Seriously? They are building a temporary stadium? To be honest, I never knew such things existed so it is sci-fi to me.
Old Trafford revamp/could be torn down and rebuilt according to Glazer plans
- Thread starter GE
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Seriously? They are building a temporary stadium? To be honest, I never knew such things existed so it is sci-fi to me.
Let's have a floating stadium
Off Blackpool. Do a bit of fishing at half-time.
Every other team doesn't have 75K going into the stadium every week. There isn't as much unrealised profit for us to make a great business case for it. There is some money being left on the table but not proportionate with a new build.
You want it for your own comfort and perception of us as being modernised but it doesn't make it a fantastic idea financially I'm afraid. We already have debt to service, a hideously expensive squad to maintain and develop, and a bunch of shareholders that extract profit from the club and aren't in the least bit concerned about the long-term benefit of a stadium, they're going to do that irrespective of what we do. These are all significant factors.
There may come a time in the future with better ownership and a better position to do this but at the moment, no it's not practical or sensible, it is pie in the sky you're coming up with. It's a wish not a realistic prospect. I wish we could sign 10 of the world's best players as well, doesn't mean it's anything other than fanciful pondering.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcast...emporary-londons-olympic-stadium-built-change
The 2012 Olympic Stadium was designed to be dismantled down to a 20k legacy ground.
Cagliari were supposed to rebuild their ground so they moved to a temporary one.
Then ran out of money so just kept the temporary one.
Montreal did the same thing
But eventually just build proper stands around the ground.
Blackpool built a temporary stand for when they were in the Prem, they've never taken it down.
It's a viable solution provided you have the space.
The Glazers know at some point in the near future they'll be left behind commercially in the current stadium so they have the two options, redevelop Old Trafford or build a new one.
The fact that we have a thread on this and there are the ever present rumours of redevelopment means they know it.
The cost vs reward analysis will dictate what they do next. At some point a brand new stadium that will pay for itself with revenue might be more cost effective than rebuilding the current one, especially with the cost of building over the railway line.
This thinking happens every day, it's not pie in the sky at all.
The Glazers want to make money. A new stadium could help them do that, otherwise nobody would ever build a new stadium.
Yes, you're right, we have 75k (well, 73k now) coming regularly but there'll be analysis that allows us to envisage a temporary reduction in gate receipts by rebuilding or building somewhere else and take the hit for the benefit in the future.
It's almost like you think the ground is the same as it was in 1910 and we've never rebuilt or redeveloped. We might as well still be in Newton Heath because we've no need to rebuild or move. No such thing as 'it can't be done'.
I saw that somewhere and thought it was sarcasm… was the poster being serious?
Barcelona are in such a mess. We should not forget that our debt levels, post SAF transfer and wage spend plus limited elite success, debt servicing etc could easily turn us into the next Barca.
I don't think we're in danger of being left behind commercially. Our matchday and commercial revenues are very good and have been for some time. So I don't know where you're getting your analysis from. It is speculative and random as far as I can see.
The more obvious benefits are to the fan and the matchday experience and in terms of potential regeneration of the surrounding area. There is no arguing that but the commercial need has to reach the bottom line at a rate that is actually justifiable.
This is why most exploration has been around redevelopment. It is you and a few others that are seriously touting a new build, not the club who are more keen to probe the affordability of other options. So why is that? It's because the examples we see in the real world are usually precipitated by a business need. I.e. they're not capturing enough from the fanbase on matchday, the prospects within the current structure are bleak and there are just no other serious options. So with all due respect to Tottenham and Arsenal etc I think the situation is quite different.
People no longer happy with interim managers now they want an Interim stadiumAt least one poster is and thinks it's a valid idea
Aren't some of the stadia built in Qatar for the next wc temporary and meant to be disassembled and relocated after the event?
I always felt with regards to kits that classic clubs should have classic looks, with the modern kits being left to new clubs i.e. RB Leipzig should be experimenting with kits, United should stick with the classic options instead. On a similar basis, Old Trafford is a historic stadium for a very historic club. Knocking down OT and then building a modern stadium just doesn't fit with the history of the club. I understand that there needs to be major modernisation in OT but it needs to be done in a way that preserves OT's legacy; otherwise, you just end up building another modern yet soulless stadium. Old Trafford would need to have an old-school feel, like somewhere like Fenway Park or Wrigley Field in the MLB, whilst also feeling like it's not falling apart at the seams.
I don't know to be honest. I just thought it was a bizarre suggestion to build a large capacity stadium just to knock it down when the new one is built. I had no idea that clubs were actually playing in temporary, purpose built accommodation.
At least one poster is and thinks it's a valid idea
Because it is a valid idea, given it's happened and is happening elsewhere in the world.
Someone else just asked whether it's happening with Qatar 2022 and I'd forgotten because I don't want anything to do with that WC but it is, there's one being built out of shipping containers that's being completely dismantled post-event amongst some of the others.
https://www.constructiondive.com/ne...qatar-constructed-shipping-containers/611075/
https://www.skyscrapercity.com/thre...0-2022-fifa-world-cup™.2047679/#post-143696555
I concede that I was not in the best state of mind when I wrote that but there is no harm in entertaining such daft ideas now is it?
Also knowing us we'd settle on a fresh coat of paint and call it a day
Not as idiotic as mine but 60 k is just overkill and unrealistic
A makeshift football pitch will do
If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we'd all have a merry Christmas, think about that. No but they are parasitic.All the wasted money on Glazers taking back dividends and interest repayments (1.1b) plus overpaid signings and payments of players (Pog 90, Fred 55, Bissaka 50 etc) Jones 100k a week with Mata, could have meant we would have nearly had a new stadium anyway.
Real played in estadio di estefano while going through their own construction and I believe that is their training ground
Maybe we could pull out something similar with Carrington
It has no viewing stand from what I've seen so maybe create a makeshift scaffolding for several thousands fans and call it a day till the rebuild gets done (assuming it will go through)
Maybe we could pull out something similar with Carrington
It has no viewing stand from what I've seen so maybe create a makeshift scaffolding for several thousands fans and call it a day till the rebuild gets done (assuming it will go through)
Let's wait and see. The Glazer's come from the NFL school of sports ownership were you blackmail the city/state to build a stadium for you (unless you're in California). I have a hard time seeing them pump money into Old Trafford unless there's something somewhere to sweeten the pot for them.
To those doubting the plausibility of temporary stands, albeit it’s on a smaller scale, but so are their finances, but due to the regulations on the land their ground is situated, Bath Rugby have a 4-5k seat temporary stand. They’re not allowed it all year so it has regularly been dismantled for the summer months and then reconstructed each year ready for the new season. It all happens very quickly. A temporary scaffold stand, or even stadium, is easily plausible with United‘s resources.
Fix the roof, expand the south stand, and give the place a decent paint job. No need for a new stadium. Please.
Great post. I agree I hate all this 'it will be soulless' and 'its not the united way'. I mean sod off, I love old trafford as much as any other fan but its time to move with the times.
I mean soulless - in what way? It's still going to be the same fans who attend the game right? What, every season ticket holder is just suddenly going to stop going to games? With a new stadium we could even attract more fans and create a better atmosphere. And to be honest the clubs been pretty soulless the past 8 years or so, the football and the way the club has been run has been atrocious.
Like some user said above, we could keep some of the old trafford characteristics in the new stadium.
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My wish list for OT:
-Turn the Stretford End into a one stand, it would look awesome and intimidating, thats where our chants come from and it shoud be the priority like spurs did in their stadium.
-Finish the other 3 stands, the design requires 3 tiers but in my humble opinion it should only be 2 tiers, get rid of the 3erd one on the north stand.
-Fix the roof, make OT look taller.
If only the glazers made those 3 things OT would become the best stadium in the world because it has something the new ones dont have, history.
-Turn the Stretford End into a one stand, it would look awesome and intimidating, thats where our chants come from and it shoud be the priority like spurs did in their stadium.
-Finish the other 3 stands, the design requires 3 tiers but in my humble opinion it should only be 2 tiers, get rid of the 3erd one on the north stand.
-Fix the roof, make OT look taller.
If only the glazers made those 3 things OT would become the best stadium in the world because it has something the new ones dont have, history.
When people say that any new potential stadium would be "souless", what do they actually mean?
The truth is, the fans are the ones that make a stadium. Yes you walk in at OT and think of all the historic nights etc, however, if it weren't for the fans, it would also be souless.
But if we can redevelop OT to be up amongst the best stadiums in the world, that would be the perfect option for me. If not, build a new one.
But I firmly believe we won't build a new one anyway. But we should be doing something such as building a "Manchester United Village".
The truth is, the fans are the ones that make a stadium. Yes you walk in at OT and think of all the historic nights etc, however, if it weren't for the fans, it would also be souless.
But if we can redevelop OT to be up amongst the best stadiums in the world, that would be the perfect option for me. If not, build a new one.
But I firmly believe we won't build a new one anyway. But we should be doing something such as building a "Manchester United Village".
Bobby charlton stand could be re done
At a large cost to seat ratio due to the railway lines and houses behind that, hence why it’s still the only stand not redone.
Stretford End as one stand could work. Knock it down, rebuild it as a giant single tiered stand. That plus a lick of paint elsewhere would be quite alright.
Finishing the other three stands…well, because they added a larger tier to the two end stands, it meant that the angles didn’t line up with the tiers on the North Stand hence we got the wanky quadrant design which makes the whole thing hodgepodge and not a proper bowl. Feel like if they were to sort it and follow the ring around then they commit to the same height as the end stands for the Bobby Charlton stand…but then you run into the railway line issue. We had a bowl in the early 90’s, then managed to mash it up with every subsequent renovation. Characterful I guess, but it looks a mess.
Fixing the roof should be the absolute main thing, both to stop the leaks but also to investigate the possibility of it being a horizontal roof the extends out like St James’ or Celtic Park. Unfortunately I think the way it is now is like that because the design of the whole stand dictates it needs to be, so you’d be knocking them all down and starting again I think just to fix the roof.
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A temp stadium could work. Another solution could be to work on stand to stand basis, this way the fans could still watch at OT. The new South Stand should be a template for the rest of the stadium..or the start of a vision/plan.
I’ve said this loads of times, but nowadays going over the railway isn’t some cost prohibitive, impossible design, it’s fecking piss easy to cantilever over it or enclose it under the stand.
there are literally mile high buildings floating in the sand in the desert in the Middle East and we can’t span over a railway line in Salford? Bollocks.
It’s not that we can’t do it. As you said, technically it’s piss easy and there are plenty of places that have done it, but it IS cost prohibitive versus the value for extra seats to do it. H&S work alone would run it way up for what would otherwise be a fairly routine tier/box addition to a stand.
There’s a reason it hasn’t been done yet, it’s cost.
Where would the massive cranes required to do this work be sited?
Sorry, but I really can't see the logic in building a temporary stadium for us to tear down Old Trafford and build a new super stadium at the same spot. In my ears it sounds ridiculous and expensive. I know, everything when talking stadium upgrade is very expensive.
In my opinion, some fans seem to dream a bit to much. I can't imagine the Glazer family putting a lot of money into this project. Especially not a brand new state-of-the-art ground. And if they decide to "finish" Old Trafford with the two last corners and the South Stand, the capacity will be around 95.000 I think. Is that a realistic prize and is it a realistic figure for them to sell out week after week? I doubt they will find that solution attractive.
We will probably see major work being done at the boxes, lots of paint, fix the roof and some minor things.
In my opinion, some fans seem to dream a bit to much. I can't imagine the Glazer family putting a lot of money into this project. Especially not a brand new state-of-the-art ground. And if they decide to "finish" Old Trafford with the two last corners and the South Stand, the capacity will be around 95.000 I think. Is that a realistic prize and is it a realistic figure for them to sell out week after week? I doubt they will find that solution attractive.
We will probably see major work being done at the boxes, lots of paint, fix the roof and some minor things.
I think the Glazers should just relocate us to Tampa.
Surprised we haven’t had Tampa as a tour date yet
I think you are correct. Work will centre around the south stand. People saying build a new stadium are in dream land.
It's a no.
This decision will ultimately be driven by results of investment analysis based on projections of time,cost and ultimate returns.
Firstly a feasibility study needs to take place for two options. The new build or the redevelopment of the current stadium.
The time it will take for that to done properly could be up to two years if they are starting from scratch.
This could be up to 10 years of a project. Not going to be quick.
Firstly a feasibility study needs to take place for two options. The new build or the redevelopment of the current stadium.
The time it will take for that to done properly could be up to two years if they are starting from scratch.
This could be up to 10 years of a project. Not going to be quick.
Roughly half of the teams mentioned are redeveloping. The rest have new grounds. The ones redeveloping have built new stands with more legroom and better facilities. When I mention the word redeveloped, I mean knocking down existing structures and rebuilding on the same site/same stand. Chelsea's is an entirely new ground on the site of Stamford Bridge, the Bundesliga teams have knocked down stands and rebuilt.
What happened in the 40’s has no bearing at all on 2021 so why you mentioned it I don’t know. The Germans bombed a lot of stuff, so what?
Leg space is a) terrible at OT and prohibitive for future plans for safe standing and b) exactly the type of things that modern stadium building and redevelopment takes into account so we’d be losing seats if we did modernise OT, just as we have done recently to accommodate more disabled spaces. It went down from 75k to 73k.
OT is hardly the Sagrada Familia or Notre Dame. Nothing from 1910 remains, it was wholly redeveloped in the 60’s to the 90’s into the very first soulless bowl. Or are you too young to remember that?
The redevelopments since then have been ill thought out and clearly not part of a masterplan. This gives it some character design wise but it's a mess with the North Stand not matching the side stands and the quadrants being a seriously weird bit of architecture and the roof blocking the view of the ground so it doesn't feel as imposing as it should. The top of the North Stand is almost as high as the top of the Nou Camp and Bernabeu yet it feels much, much smaller when you're sat in the ground because of the roof. The quadrants give you the best impression of just how big OT really is, otherwise it feels remarkably tiny for a 70k+ ground.
Nearly every new or redeveloped ground in the 90's to early 00's copied this template. Middlesbrough, Leicester, Sunderland, Newcastle, Derby, etc.
Nowadays you can design literally anything you want. Look at some of the NFL stadiums being built (which is what the Glazers might look towards).
We all love OT, we've all got fond memories of it as it is. It's way behind the times though, so even if they just redevlelop what's there they've got a lot of work to do to make it modern and it might just be that the cost of that becomes prohibitive to doing it properly, so they look towards a new one. The only thing they can realistically do is build some more executive boxes on top of the South Stand like a wall so it doesn't increase the footprint much. They won't add more seats because they won't pay to build across the trainlines to increase seating capacity in the current ground, I'm sure of it. Like it or lump it we need modern, wide concourses with proper food and beverage places cause they make a lot of money off it in new grounds, how are they gonna do that within the existing confines of OT?
People call new grounds soulless but every ground is when it's first built. It's the fans and the memories that give it soul, not the way it looks. It takes decades to build that up. The whole reason we love OT is in part because we've played there since 1910 so those memories are endless but we'd hardly be the first, nor the last to move grounds after a century or so. Progress and time matter.
We're thought of by our own fanbase as dinosaurs for the way the club is run and we're all constantly moaning that we need up to date styles of play, direction, scouting, management, etc. Why doesn't that extend to the place we play in?
I fully expect them to fix the roof and give it a lick of paint and have done with it, because that's the bare minimum but it won't change the fact that there are severe limitations in the current ground that impede on the matchday experience and certainly the more new grounds that are built that make a ton of cash from corporate things will affect how the Glazers see the current ground. We're pretty good on the corporate side but if they can't expand on that to match Barca, Real, Bayern, PSG, etc or the American football grounds when they redevelop then they'll think about doing something.
First of all I want to thank you for answering in a more civil tone than my own first reply. I let the anger shine through too much (even if I did strike almost half of the first draft …).
Second, though, that anger is in a way a point in itself. Anyone suggesting to bin Old Trafford makes me angry - as in, not ‘arguments con, arguments pro’ disagreeing, but as in - emotional, visceral, ‘don’t attack what’s important to me’. The point there is that, to me (and I’m sure I’m not the only one), Old Trafford is emotionally important at a level more to be associated with places of pilgrimage like the great churches and cathedrals I mentioned, and less with places of commercial comfort and industrial entertainment like that hotel in Dubai or Disneyland. Sure, you can argue that the commercial effect of a well oiled tourist machine like the latter works, it gives money, lots of people are attracted to it. The financial muscles attained is a means to sporting success. Man United have been well down this path since long before The Glazers, and long before the plc move. Even Matt Busby were clear that a club had to be run like a business, and of the importance of entertainment. Indeed, you could say a lot of the club’s history of success was built on the Sugar Daddy revamp of 1902 which brought a new name, new ground, new kit and half of Man City’s league winners to bring the first legue and cup trophies.
And yet, what would all this be if there was not some meaningful emotional connection to what the club in an always changing way is? You asked about me, and I’m not a manc, so I don’t hold myself as a measuring stick for what’s at stake. I’m well aware of the changes made to OldTrafford in several upheavals, from this:
… to this:
… to this:
… to this:
… mostly through reading about it, through pictures, TV-footage, and from a few pilgrimages. So how can I become angry about building suggestions in a country I don’t live, of facilities I seldom find myself at, let alone eat prawn sandwiches at?
It really doesn’t make sense, apart from that falling in love with a football club, connecting to it, ‘marrying’ it so to speak, consists of attaching strong emotional bonds to what that club historically consists of. That history has, to me, made Old Trafford a shrine, a place of pilgrimage, a building with a scared air, worth travelling miles to be at notwithstanding toilet facilities. I am sure in this I am not alone. The bombing of Old Trafford holds a significance to me, not because I was there, or because it was the only building destroyed by Nazi airraids. It is a meaningful part of the history of Man Utd in just the same way that George Best, The Busby Babes and Matt Busby is, even the Newton Heath railwaymen. It has come to mean something to me, on an emotional level, that to me makes Man Utd different from all other footbll clubs on earth. Not that it is better, or more worthy, or more moral - by no means. But that I am connected to it. I do get angry when someone compares our home of a 111 years with Allianz Arena or Emirates, as if those are just varieties of the same. To some, they are, to me they are certainly not, and will not be in a hundred years, if even then.
For those thinking you could build a whole new stadium for 1 billion , think again. Spurs started at an estimate of 400m but rose to an estimate of 1 billion, yes they had purchase order issues (which were dealt with a fire at a sheet metal factory opposite the stadium, make of that what you will )and caused considerable delays and cost but it’s still a lot and will undoubtedly be more these days and if plans and designs, when and if are finally agreed, will take a few years and then will probably cost considerably more.
Unless there is serious investment from another source this isn’t happening in my opinion, so I would expect whatever the Glazers have planned, if there really is a plan, will be minimal.
Needs to happen but ain’t gonna.
Unless there is serious investment from another source this isn’t happening in my opinion, so I would expect whatever the Glazers have planned, if there really is a plan, will be minimal.
Needs to happen but ain’t gonna.
Still so frustrating that they built so close to the railway back in the day.