LONDON | New Tottenham Hotspur FC Stadium Plans | Capacity Unknown | Pre-planning

[Schmeek]

Originally Posted by Buckle & pals

Interesting discussion. I tend to agree with Mo Rush.

First thing's first, NEVER agree with Mo Rush!
Like it or not, cost is important, thus leading to consideration of the most economic way of providing the best experience, both pitch side and in the facilities, as well as making best use of the available space. This tends to lead to the bowl 'solution'.

Cost also determines the, by now usual, middle club/corporate tier in so far as this maximises revenue.

Yep, unfortunately this is all true. Cost dictates so many things in life, extending also to stadia design, but there are alternatives. There are different approaches, and although an effort has been made to differentiate (with the single tier), but much as I hate to admit it, I just don't think it quite detracts enough from what is essentially a rip-off of their nearest neighbours asset.

Atmosphere is of course another crucial issue. And it's not just bringing the crowd closer to the pitch. The more you can 'unite' the crowd in a collective experience, the more you can have an effective 'contagion' of feeling inside the ground. Complex, multi-tiered or segmented structures, where sections of the crowd are (or feel) cut off from other sections, work against the generation of a good atmosphere. This is also an argument for the wavy design - making sure that all of the crowd has good sightlines to the pitch as well as good sightlines to each other is also beneficial to atmosphere. The people stuck up in the 'corners' with poorer sight of the pitch and the rest of the crowd may become 'dead' sections in terms of noise, and that can have an effect on the other sections in their immediate vicinity.

In my experience, vast bowls of continuous tiers are detrimental to atmosphere. The atmosphere is lost because pockets of support start singing/chanting at different times and it becomes a mess. Often the more vocal supporters are spread out amongst the silent ones which means they cannot get going and achieve any significant noise. Also when the entire stadium tries to sing, the time difference means that again, it is a mess. I prefer individual stands chanting at each other. Traditionally, this is where British atmosphere originated, the home end bantering with the away end, which is something becoming rarer and rarer, and even home stands bantering with other home stands (as is done currently at the Lane - 'the shelve side Tottenham' etc and at countless other traditional grounds including at my home team Bristol City) This stand has been dubbed the 'Kop', and it is no coincidence that the Anfield Kop was reputed for the atmosphere it produced. In fact, the main reason the single tier is welcomed hugely in this design is not because of its visual/aesthetic merits (although the positive visual impact will be high), it will concentrate vocal support and will lead to greater atmosphere due to BREAKING UP THE WAVY BOWL DESIGN which you say is beneficial to atmosphere...



Apart from anything else, I think you have to care about the experience of these fans in the 'dead' corners. Will they come back if they couldn't see as well and experienced a muted atmosphere? What will they tell their friends? No matter that the tickets are cheaper; it's not a good advertisement, and it's not good business.

Let's not get too sympathetic towards people buying tickets for football matches. I for one know where I will be sitting before I buy a ticket. I research, and know that if I buy a ticket with obstructed views or a seat very far away, that's what I expect. Thousands of fans currently have obstructed views at WHL (in the East stand), but they still sell out. The seats directly behind the posts are sold at a discounted rate - why can't the seats far back in the corners be as well? I think we are sometimes trying so hard to be perfect that we forget the essentials. It is a juggling act, and at the moment we are dropping the ball which is most important to catch the ball which appears to be important.When criticising the 'formula' of contemporary European football stadia, one shoudn't necessarily appeal to the more individually-striking, visually well-designed US stadia. There are many who criticise the atmosphere in not a small number of those new stadia.

The 'traditional' four-stand structure was as much a standardised formula from Archibald Leitch on, and for a longer period of time, as the present-day wavy-bowl design. If you argue in favour of change for change's sake, then this kind of design becomes prey to fashion. Those who yearn for a return to the four-stand structure are arguing for a nostalgic (and fashionable?) return to another formulaic structure. What's the point? The new design has to be an improvement both visually and aurally.

But it's not change for changes sake, fashion or nostagia. It's preserving what makes the game so special. The atmosphere. The experience, and the direct effect the atmosphere has when it transfers to the pitch. If the atmosphere it stale, the action on the pitch is more likely to be stale, and vice versa. FACT. The players directly feed off it and to a degree it dictates play.

WHL works well in respect of atmosphere because it is small, cosy, enclosed and is filled with fans who care. It is not necessarily to do with the traditional 'four-stand' structure. And even in this stadium, atmosphere has declined over the decades.

I'd say in any stadium the atmosphere also depends on a degree of team success!! It's hard to get excited when you're middle of table and losing 2-0 in a lacklustre performance... I'd say at WHL the atmosphere has actually improved greatly in recent years....in line with their success. This is a given at any ground: A bland, acoustically poor stadium housing a very successful team can still sound better than a cauldron of a stadium with a poor team and apathetic supporters. But if you take two successful teams, one with a stadium more conducive to atmosphere, and the other not, I don't need to tell you which will be the better experience. I might be stating the obvious here, but it is important to have the setup right in the first place. WHL is good for all the reasons you have stated, but it DOES help that it is essentially four stands which go some way to moulding into one another. There is identity from one stand to another. In a big bowl you might as well be anywhere, which is why Arsenal are retrospectively-fitting the Emirates with such things as the 'Clock End' - because it lacks it.

In larger stadia, the corporate tier tends adversely to affect atmosphere. The corporates tend to be less 'expressive' and this splits the more expressive fans between the upper and lower tiers. Remove the corporate tier and you remove a key revenue stream - they want that 'Match-of-the-Day' view. This is why the single-tier Kop end is such a good idea. It unites upper and lower tiers in a single mass. Take those who usually sing, put them all in that end and you will generate a contagious noise.

I don't care that it looks a bit ugly. It might be the case that KSS rushed this design through for the convenience of the planning process. They could consider a modest re-design of that end, acceptable to Haringey planning, in order to please all you refined aesthetes.

Me? I don't mind. I like a bit of ugliness and strange asymmetry. It adds character. A lot of characterful stadia have ugly bits.

Entirely agree with those last three paras. But it seems at odds with the rest of your post.

[Curious Orange]

Originally Posted by Buckle & pals

The 'traditional' four-stand structure was as much a standardised formula from Archibald Leitch on, and for a longer period of time, as the present-day wavy-bowl design.

*cough* who originally laid out the bowl at Old Trafford? *cough*

[Mo Rush]

Don't confuse what I am saying with what is ideal.

The ideal is a balance between exterior architectural quality, which the current facade proposal lacks (depending on potential finishes), and interior quality, which MUST focus on the end user i.e. what the spectator wants and therefore it MUST blend Heritage and traditional features to some extent.

HOWEVER, you must consider the constrants of the WHL site, and the current bowl configuration being a key result of the constrained costs and site.

A square like bowl for up to 40,000 is fine, but when you're moving to 60k and up you have to start thinking about the best sightlines for all.

The Emirates/Cape Town Stadium method is not the only route, since you can break up the tier or stands, or even exclude the corners, but within that change you must considering the resulting cost, impact of taller structure etc etc.

[Schmeek]

Very true Mo, and obviously WHL is a fairly tight area.
But as you say, it can be done differently, and this is what I would have expected from Spurs from the start. They're too far down the line now (or are they??), but considering the design of their nearest rivals, this really was a little unimaginative despite the inclusion of the single tier.

To back up my argument (or should that be opinion?)I bring you......St. James' Park, Newcastle. Ok, i've overdone it with the photos but I googled a load and couldn't decide which best illustrated my point so I used them all - but this is a ground of 52,000. It is horrendously lop-sided and suitably e-nor-mous on two sides without using the wavy tier shape.

Now, considering that, should the stadium ever be completed to a uniform e-nor-mous size, it would probably hit 80,000+. So 56,000 would probably be achievable on a much lesser scale, no? Perhaps lopping off the top tier would suffice..

My point here is that the seats in the top corner you see must be well outside the optimum viewing sightline guidelines, yet no-one has a problem with this. Yes, of course i've heard a few rumblings about being up in the clouds, and that you need binos, but they still sell and this is the perfect example of a ground with character and asymmetry which does not conform yet still impresses and commands respect whilst doing it's job admirably. It's an experience in itself to sit up in the heavens actually looking DOWN on the top of the roof of another stand. It's not an experience to sit in the wavy upper corner section at Emirates or..(paste generic bland stadium here).

[paprys81]

ok guys, I'm just gonna ask you a simple question here - Are they actually going to build that stadium or not? what's the deadline if so?

[Buckle & pals]

Originally Posted by paprys81

ok guys, I'm just gonna ask you a simple question here - Are they actually going to build that stadium or not? what's the deadline if so?

paprys81, speaking as a Spurs supporter who has followed this closely, I don't have a bleedin' clue.

The 'failure' (in my mind, a blessed relief and great success for us...) of the Stratford bid was accompanied by strong rhetoric from our chairman, Daniel Levy, that the Northumberland Development Project (the NDP, of which the new stadium is a key part) was financially 'unviable'. It seems that the costs of the project are such that borrowing the money we need, in the current climate, will be too difficult, i.e. too expensive. It also appears that Haringey (the local council), the Mayor of London and Spurs (and perhaps also central government) are currently locked in talks about the problem.

Spurs have been rattling the litigation sabre, claiming that there was something wrong with the Stratford selection procedure. They are probably hoping to irritate the powers-that-be sufficiently to win favourable financial concessions for the NDP.

It may be the case that Spurs are holding out for
(i) a reduction in the S.106 obligations, in turn facilitated by the idea of making the project part of a 'Mayoral Development Corporation' activity, and maybe, perhaps, thereby feeding money directly from the Treasury to Transport for London to improve local transport improvements;
(ii) an increase in the housing density of the enabling development, thus a reduction of the 'net' cost of the whole development;
(iii) something else we don't know about.

The leader of Haringey council did speak about the possibility of collaborating with Spurs in seeking cheaper finance. Quite how that might work is a mystery to me.

So, to answer your question, this process of negotiation may or may not lead to a financially viable solution for Spurs. If not, then Spurs may have to consider a cheaper site - which is going to be difficult and probably impossible.

After that, it would be a matter of revisiting a cheaper botch job to increase the capacity of the current White Hart Lane stadium. Everyone will tell you that this 'solution' is anything from highly undesirable to unfeasible, but, if it's the only way left to us to increase our revenue, then we may need to go back to that drawing board.

There is no deadline as such.

We just wait patiently.

[RobH]

Most of the conjecture and info about this stadium has been posted in the stadiums forum, but just an update...

Spurs officially no longer interested in Olympic Stadium.

Spurs will be delisted from the stock market next year apparently to help raise funds for stadium redevelopment.

Suggestions there will be an announcement at the AGM on Tuesday giving the official go-ahead for the stadium. I also wouldn't be surprised if there is an announcement re: the new technical college that is also apparently going to be set up as part of this scheme.

A fair amount of demolition around the current ground has been going on over the past couple of months.

Also suggestions the new White Hart Lane could be the third ground in the Premier League named after a Middle Eastern Airline with Qatar Airways apparently very interested.

So, we'll see, but that's what we know at the moment.

[JimB]

Well bumped, Rob!

One other update: proposed capacity rumoured to be back up to 60K or so (from 56K).

[Stairz]

Tottenham Hotspur court Qatar for funding for new stadium
Tottenham are looking to secure a £150 million sponsorship deal to help fund their proposed new stadium, with Qatar Airways the likeliest contender...


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/foo...w-stadium.html

[JimB]

It's a long time since anyone posted in this thread - indicative of the lack of action, I guess!

But there has finally been a significant development. And maybe not an expected one at that!

There was a rumour circling for a few days that Spurs were courting a new architect and, courtesy of RMB2007, we have confirmation from David Keirle (chairman of KSS, who designed the original plans) that they are, for the time being at least, off the job and that Spurs are now talking to Populous. No reason given as of yet.

So we may well, at some point, have an entirely new stadium design to discuss.