The World Famous City Ground - Home of the PROPER WORLD‘S OLDEST LEAGUE CLUB

Future of the WFCG? What‘s your preference?

  • Current site - just replace the BC and PT stands

    Votes: 204 61.1%

  • Current site, demolish the existing stadium and build a new one (with ground share during works)

    Votes: 101 30.2%

  • New Stadium further down the River Trent

    Votes: 25 7.5%

  • New Stadium out-of-town

    Votes: 11 3.3%

  • New Stadium in the city centre (Eastside option)

    Votes: 35 10.5%

  • Do nothing and stay as it is with 30k max capacity

    Votes: 9 2.7%

  • Other (I will tell you in the comments)

    Votes: 5 1.5%
  • Total voters
    334
duncanmckenzie said:
As I've posted before I went to a supporters clubs AGM many years ago and Nigel Doughty was asked about expansion of the stadium. He said the first part would be to take the Brian Clough stand up a tier and back onto the car park. Then deal with the Main stand. Is there any plans to do anything like this?
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Unfortunately, Nigel's plans were pretty ambiguous in terms of the CG.. He favoured a new-build away from Trentside.
 
I know I'm pretty clueless, but has a lot of this delay been due to having the wrong people drawing up the plans in the first place?
 
Lady Penelope said:
I hear a lot of "it's too big" comments (possibly from Derby fans or similar). The simple fact is that our nearest competition to see EPL football is Villa, followed by Leeds. Derby are struggling, Leicester are in the third tier, Wednesday too. Sheffield Utd would be unlikely promotion candidates this season, so the opportunity is there to attract new fans, as well as tourists, whilst the other, relatively nearby clubs, are struggling.

Edit: apologies to Coventry, I forgot. Still my point remains.

Villa are currently capped at 37,000 whilst the Witton is being redeveloped, but both Villa and Leeds will be well above 50,000 when done, and so must we be.

The EPL is the most watched league in the world, and allegations of corruption notwithstanding, that is very unlikely to change anytime soon. We need to think big, and the club are doing just that.
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45k is pushing it in my opinion, and 52.5k is too big. But that's from my view, right now, as we lie where we are on and off the pitch. The full 52.5k is probably about a decade away if we're lucky?

If it goes well for us over the next 5-7 years and we remain a Prem team, with another season or two in Europe - then who knows how much our fanbase will increase. But I just don't think we're going to get the tourists, or the increase in support to maintain 50k+ each week, especially if we hover around mid-table or relegation each season. The Prem novelty is wearing off already for a lot of fans and the prices are pushing people away.

It's not to say i don't admire the ambition of the club. And I'm glad there's two phases to the development as phase 1 at 45k could be a sweet spot for us. Give 30k season tickets. (10k more than currently - which will definitely sell) 5k for hospitality. 3k away fans. That leaves 7k for matchdays on general sale, similar to what we have at the moment. It's achievable.
 
valspoodle said:
I know I'm pretty clueless, but has a lot of this delay been due to having the wrong people drawing up the plans in the first place?
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A fair chunk of the deal can be put on to Rushcliffe Borough Council, who’ve historically been resistant to the redevelopment of the WFCG.

This is one of the reasons things have taken so long.
 
Dawg said:
45k is pushing it in my opinion, and 52.5k is too big. But that's from my view, right now, as we lie where we are on and off the pitch. The full 52.5k is probably about a decade away if we're lucky?

If it goes well for us over the next 5-7 years and we remain a Prem team, with another season or two in Europe - then who knows how much our fanbase will increase. But I just don't think we're going to get the tourists, or the increase in support to maintain 50k+ each week, especially if we hover around mid-table or relegation each season. The Prem novelty is wearing off already for a lot of fans and the prices are pushing people away.

It's not to say i don't admire the ambition of the club. And I'm glad there's two phases to the development as phase 1 at 45k could be a sweet spot for us. Give 30k season tickets. (10k more than currently - which will definitely sell) 5k for hospitality. 3k away fans. That leaves 7k for matchdays on general sale, similar to what we have at the moment. It's achievable.
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It's tough to grow a fanbase when you're shit for 20 years. Us being an established premier league club provides opportunities for growth completely missed the previous generation.
 
valspoodle said:
I know I'm pretty clueless, but has a lot of this delay been due to having the wrong people drawing up the plans in the first place?
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Two things: firstly, Forest themselves underestimated the degree of interest that a successful team would bring. Secondly, other clubs are expanding, so the idea of having 35,000 in at top, top prices became outdated.

It's also fair to say that the people initially appointed to redevelop the stadium had limited ambition, limited vision as well. Others have had stronger things to say!
 
Strummer said:
A fair chunk of the deal can be put on to Rushcliffe Borough Council, who’ve historically been resistant to the redevelopment of the WFCG.

This is one of the reasons things have taken so long.
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Again, limited vision ... as in the World Cup bid when a senior Rushcliffe Councillor said to me "why don't they use that football ground in Derby?".
 
Thanks to those answering my question, all this toing and froing and the impenetrable (to me) planning process has rendered me impotent. In the planning sense, of course, though, since the snip about 50 years ago I have been firing blanks. Probably a bit too much information there!
 
Just looking at the point of “too big”

Stadiums are not defined by how many seats we can fill, it’s about “capacity” if you limit a design because we may not sell every seat each week it has the affect of limiting ambition. Of course 55k tickets will be difficult to shift for a game of football every other week, but we’re moving into a completely different era
 
sammy the snake said:
Just looking at the point of “too big”

Stadiums are not defined by how many seats we can fill, it’s about “capacity” if you limit a design because we may not sell every seat each week it has the affect of limiting ambition. Of course 55k tickets will be difficult to shift for a game of football every other week, but we’re moving into a completely different era
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It's also about our ability to host other events.
 
It’ll be interesting to see how they strategically phase the developments stand by stand as everywhere is needing some kind of modernisation to bring things up to date.

The priority has to be the Peter Taylor Stand (still want to call it the Main Stand) due to the massive reconstruction needed but there’s plenty preparation that can be done elsewhere during the current season. I wonder when we’ll start seeing a few changes.

They need to finalise all the planning stages quickly and get things moving. Can’t be dragging it out for another however-many years.
 
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