tbf. McDiarmid is about to be surrounded by a new housing development of something like 3000 houses, with a road that pretty much leads from the new village straight to McDiarmids door. The edge of a city/town won't stay the edge for long.

I'd guess to improve you'd need a train link and pub nearby to really make the most of it. We settled for a bypass and an in-house pub.

I think this encapsulates the crux of what was conveyed at the AGM. Available land on the Ravenscraig site is slowly getting eaten up, granted nowhere near it was envisaged (and no dry ski slope on the bing at Jerviston as was shown in one of the first artists impressions ....) but it would be folly if a board tasked with strategy and the future security of the club didn't cover all bases. I suspect all they are doing is looking at our requirements and therefore how much land we'd need and best place for it based on that.

Talk of stadiums and their aesthetic at present is like a NASA engineer talking about the flag they're gonna plant on the moon immediately after JFK's speech. Talk of doing the pitch up is a serious 6 figure amount, if a move was on the cards anytime in the next 5 years at least then I'm sure we'd muddle on and save the cash.

FP is unique in the league as due to the site, no other stadium is as lop sided (you could argue Pittodrie but their 2 tier stand is for home support). The McLean stand was developed as a 5,000 seater because of little to no restrictions behind it at the time of construction. It also happens that we exist in a league with the OF.

If you do a back of fag packet calculation and this is purely an exercise (so nobody lose your shit) to show what a prudent board would certainly have in their thought process ..... in the roughly 30 years since it was completed, 4 OF games a season = 120 games, you take out say 10x we did not finish top 6 (some of those seasons where Newco also didn't) = 110 (add in a cup games against the 5 city clubs, opening games of the season, Hearts/Hibs/Aberdeen & Nancy) I think it's safe to say in 30 years you're looking at making those 10 games up, so 120x the stand has been at or near capacity. 120x 5,000 seats = 600,000.

Next, at present a seat in the McLean is approx £25. Now a ticket was I'm guessing £15 in 1994 but I used £25 as buying power of that price is going to be roughly the same. The cost to construct the stand in the 90's was a fraction of what it would be today and probably commensurate to £15 compared to £25 ticket prices. In 2030 a ticket for the McLean could easily be £35 the way things are going but I'll use today's price of £25 to illustrate.

You multiply that £25 by 600,000 and you get £15m over the McLean's current lifespan. If the McLean was the same size as the Cooper then difference in revenue is £9m down on that £15m figure. But our stadium would be more symmetrical and for many that aesthetic is a driving factor.

What I'm trying to illustrate is, if you take out emotion, perceived sporting/home advantage, and look at it with a commercial head on and the unique nature of the game in our country then by accepting a design that takes into account the orc's and the unwashed it is feasible that over a 30 year mortgage for a ground, you have an extra £9m at today's prices to play with which puts a big dent in the construction costs. For every 1,000 extra away seats you make available you can budget at present for £3m over 30 years.

A new stadium for us would probably be 2,500 behind each goal and 3,000 main stand and 3,500 opposite. 11,500 total.

Now we all know we could allow the OF 10,000 tickets easy and they'd sell that allocation which points to a 20,000 stadium due to segregation, but it would be lifeless for a good portion of the other games.

You don't have to make the stadium lop sided though, you can potentially recreate a 70/30 split similar to what the Hunter stand was when it was terraced, good for atmosphere if its intelligently partitioned.

The figures above are before you add in 4,500 home season tickets ranging from £750 hospitality in the POD to free ones for kids and other away support. Design it with a nod to Tynecastle and a few other clever bits and bobs to enhance the atmosphere (safe standing, roof angle to maximise crowd noise, etc) and I am sure you'd get an extra 10% up on current away support numbers.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Kapowzer

[thisGRAEME]

22 minutes ago, Al B said:

Was just looking at this there...weirdly those floodlights are the only things being kept from the old stadium!

Like, I think there's a level of realism within the fanbase (broadly, probably not on twitter) that understand there is a limit of what we could expect from a new stadium, but at the same time, small details that make it just a little unique, would go a huge way to getting people onside, IMO.

58 minutes ago, Swello said:

Apart from Lionel Ainsworth goals, the time of year when pictures of random stadiums of between 8 and 12k capacity that could potentially be stuck next to a Lidl at Ravenscraig get posted is my favourite time.

I've always liked Molde's 11.5k seater - looks 'spensive though

I also like this, but I'm unsure of the landscaping costs required to get us the ferry in the background tbqhwy, we're massive, but that may be pushing it.

Edited February 23, 2022 by thisGRAEME

[well fan for life]

3 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

Like, I think there's a level of realism within the fanbase (broadly, probably not on twitter) that understand there is a limit of what we could expect from a new stadium, but at the same time, small details that make it just a little unique, would go a huge way to getting people onside, IMO.

Visualise this with me. A statue of Tony Straker in every corner holding up the floodlights. Like Atlas holding up the world. 

[Kapowzer]

1 hour ago, thisGRAEME said:

Whatever we do, give us some mad floodlights or something.

I see your crazy lights and random combine harvesters and raise you ......

Can you imagine the scenes as we swagger into here at the start of the 2025/26 season ..... cinch as f**k

More images here: https://www.mz-architects.com/projects-detail.php?prid=113&cat=SportsLeisure

[Handsome_Devil]

36 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

Huge fan of these efforts at the Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Stadion in Berlin. 

 

Depending on how the Senate here finally swings they might be up for grabs shortly, get a cheeky bid in...

[YassinMoutaouakil]

53 minutes ago, Al B said:

Quick check shows just over 17.5 mill.

Loan 4 players to Newcastle and we can break ground in August

[YassinMoutaouakil]

25 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

I also like this, but I'm unsure of the landscaping costs required to get us the ferry in the background tbqhwy, we're massive, but that may be pushing it.

I assumed this involved flooding Hamilton

[Archie McSquackle]

Or we move to Strathclyde Park.

[Kapowzer]

4 minutes ago, Archie McSquackle said:

Or we move to Strathclyde Park.

TBF the Toby Carvery -> Watersports Centre route is high volume and could probably justify a bigger ship

[Doctor Manhattan]

23 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

I assumed this involved flooding Hamilton

Collateral damage - you can't make omelettes...

[welldaft]

4 hours ago, Al B said:

I know we all have ideas of what we'd like, but Jesus Christ...£100 million! That's almost a third of what the Emirates cost...What are you wanting??!

As a very quick example, Initial budget for this is £16 million, 8,200 capacity and construction began last year.

 

Is it too much to have heated massage seats

Ok so clearly my £100m is a little excessive. Whatever we would start with a budget you had better add 20% as anything built these days seems to go over budget. Plus let’s not forget the cost of building materials are currently sky rocketing. 

Even if we did manager to get a quote for a 10,000 seater stadium for circa £20m where would that cash come from ? Fir Park ground may be worth a couple of million unless another supermarket offered us dough but I very much doubt it. 

Would need to be in partnership with Council at a time when their budgets are being cut severely. 

I can tell you that serious plans were a foot to build a training centre where the budget was £1-2m but that never got off the ground. So building a new stadium is sadly a pipe dream at the moment. 

[Handsome John]

19 minutes ago, welldaft said:

I can tell you that serious plans were a foot to build a training centre where the budget was £1-2m but that never got off the ground. So building a new stadium is sadly a pipe dream at the moment. 

Was that the one planned by MFC Community Trust at Muirhouse that was canned due to Sunday league teams successfully campaigning to the local councillors?