Was that Hampden's last hurrah?

[forameus]

10 minutes ago, Big Fifer said:

The transport links argument against Murrayfield is nonsense other than the inevitable issue at Haymarket. Not much space to queue for when folk go home. Otherwise you can walk to/from Murrayfield from HYM in 20 minutes and there's loads of buses.

The transport links argument against Hampden is nonsense.  Not much organisation to queue for when folk go home.  Otherwise you can walk to/from Hampden from Mount Florida in 10 minutes tops, or a sprightly 30 minutes from the city centre.

The whole transport links argument against Murrayfield is the inevitable issue at Haymarket.  Doesn't really work to completely discount that. Neither option is perfect in that regard.

[Big Fifer]

The transport links argument against Hampden is nonsense.  Not much organisation to queue for when folk go home.  Otherwise you can walk to/from Hampden from Mount Florida in 10 minutes tops, or a sprightly 30 minutes from the city centre.
The whole transport links argument against Murrayfield is the inevitable issue at Haymarket.  Doesn't really work to completely discount that. Neither option is perfect in that regard.

Yeah I wasn't suggesting Murrayfield is better, there will be horrendous queues at HYM in the same way their are at Central/Mount Florida before and after. Transport needs to be discounted from the argument really.

[Donathan]

Is there a large stadium in the world which doesn't have "horrendous queues" at the nearest station after a fixture? Obviously it's more ideal to have these queues taking place in a larger station with more space to queue up, but generally speaking dispersing 50,000 people out of a small space isn't a fast job. My missus and her dad are season ticket holders at Arsenal and often need to wait nearly an hour to get on the underground after a game at the Emirates, it's just part and parcel of attending a football game in a large stadium.

 

And I'd argue that Haymarket is more equipped to handling crowds than Mount Florida, even if it is further away from the ground itself (google maps says 20 mins as opposed to 7 mins for Hampden to Mount Florida), the main advantage being that Haymarket has direct rail links to Glasgow (Queen Street via Falkirk High, Queen Street via Airdrie/Bathgate and Central via Carstairs/Motherwell), Falkirk & Stirling, Fife, Aberdeen, Perth and Inverness and it is only a short train journey to Waverley for those looking to travel South of Edinburgh. Mount Florida literally only has trains for Glasgow Central apart from the tiny minority  going the opposite direction, so the Haymarket queues you'd expect to disperse much more quickly given the frequency of trains.  

[forameus]

14 minutes ago, Big Fifer said:

24 minutes ago, forameus said:

The transport links argument against Hampden is nonsense.  Not much organisation to queue for when folk go home.  Otherwise you can walk to/from Hampden from Mount Florida in 10 minutes tops, or a sprightly 30 minutes from the city centre.
The whole transport links argument against Murrayfield is the inevitable issue at Haymarket.  Doesn't really work to completely discount that. Neither option is perfect in that regard.

Yeah I wasn't suggesting Murrayfield is better, there will be horrendous queues at HYM in the same way their are at Central/Mount Florida before and after. Transport needs to be discounted from the argument really.

Yeah, that's fair enough.  I'd agree that transport is irrelevant - for people like me, it's a big thing, but that's offset by people out East where it becomes far more palatable than coming through to Hampden.

3 minutes ago, Donathan said:

Is there a large stadium in the world which doesn't have "horrendous queues" at the nearest station after a fixture? Obviously it's more ideal to have these queues taking place in a larger station with more space to queue up, but generally speaking dispersing 50,000 people out of a small space isn't a fast job. My missus and her dad are season ticket holders at Arsenal and often need to wait nearly an hour to get on the underground after a game at the Emirates, it's just part and parcel of attending a football game in a large stadium.

 

And I'd argue that Haymarket is more equipped to handling crowds than Mount Florida, even if it is further away from the ground itself (google maps says 20 mins as opposed to 7 mins for Hampden to Mount Florida), the main advantage being that Haymarket has direct rail links to Glasgow (Queen Street via Falkirk High, Queen Street via Airdrie/Bathgate and Central via Carstairs/Motherwell), Falkirk & Stirling, Fife, Aberdeen, Perth and Inverness and it is only a short train journey to Waverley for those looking to travel South of Edinburgh. Mount Florida literally only has trains for Glasgow Central apart from the tiny minority  going the opposite direction, so the Haymarket queues you'd expect to disperse much more quickly given the frequency of trains.  

I've done Wembley for the Scotland game and for a couple of gigs, and I found it slightly better.  But then their infrastructure is far better, going into a station that was built with this in mind.  Mount Florida wasn't really.  

Plus the frequency of trains is as good as Scotrail want it to be.  I know it's not as easy as just throwing more trains onto the line, but I've always thought Scotrail  put very little effort into making sure the whole process goes as smoothly as possible.  Couple of extra trains pre-match, but are there any on the way back?

Ironically the ones that made the most effort were the SFA themselves with the free buses.  Only for the England game they decided to drive aaaaaaaall the way around Hampden and drive away from it before parking up 15 minutes away.  If only there was some kind of bus terminus right outside the stadium...

[BB_Bino]

I'm fully expecting the SFA to opt for Murrayfield though as the increased capacity will have the pound signs flashing and the fact that Edinburgh is currently the "fashionable" option where all the money is being spent by Government will mean they will want to be a part of that.
Irrespective of where we end up playing, the fact remains that Sunday & Monday nights aren't exactly ideal kick off times for the matches and do absolutely nothing for the attending supporter who unless on a supporters bus or private car will find it nigh on impossible to get home via public transport if living outwith a major Town or City.
Still, as long as Sky Sports are happy.................

All this pish about 67,000 capacity as a reason to dump Hampden, it could be 100,000 we dinnae sell out Hampden that often anyway so we're no selling out 67,000 either.

Firstly, I’m the opposite to Wattoo, I think the SFA will choose Hampden based on the tradition of, we’ve always played there. I suppose time will tell, is it not this week the announcement is being made??

I think for as long as fixtures are played pretty much, only on midweeks, I think we’ll struggle to to sell out any stadium that we realistically want to hold the game in. I’ve not renewed my TA membership purely on the fact I’m fed up playing Monday’s-Thursday’s and I’m not the only one.

I’ve bought my tickets for the Belgium & Portugal games but only because I am off that Saturday and Monday (the day after) so it doesn’t really matter when I get home, but it’s different any other day and it’s killing our International football more than not qualifying, if you ask me.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, BB_Bino said:

 

 

Firstly, I’m the opposite to Wattoo, I think the SFA will choose Hampden based on the tradition of, we’ve always played there. I suppose time will tell, is it not this week the announcement is being made??

I think for as long as fixtures are played pretty much, only on midweeks, I think we’ll struggle to to sell out any stadium that we realistically want to hold the game in. I’ve not renewed my TA membership purely on the fact I’m fed up playing Monday’s-Thursday’s and I’m not the only one.

I’ve bought my tickets for the Belgium & Portugal games but only because I am off that Saturday and Monday (the day after) so it doesn’t really matter when I get home, but it’s different any other day and it’s killing our International football more than not qualifying, if you ask me.

 

 

Totally agree, there's 6 of us who always go to games have also failed to renew our memberships for exactly the same reason.

[HibeeJibee]

These are average attendances for Scotland's qualifying campaigns:

1958 ... 73,000
1962 ... 49,000
1966 ... 87,000
1970 ... 72,000
1972 ... 39,000
1974 ... 71,000
1976 ... 51,000
1978 ... 74,000

1980 ... 48,000
1982 ... 70,000
1984 ... 33,000
1986 ... 63,000
1988 ... 33,000
1990 ... 54,000
1992 ... 27,000
1994 ... 25,000
1996 ... 30,000
1998 ... 35,000

2000 ... 26,000
2002 ... 33,000
2004 ... 44,000
2006 ... 46,000
2008 ... 51,000
2010 ... 48,000
2012 ... 43,000
2014 ... 37,000
2016 ... 45,000
2018 ... 35,000

Given that qualifiers are now rarely on weekends, and never on afternoons: if the justification for moving is generating £1.5M to £2M from extra capacity, as claimed by SRU CEO, then that's a bold aim in the circumstances.

[Lurkst]

^^^Great stats!

So only 1 campaign in 3 decades has averaged over 50,000.  No great need for Murrayfield's extra 15,000 seats then.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

^^^Great stats!
So only 1 campaign in 3 decades has averaged over 50,000.  No great need for Murrayfield's extra 15,000 seats then.

^^^ doesn’t understand how averages work

[Lurkst]

4 minutes ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

^^^ doesn’t understand how averages work

Well since the 1980s we've only had 52,000 seats to fill (save for a couple of games at Parkhead). HibeeJibee's stats suggest there's rarely a need for more than that. The exception being the 2008 campaign, where the Italy game could've sold out Hampden twice over.

 

 

[dumbthings]

26 minutes ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

^^^ doesn’t understand how averages work

How so? Perhaps explain your point otherwise you just come across as a patronising git.

[craigkillie]

In the simplest case, if you have one games sell out at 52,000 and one at 18,000, then the average attendance would be 35,000. It's possible that the 52,000 game would still have sold out at 70,000, meaning that the average attendance would rise to 44,000.

However, there aren't actually many matches which sell out - it must be roughly one every two or three campaigns, and there's absolutely no guarantee that the crowds would still be as big in a much smaller city like Edinburgh.

[JamesM82]

7 hours ago, craigkillie said:

In the simplest case, if you have one games sell out at 52,000 and one at 18,000, then the average attendance would be 35,000. It's possible that the 52,000 game would still have sold out at 70,000, meaning that the average attendance would rise to 44,000.

However, there aren't actually many matches which sell out - it must be roughly one every two or three campaigns, and there's absolutely no guarantee that the crowds would still be as big in a much smaller city like Edinburgh.

Hampden is sold out, even against less attractive opposition, if the team looks like qualifying. e.g. Euros 2008 or 2016. If they get off to a bad start, forget about it. I don't think the alleged other factors (location, poor atmosphere / sightlines) play nearly as big a part as the possibility of relative success.

[JamesM82]

19 hours ago, ilostmyself said:

The view of the game at Hampden behind both goals is an absolute shambles, if there was anything we could do about that without completely knocking the entire stadium down and starting over then that would be my choice. Not sure why the choice had to be between Hampden and Murrayfield though as i'm not sold on the latter either.

I suspect the choice will be to remain at Hampden.

They asked Celtic and Rangers about renting / leasing their grounds and they asked for too much money.

[Savage Henry]

8 hours ago, craigkillie said:

In the simplest case, if you have one games sell out at 52,000 and one at 18,000, then the average attendance would be 35,000. It's possible that the 52,000 game would still have sold out at 70,000, meaning that the average attendance would rise to 44,000.

However, there aren't actually many matches which sell out - it must be roughly one every two or three campaigns, and there's absolutely no guarantee that the crowds would still be as big in a much smaller city like Edinburgh.

I'd suggest games would sell out if Scotland hadn't appointed a befuddled dinosaur as a manager, or - not entirely unrelated - were in with a genuine shot of qualifying.  I might be wrong, but I think the crowds are very jaded with the national team and, accordingly, low.

And then of course there's the daft Monday evening kick offs.

[forameus]

1 hour ago, Savage Henry said:

I'd suggest games would sell out if Scotland hadn't appointed a befuddled dinosaur as a manager, or - not entirely unrelated - were in with a genuine shot of qualifying.  I might be wrong, but I think the crowds are very jaded with the national team and, accordingly, low.

And then of course there's the daft Monday evening kick offs.

Probably just the latter.  The about face on Strachan with most (not all, of course) that we would have seen had we have somehow gotten to, and then through, the playoffs would have been massive.  But when we're shite, it's easy to hate whoever's at the front.  If we start a campaign off well, you'll see whatever stadium we're in near full for whatever game we're playing.

Only other modifier is the last thing you mentioned.  Imagine we would've seen better attendances for a lot of our games had they been on a Saturday at any time.  SFA would have been delighted that the England game was a nice Summer Saturday spectacular, but I bet in the back of their mind they wished one of the less attractive games got that spot.

[Gordopolis]

4 hours ago, forameus said:

Probably just the latter.  The about face on Strachan with most (not all, of course) that we would have seen had we have somehow gotten to, and then through, the playoffs would have been massive.  But when we're shite, it's easy to hate whoever's at the front.  If we start a campaign off well, you'll see whatever stadium we're in near full for whatever game we're playing.

Only other modifier is the last thing you mentioned.  Imagine we would've seen better attendances for a lot of our games had they been on a Saturday at any time.  SFA would have been delighted that the England game was a nice Summer Saturday spectacular, but I bet in the back of their mind they wished one of the less attractive games got that spot.

 

What might have been...

Sigh...

[thisal]

On 8/27/2018 at 11:53, WATTOO said:

 

Ideally, if we could keep the North & South at Hampden and rebuild the East & West to have them 20 or 30 yards closer to the pitch then Hampden would be fine.

 

Ideally we should get rid of the North stand as well and move the pitch 20 yards nearer the nearer the South Stand and build three new 2-tier stands. Never happen though.

[Guest]

The cost has also become a large factor, basically the North is where any sensible punter wants to go for both viewing and atmosphere, however when the starting price is now £30 rising to £45 depending on opposition it becomes a rather costly experience.

For someone like myself who lives in North Ayrshire and works in Glasgow, I'd see myself as pretty local, but once you factor in travel, ticket, few pints, maybe a programme, maybe a pie, then you're looking at the best part of £100 for your day out.

It's no longer a cheap experience for the "working man" and of course in order to get a decent seat in the North you're also expected to buy the season ticket up front which is another large slice of cash, especially if you're also forking out for your club season ticket.

It's definitely "changed days" for the average fitba fan............

[F_T_Y]

Watching football in a half empty stadium is pish whether it is murrayfield or hampden. These weeknight kick offs are always going to struggle to attract a sell out. 

Best bet just stay at hampden and play the lesser games around the country. Best atmosphere i have been at watching scotland was beating the irish at parkhead, ideally i would play the big games there but no one wants to give money to the evil old firm.