Breaking News - New Stadium and Training Facilities

[mastrick1960]

For all you in favour of the new site can you answer me this.....just about every football fan thinks st Johnstone's ground is as a soulless ****e out of town ground with no amenities beside it....yet actually you can walk from perthtown centre in about 40 mins or so....our new site is a long way further out ....so what makes our potential new ground not a new Mcdiarmid park ?

[sancho_panza]

You know what, it will mean having to plan your sh1t a bit differently when/if we relocate to Kingsford. If you want to go and watch your team, then you'll go. If walking down Union Street and Kings Street is more important to you then just do that instead and then maybe you can hold little vigils at the bottom of the broadhill every other Saturday.

There are two ways to look at it. There's the "if you're not going just because the travel is slightly more inconvenient then you're a c**t" angle and then there's looking at it from a business perspective and asking whether small things actually make a large difference over the years to the attendance.

Personally I completely buy into the idea we should move, my big concern about it is the unintended consequences of seemingly minor stuff like making travel to the stadium even slightly less convenient. People are creatures of habit. You can't just assume that because someone walks 15 minutes to get to the stadium now they won't care about getting a bus out the city to go to a game. There are plenty of businesses in the past that have made apparently logical decisions to move their location and saw, for no major reason, that their customer base dried up. Getting all that stuff right should be priority number one (well ahead of any gimmicky sh*te about what the stadium actually looks like).

[57vintage]

The main reason the board gave for not going ahead with the Kings Links location was the ground was boggy so the additional cost of the foundation work added another £5M onto the final price.

Largely sandy soil on the links and as you say, an extra cost in piling for the foundations, but I note that the original question held "the cooncil" guilty. Given that no plans for Kings Links were ever lodged with the local authority, that's a hoor of leap in thinking to lay the blame on its doorstep.

The points about St Johnstone are perfectly valid, especially if you think of thr AWPR as the A9, and the A944 as Crieff Road.

[campervanbethoven]

Kin Hell !!!
The Pro Kingsford faction are getting a bit arsey , eh ?

Yes, I would prefer to stay in town. Although as it`s a seven hour drive for me to get to home games anyway , the final location of where we are playintg is a minor point for ME , at the end of the day.

But bloody hell, it`s fair getting personal for some of you lot .

For your gratification CamperV, yes, I probably will still wander down King Street for pre match beers before getting on a bus to get out there. ( IF this thing ever comes off )

And Fatshaft, no pavements/ grass verges is a valid point . Not so much for me, but for the Father and wee lad parking up and walking to the game. And I`ve been on this planet long enough to know that there can be stupid oversights on big plans. Like not allowing for that sort of stuff.

As for the bit about "should have bought the land etc " Well, AFC DID own the land behind the South Stand. As we used to use it for parking on big Euro nights way back. I assume they sold it off for the Flats that are there now, to repay some of the bank debt. It`s a real shame we couldn`t have held onto that. But such is life.

So Lads, calm down . And keep yer hair on. Otherwise we`re all back at school again, and it`ll be down the Beach at 2 before the Cup game tomorrow to sort it a oot !!!

The main problem with some of this p1sh is that people are looking at things in the current context or making (un)educated guesses as to how it may be laid out in the future.

Why would shuttle busses not work, why would the main city bypass not help shift traffic quicker?
Personally, I’m not a city planner and planning infrastructure around a major development is not something I am paid to do, so, I’ll leave that to people who are paid to do it.

I’m a realist. Yes, I would prefer to stay at Pittodrie, but I can see the economic reasons why this isn’t really a sustainable option. In the same ways that the old traditional schools around the city have been sold to developers and new modern schools have been built, sadly Pittodrie has become an expensive millstone around the clubs neck.

[57vintage]

Shuttle buses will be run by First or Souter's manky lot and will maximise their profits in the usual way by allocating the minimum number required to the 'service', taking off 15%, and cramming as many people aboard as they can, with neither a **** nor a toss given for welfare of those aboard. It's how they work.

These are practical concerns based on everyday experience with these larcenous subsidy-hoovering Thatcherites.

[Mason89]

The points about St Johnstone are perfectly valid, especially if you think of thr AWPR as the A9, and the A944 as Crieff Road.

I think that we'll be the same size of club as St.Johnstone once Milnes chucked it. Some supporters will still thank him on account that it could've been worse

[milne_afc]

The St Johnstone analogy is perfect.

If you listed completed grounds from the spfl Premmo and had to choose one you'd hope to avoid similarities with, it'd be Mcdiarmid Park.

An out of town, soul-less box with no amenities or nearby travel options.

Basically it's a dump and we're copying it.

[Pacman1903]

The St Johnstone analogy is perfect.

If you listed completed grounds from the spfl Premmo and had to choose one you'd hope to avoid similarities with, it'd be Mcdiarmid Park.

An out of town, soul-less box with no amenities or nearby travel options.

Basically it's a dump and we're copying it.

Surely you are not saying McDiarmid is the worst when New Douglas and the Caley Stadium are in the division.

[Gogsred]

The St Johnstone analogy is perfect.

If you listed completed grounds from the spfl Premmo and had to choose one you'd hope to avoid similarities with, it'd be Mcdiarmid Park.

An out of town, soul-less box with no amenities or nearby travel options.

Basically it's a dump and we're copying it.

I don't think that is a fair comparison. Firstly I would prefer to stay at Pittodrie but I recognise that practically and economically that is not possible. The new stadium looks as if it will have much more than Mcdiarmid Park - enclosed corners, steep terraces possibly safe standing as well, proper decent catering faclities and at least one supporters bar. if that does come off then it will be infinitely better than Mcdiarmid.

There is, I think an issue with the transport. But didn't Willy Young of Cooncil fame want to look at some kind of light rail or tram type system from the city out to Kingswells and Westhill? I recall that that was one of the elements of the City Deal Plan. Whether it comes off of course is another matter.

[milne_afc]

Surely you are not saying McDiarmid is the worst when New Douglas and the Caley Stadium are in the division.

Neither of those are completed. Nor are they anything more than regional monkey clubs.