St James' Park

[Rich]

Thanks, Wullie! How have we ended up with two? Sewelly the original can go back to his roots?

[TheGuv]

9 minutes ago, Rich said:

I can see the Helix from where I'm sitting. I wouldn't necessarily say we're expanding "rapidly" outwards, like, in our four years of being based here there's hardly been rapid urban sprawl occurring out of our window. We might just have different definitions of "rapid", of course.

 

Would love to get some thoughts from @ponsaelius in terms of how he'd do it.

With Rich here mind. And there's very little out west in regards to pubs, infrastructure etc. 

 

I still think 60k capacity is all we'd need, and if the Gallowgate followed the Milburn and Leazes, I'm sure a lot of the noise would stay in?

[Rich]

80k or I riot.

[RodneyCisse]

69,069k is clearly the only answer.

[TheGuv]

Highest average attendance in a season is 56k in Division 2 from 1948. 

 

I couldn't see us selling out regularly over 60-65,000. Totally depends on how we are doing though I suppose.

 

Safe standing is 1:1 at the moment. Surely this will be phased out after it's a success. Perhaps 2:1 in future? Let's not forget that possibility. 

[Chris_R]

69,420 is more.

[TheGuv]

2 minutes ago, Chris_R said:

69,420 is more.

[Darth Crooks]

16 minutes ago, Chris_R said:

69,420 is more.

 

[ponsaelius]

I don't think Castle Leazes is the 'arse end of the moor', like. The original plan would have moved the stadium around 500 metres north-west of its current site. That keeps it very much in walkable distance from the town centre and all the benefits that brings to the city - and it would also become a nice walk through an extended Leazes Park. Could have food vans/scarf sellers lining the park as people walk up to the ground.

 

This would also vastly improve the setting of Leazes Terrace which would look out over the new areas of formalized green space rather than in its current Mexican stand-off with the East Stand. To be honest it would also massively raise the use and profile of Leazes Park - which I think many people never even visit because it's tucked away behind SJP.

[InspectorCoarse]

1 minute ago, ponsaelius said:

I don't think Castle Leazes is the 'arse end of the moor', like. The original plan would have moved the stadium around 500 metres north-west of its current site. That keeps it very much in walkable distance from the town centre and all the benefits that brings to the city - and it would also become a nice walk through an extended Leazes Park. Could have food vans/scarf sellers lining the park as people walk up to the ground.

 

This would also vastly improve the setting of Leazes Terrace which would look out over the new areas of formalized green space rather than in its current Mexican stand-off with the East Stand. To be honest it would also massively raise the use and profile of Leazes Park - which I think many people never even visit because it's tucked away behind SJP.

This with Stadium sized statues of Kev Sir Bob Shearer and Milburn built into the 4 corners of the Stadium a bit like this ?

 

[manorpark]

45 minutes ago, Rich said:

I can see the Helix from where I'm sitting. I wouldn't necessarily say we're expanding "rapidly" outwards, like, in our four years of being based here there's hardly been rapid urban sprawl occurring out of our window. We might just have different definitions of "rapid", of course.

 

Would love to get some thoughts from @Pons Alias here.

 

Urban Sprawl tends to be used to describe expansion into 'Green Belt' type of areas, such as what is happening in West and North Newcastle in suburbs such as "Newcastle Great Park".

 

The expansions of the civilised City Centre (useable public streets and buildings) that is currently taking place at Downing Plaza, Stephenson Quarter and Newcastle Helix, etc, involve the construction of multi-million pound major City Centre Style buildings into an already fully urbanised area.

 

The Newcastle Breweries site covered much of Helix and Downing and thus did not form part of the useable City Centre by the general public. That has rapidly changed in recent years (and is still ongoing) with the very first of the large new buildings only being constructed in late 2009.

 

Now look at it . . .

 

 

[Dr Venkman]

1 hour ago, pedro111 said:

70k at the very least? That's optimistic.

Did you miss the bit where he said it was a simple fact? Can’t argue with that.

[Dr Venkman]

1 hour ago, LFEE said:

The issue with the lower take up was that the club originally forced you to buy the tickets as a group of 3 up front at a marked up price for all the group games. Fans had already stumped up money for Bonds and STs and believe it or not but Barcelona are seen amongst fans now a much bigger deal then they did then. It was the glamour team of the group I agree but it also fell on the same night as the biggest British band there’s been since arguably The Beatles were playing half a mile away for the first time at the Arena (Oasis).

Aye but they played two nights. I was front row at both, couldn’t hear for about 3 days afterwards.

[manorpark]

2 hours ago, ToonTastic said:

Kinda is though. Newcastle only has a population of 260,000. Man Utd average 72,000 and they have a population of 500,000 plus. Granted its split between two clubs but it's still asking for a lot of people to come to the area and help fill the stadium. 

 

This (at the below link) is Newcastle's real population, the figure that is used by businesses to decide whether we are "big enough" to open a business, or shop here. This figure is what will determine the optimum size for our expanded Football Stadium . . . 

 

https://www.plumplot.co.uk/Newcastle-upon-Tyne-population.html 

 

Artificial and meaningless "Local Authority Boundaries" splitting the Newcastle Metropolitan Area into wierd small areas (purely for provision of local authority services such as 'bin collections' etc) are totally irrelevant in this, it is the real (actual) population figures that matter in decision-making.

 

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by manorpark

[LFEE]

1 hour ago, Rich said:

I wouldn't call that the "centre of town", mind.^

Could the stadium not just be nudged a bit north and pivoted a little bit over the site of the existing council car park to run more in line with Barrack Road?

 

Does it have to be some massive lock-stock move up to the arse end of the Moor?

If I’m reading this right you are suggesting what Spurs did? If so not really as it couldn’t be done within the close season. Not sure the Makems would share their ground ? The idea was to play as normal at SJP whilst building the new SJP alongside it.

 

If I’m reading it the other way that was the plan. The ground was never going to be built at the arse end of the Moor. Unless that was an exaggeration ?

[Rich]

1 minute ago, LFEE said:

If I’m reading this right you are suggesting what Spurs did? If so not really as it couldn’t be done within the close season. Not sure the Makems would share their ground ? The idea was to play as normal at SJP whilst building the new SJP alongside it.

 

If I’m reading it the other way that was the plan. The ground was never going to be built at the arse end of the Moor. Unless that was an exaggeration ?

 

It was an exaggeration, aye! I would do just want to do whatever was possible to keep us as close to the spot we're currently on, and to still have a genuine Gallowgate End, even if it meant having to play at Gateshead for a season.

 

Haven't been able to keep up to speed in here since the takeover, sorry, and just started getting carried away with what the future development of SJP could look like. I've been scanning backwards but can't find a plan that replicates my instinctive thought about a pivot north-west and as slight as possible a move north to take Leazes Terrace out of the equation. Convert the space vacated by the current Gallowgate into maintained green space with a focus on club history/legends to compensate?

[LFEE]

13 minutes ago, Dr Venkman said:

Aye but they played two nights. I was front row at both, couldn’t hear for about 3 days afterwards.

Yes but had sold out both nights way before the CL had been drawn.

 

I’m just glad I saw/met them before they released their first album ?

 

Also another weird issue iirc was there was a big seating dispute at the time as UEFA insisted on advertising in certain areas of the ground which not only reduced the capacity by a few thousand but also give the club the problem of allocating those who’d usually sit in their normal seats a relocation headache which wasn’t handled particularly well pissing quite a few off at the time if I recall. 

[Kid Icarus]

 

 

Like this hastily drawn monstrosity?

 

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by kisearch

[Decky]

Could we put temporary stands and do some improvements to Gateshead Stadium and play out of there for a couple of seasons?

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I’d personally love to see Man City rocking up at Gateshead

[ToonTastic]

17 minutes ago, kisearch said:

 

 

Like this hastily drawn monstrosity?

 

 

 

I like that. Could still bring in a bit of a park at the front as well. Making a feature of the walk up to the stadium with statues in it of the ex players and managers. 

[Rich]

Thanks @kisearch, that's exactly what I meant. Feels like it has the benefit of having the least impact on the surrounding green space, the least impact on the surrounding businesses, and maintains most of the things that make SJP special (I would hate to lose the Gallowgate and our current location). Absorb all of the external car parking spaces into the stadium (and add more), then they could do so much with the space vacated by the existing ground. I'd love to see a purpose-built park/fan-park with loads of maintained green space and club icon statues, etc.

[Jackie Broon]

16 hours ago, kisearch said:

 

 

Like this hastily drawn monstrosity?

 

 

 

 

I don't think that would work, it would still massively impact on the setting of Leazes Terrace, it would have a more significant impact on Leazes park than the Castle Leazes site, which is Listed and a fundamental element of the significance of the Conservation Area, and would be hugely disruptive to the club to build. All for the sake of being slightly closer to the existing site.

 

 

Edited October 15, 2021 by Jackie Broon

[ponsaelius]

The issue with the above is that Leazes Park is also listed (although only Grade II) - so you can't really just plonk something smack in the middle of it. The original Castle Leazes plan would have had the stadium only marginally cutting into Leazes Park footprint with the vast majority outside of Leazes Park and the Leazes Conservation Area - and also as said significantly improved the setting of Grade I listed terrace to balance any harm caused.

Edit: as Jackie Broon says.

 

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by ponsaelius

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Can we get the SD reference out of the title please?