Stadium Expansion - Bushey Hall

True, but there are not many, if any, clubs that have such a good geographical location as the proposed site in Bushey/Watford.

Building a big shiny stadium in Brighton (on an A road to Eastbourne), or in one of the most difficult places to get to in Southampton, miles from a motorway and main train station, or Milton Keynes (you can only get there easily by car), or Derby a City where the only Cities within about 40 miles, all have well supported football teams in Nottingham, Leicester, Stoke and Sheffield, or Middlesburgh and Sunderland both in heavily deprived areas where tribal support does not allow transient supporters.

Who would say that Arsenal fans, fed up with a boring atmosphere and football, or Spurs fed up with sky high prices, or QPR fans, wouldn't change their allegiance, or new football fans from around the M25, the M4 and M1 could be attracted if we became an established Premier League club that attracts good players.

 

Looks nice, I like it.

We will need to do something like this to move with the times or else get left behind, whether traditionalists like it or not.

Is it possible to design a stadium with a variable capacity? Build it to hold up to 40k. If we go down, the roof can be lowered over the upper seats to make a tight 20k ground. When we get back to the Prem, revert to 40k. Job done.

 

A

And if it’s designed correctly, the away fans could be given some extra seats if home take up is a bit low for some games.

 

This would be mental. Never sell out anyway, weird location and, as someone who grew up in Bushey, it would ruin the entire atmosphere of what is a lovely little suburb. Thankfully there seems to be strong and vocal opposition, of which I'll be one. Can't see it happening.

Genuinely hope we get relegated if this is going to happen if we stay up.

 

What are we going to call our new Bushey stadium?

The Hornets' Nest?

The Sir Graham Tayor Stadium?

The Bushey Bazaar?

The Elton John Arena?

 

I wouldn't agree that it would ruin the suburb of Bushey. It is right at the northern edge and doesn't affect the majority of Bushey at all. It is more likely to affect Oxhey, I'd say.

 

The Young Vic.

 

No, it was certainly "muted" in many of the games I've been to.

 

Engaging outside Watford? I really don’t think the way to improve a club is to widen the area it engages with. Clubs should attract bigger audiences because they’re good teams. Perhaps if they took their eyes off unnecessary distractions at times like this, then we wouldn’t be where we are in the table.

Also - bog standard league games? I feel like too many people discount the fact that there are a great many football teams in this country. We happen to be clinging on to the top league of just 20. It’s not a certainty we stay here.

For fans that go week in, week out, with a season ticket, the ordinary game matters. Especially when you don’t take it for granted.

I totally agree that 25k is a good starting point. I’d like to think we could get more.

 

You’ve missed something. We are a football club. Not a resort, not day care, a football club. Creating some great big shiny new stadium would make a few people rich and continue the descent into fans becoming customers.

I’m not saying facilities should be poor, but I don’t think it requires gentrification.

 

Why are you trying to attract fans from another team, with a shiny new stadium?

 

This a local football team, for local people.

 

We are a football club, a football club trying to move forward. Fans are the customers and always have been. We pay for a product, not a very good one this season but still a product. To move forward we need to be more than just people turning up on the day, we need to look at the commercials, how we can attract advertising, players, new fans etc. Not sure what you mean by day care? I'm not desperate to leave but I can see why the owners are looking at doing so and I'm sure it won't please everybody but we are very limited in what we can do where we currently are

 

Too right it is!

 

What you deem the business of the football club is entirely different to reality. A football ground is where you attend a football match. Not all these added extras for those that can afford it. It’s our national sport. Things should be kept simple. We don’t need to throw loads of money around - it’s better spent on players, managers, training kit and the rest.

We say “move forward” - this isn’t an issue of fans not being attracted to Watford - nor is it an issue of needing to attract more. That’s an artificial problem.

What do we mean by move forward - sell off our history, heritage and home just to please a few execs, line a few pockets and open up some vending stands that sell more overpriced stuff that you don’t actually want at extortionate prices?

Keep it simple, keep it local, keep it authentic. A name for a new stadium- look at some of these now. Leicester - King Power after their sponsor, sellouts. Arsenal - Emirates after their sponsor, sellouts. I could go on. I don’t want a shiny new dome with some brand name as it’s official name. It’s stupid - nobody wins out that but the people at the very top and those that want to be at the top so much that they ape those that are.

 

The examples you have given are all things that have been done with the existing ground. I don’t want a new stadium to turn a football ground into a glorified theme park just to get plastic fans that don’t live anywhere near Watford. If they come, they come - but trying too hard you can smell a mile off.

 

Unfortunately what I deem to be a football club is a lot closer to reality than where you are. A football ground is of course where you watch the match but there is so much more to it now that . To compete at the top level you need those added extras. As much as you may want it to be, it is not the football of the 70's and things are very different now. Who cares what the ground is called? It's not stupid, it's called progression and if we don't strive to improve then we will disappear faster than Lord Lucan after he's done something iffy.
Moving forward of course doesn't mean selling our history, what a ridiculous thing to say. Do the games at Cassio Road not form part of our history? It's the same as any company moving up in the world, as you progress you may need to improve on certain things. The company I worked for for 10 years started in a tiny office with a tree growing through the wall. When I left they had a 30000sq ft office/warehouse but it doesn't mean that that the first office was wiped from history.
I get that you don't want to leave The Vic and I'm sure there are others who feel the same and it will be sad if and when it happens but to say that it would be selling off our history is just way to dramatic

 

I can assure you, having watched Watford since about 1964, up and down like yo-yo's and close to going bust several times, I do not take anything for granted.

Indeed, not taking our survivability for granted, is exactly why I don't want us to stand still.

The better players, just like in normal jobs, like nice facilities and conditions. But they also like ambition. Let's be frank, even if we stay up this year, we are thought of a club pulling above our weight, and that never lasts long. So we need to increase our weight, build our consumer base, make more noise in the football world and we will become more attractive.

We are limited only by our ambition.

And I saw you mention in an earlier post how sad for football to lose our old stadiums. Yes, I understand that, but there is nothing left of the stadium I first knew, even what I knew 35 years ago. It is like Triggers Broom (you are probably too young), our traditional old stadium no longer exists, it is a completely different, stands being replaced and being expanded and improved over the years until we can barely improve it much more in the circumstances.

We have to move.

 

Were in the Premier League. Plastic fans, as you call them, are part and parcel of being in this league. These fans though may become fans for life though so the more we have the better

 

So you think that naming a stadium after a sponsor isn’t selling out? It’s pathetic. I’d be ashamed if our ground ended up being named by auction. What you are suggesting is that we join the clubs that have deserted their family feel. And for what?

 

Great analogy

 

Our ground is called Vicarage Road. Hardly symbolic is it! I never said naming stadium after a sponsor was selling or not selling out, I said I didn't care. I don't see why it's pathetic? Your last line I simply don't understand. How would getting a new ground have anything to do with the family feel of the club. Better facilities and more ticket availability might persuade more families to come along

 

Liked in spite of plagiarism (see post 526)

 

Great minds think alike!

 

Elton's Love Bush?

 

I live in Bushey, the proposed location is really Watford, not Bushey Village. It’s no further to St James parish church in Bushey High Street than it is to St Mary’s in Watford High Street. Hertsmere Council is gradually releasing all the green land around the golf course for redevelopment. Behind the clubhouse And Bushey Grove Leisure centre, about 70 executive houses are being built, and the clubhouse itself is boarded up prior to demolition and redevelopment for housing. The old college site on Park Avenue is now housing. This plan may prevent Hertsmere zoning the whole course for housing. A stadium surrounded by a sports campus, with public access to retained open space might be a better outcome if you live nearby.

For me the practicality (as opposed to the desirability), relies on resolving two unknowns. The first is about design and access. Can they provide access for 30,000 spectators without compromising the existing residential streets? This is about the quality of design and the transport plan and supporting infrastructure.

The second is, how can such a plan be financed? That surely can only be achieved by selling part of the club to a major investor. Prepared to put up a very large sum for a minority stake.

 

Why does part of the club need be sold? Finance will be a loan or loans against future uplift in revenue and secured against assets. Loans are still very cheap at the moment.

 

I have to admit I’ve seen the images but haven’t looked at the plans in great detail, but surely a new stadium is an opportunity to be more about the potential for a few extra bums on seats?

A hotel? Conference facilities? Event facilities? Pre and post match drinking and dining?

Doesn’t it seem a bit absurd to have a large facility built on prime real estate that only works for you for two hours every other week for 9 months of the year?

Who knows if we will ever fill 30k seats, but if we build the right stadium it can still generate extra revenue 7 days a week and at least we have the option.

 

Maybe I'm imagining things, but didn't we struggle to sell 30,000 tickets for the FA Cup semi at Wembley last year? That was one of the biggest games in the club's history. I can't see us needing more than 25k any time soon. That would be more than enough for a standard Premier League game, and we would have far far less than 25k for a standard Championship game.

 

An interesting business case for the club and a potential lender though. Cost of new stadium less revenue from sale of old ground = borrowing required ? What guaranteed extra revenues (gates over 21,577, small amount of other on site facility sales ?) would they have ?
Within 6 weeks we could be one of the smaller clubs in the championship.

 

But, in proper chicken and egg logic problem style, is the fact we struggled to sell 30k tickets for Wembley because our growth is capped by the size of Vicarage Road? I'm not suggesting there's 15k people just waiting to come along but over a generation a bigger stadium combined with success on pitch could grow our fanbase beyond what staying put would enable. These are presumably the types of things the board will have to think about in weighing up their options.

 

Cost of those tickets would have put off a large number of supporters on the edge of the fan base. A bigger stadium for us with some sensible pricing in some areas of the ground could give us more bums on seats.

 

Beat me to it. There was one or two on here I seem to remember not going as the only tickets they could get were in excess of £100.
I think there are many positives to moving but the one for me is the extra seats. My son loves coming to football but hasn't yet got a season ticket. When he comes to a game I have to buy his seat and then move mine so we can sit together. A couple of games I couldn't even get a ticket for him and trying to find two together that aren't in rubbish viewing areas is very difficult. I'm sure there are plenty of people who do not want restricted view seats

 

I doubt anything I’ll happen whilst our future next season is unclear. There are no ‘guaranteed’ extra revenues, that’s why loans are secured against assets. But if you look at the increase in hospitality for eg Liverpool (something like +£20m a season?) or Spuds I imagine that had to be a big driver not just bums on seats.