The Big Build

Having laid the foundations in part one, the next step in any stadium project is the big build. Constructing something of this scale cannot be rushed and can often be beset by unforeseen difficulties, as experienced during my building the case for London being crowned the Stadium City…

Starting with the country’s main sporting passion, London is unique, at least in Europe, in having so many top level football clubs in one city. At the very highest level, three clubs have recently dominated as part of England’s ‘big seven’ – along with pairs of clubs from each of Manchester and Merseyside. I do understand that including Spurs in the top echelons is slightly biased, but one season in the Champions League and regular top 5 finishes (along with the miracle witnessed on New Year’s Day) count in my book! It is entirely feasible that West Ham could join that group, especially with the way this season is panning out and their bright new future in super-connected Stratford. Added to the four stalwarts of the top flight, there are regularly another couple of London clubs in the Premier League, with Brentford, Charlton and Fulham (plus Watford, if you extend out to the limits of London’s tube map) all in with a decent chance of joining Palace and QPR next season. In fact, tight as the Championship is, it’s not completely fanciful that Millwall could find their way into the play-offs with a long winning streak. There are also a further three league clubs in the lower reaches of the football league, along with Barnet who are looking like favourites to rejoin the league next season.

Amongst London’s big clubs, it is looking likely that each of those top four will be based in their own 50,000 plus seater stadia in the coming years, with QPR also talking of a larger new home.

With so many teams in a small area, logic and financial sense might suggest that sharing a ground could be a possibility. But this is simply not the done thing in the UK. Instances of sharing are few and far between and only ever provide a temporary solution to a specific problem. London has seen the original Wimbledon and Charlton make use of local(ish) facilities, but nobody really wanted these experiences to last.

The original plan for the new White Hart Lane seemed to neatly avoid this dilemma by building enough of a new stadium alongside the current one, enabling a seamless transition during the close season before the final demolition and rebuild was completed during the following season. Unfortunately, the ongoing delays mean that it is now likely that Spurs will need a ground share for one season to speed up the building process. The biggest obstacle is that the rivalries, both in terms of supporters’ pride and the money available for success, prevent normally sane people from making rational decisions.

I know about this from personal experience. I like to consider myself a perfectly reasonable, pragmatic sort. Despite this, I’ve only recently recognised that my refusal to set foot in the Emirates is nothing short of crazy. Nobody has benefited from my act of loyalty and disdain of another club, who are really only rivals because they moved next door 101 years ago and the rumoured dubious nature of their promotion at my team’s expense 95 years ago. The truth is, we’ve only flirted with real rivalry on the pitch fleetingly over the past century. And the other reality is that I’ve actually missed out from visiting the largest club stadium in London. I think need to become a neutral for the day and get myself on their stadium tour.

It now looks like the best Spurs will be able to achieve is a ground-share with another exile from south London – MK Dons. As new grounds go, I’m a fan of stadiummk. It’s well laid out, with the conjoined ArenaMK providing a great indoor space, and I find the black seats add to the look. I also believe the lack of rivalry will work for the one season we’re away from N17. It might just bring a few new fans from the Milton Keynes environs into the new Lane once it’s built.

Chelsea have a similar quandary if they are to relocate or rebuild.
Opposition from Twickenham’s local residents, who just about accept the current levels of usage of England Rugby’s home, is rock-solid. I witnessed this first hand helping out at the recent England vs Samoa autumn international with its unusual 7pm kick-off. Done more for England Rugby and the Rugby World Cup organisers to help plan for upcoming evening matches, it was clear that the fears were of a football crowd descending on their pleasant patch of south west London on over 25 occasions in one season. As a side note, whilst I’m pleased to see Battersea Power Station will find a new lease of life as a residential area, I would have been far more enamoured by those iconic chimneys reaching high above a new stadium.

London has the richest sporting history of any city in the world given the number of sports that were regulated and popularised in the UK. As well as football, there are a number of other sports for which London is, if not the spiritual home, a major hub.

Cricket in London is also unique, due to the continued link with the counties that saw their boundaries shift as Greater London grew. Essex once played regularly in Ilford and may yet return to play some T20 matches in the Olympic Stadium. The legacy of those old county boundaries has left two major test match venues in London, also servicing the needs of Middlesex and Surrey. Whilst Mumbai has two test match venues, the exceptional part is that no other city has two venues that play to sell out crowds every summer. Lord’s is, of course, the spiritual home of the game but The Oval, with it’s neighbouring gasometer, has a special place is many cricket fans hearts as the home of great series victories at the end of a nail-biting Ashes summer.

Rugby is also home to a number of clubs, although some have left London behind to ground-share with football clubs: London Irish remain based in Sunbury, whilst playing in Reading; London Welsh have moved to Oxford; and Wasps retain their London base, but have relocated matches to Coventry. Just two remain playing in London at the top level – Saracens at Allianz Park and Harlequins at The Stoop. Twickenham, once home of Quins, has undergone a complete transformation to become the largest rugby stadium in the world and a colossal enclosed bowl of noise when at full capacity. I’m lucky to be able to visit regularly on non match days, when the 82,000 green seats encircling the pitch in three tiers are a spectacle in themselves to a sucker for the day-to-day pottering that takes place in an otherwise empty seating bowl. The new south stand, which houses a hotel, gym, shop and vast hospitality areas makes a fantastic looking approach to the stadium from Richmond and Twickenham. This modern facade masks the raw simplicity of the concrete structure that can appear dowdy, especially with rain running down the vast grey support columns.

Hopping across Richmond Park brings you to another vision in green – The All England Lawn Tennis Club, which is better known simply as Wimbledon. Across the grounds there is capacity for 38,500 spectators, with Centre Court (15,000) and No. 1 Court (11,430) by far the largest of the 19 championship grass courts. Whilst these capacities surrounding such a small field of play are impressive, it is not the scale that stands out. The AELTC is the epitome of sporting history, hosting the oldest tennis tournament since 1877. And its greatest success is in keeping longstanding traditions – players wearing all-white, a lack of advertising boards and playing on the original, natural surface for all outdoor games – whilst simultaneously keeping up with technological advances (hawkeye) and regularly evolving the design of the stadia with the recent rebuild of No. 1 Court and the ultra-modern lightweight roof on Centre Court.

London’s long sporting history has seen the world’s leading events all hosted in England, with London the main centre of each event. I’ve previously mentioned the Olympic Games and I don’t believe the claims about 2012 being a once in a lifetime opportunity. I’m expecting the IOC to return to one of their banker cities once more and for my kids to see another London Games. It would be a nice thing to see before my time is up, although I think I may need to make it to King William sending me my birthday ‘telegram’. Additionally, the largest international football tournaments – the 1966 World Cup and Euro ’96 – have both seen finals held at the old Wembley Stadium, with Wembley now a regular home for the UEFA Champions League final. The forerunner to the Commonwealth Games based at the the long lost White City Stadium (which also hosted the 1908 Olympic Games and one match the World Cup). Of the other claimants to be the third largest sporting event in the world, which was recently discussed in this BBC story, only the World Athletics Championship is an omission. Whilst London has an athletics pedigree, with Crystal Palace’s National Athletics Stadium hosting international events and the world’s greatest athletics stars since the 1970s, the capacity and limited warm-up facilities have been a barrier to holding a major championship. London was awarded the 2005 World Championships, which was to be held at the new 43,000 seater Lee Valley stadium. The plans were soon shelved due to costs but a new Lee Valley Athletics Centre was built on the same site, which hosted the athletics events in last year’s inaugural Invictus Games. We’ll finally get there in 2017 at the refurbished Olympic Stadium.

Added to all these great outdoor venues, London is also home to the magnificent O2 arena. As I sat watching a show in 2000 in the middle of the big white tent that was the Millennium Dome, I had a vision of an indoor arena, thinking that rather than pull this down at the end of the year, it could make an amazing all-weather sporting venue. I didn’t give it much thought for years, but was gobsmacked when I saw the transformation that had been made. To have built such an imposing indoor stadium – its vastness feels more stadium than arena – within an existing structure was inspired. I’ve seen Peter Kay, the NBA, Strictly and even High School Musical on Ice (for the kids, you understand) there but have always been more transfixed by the workings and structure of this pocket-sized stadium than the entertainment on stage (except perhaps for Peter Kay). London is also blessed with ExCeL, Wembley Arena, Olympia and now the Copper Box – all capable of hosting a plethora of sports and other events.

Returning to football, Qatar 2022 will be hosted by a tiny country of just 2 million people at a cost of billions of dollars to build new stadia that are almost certain to become white elephants. With Wembley and Twickenham, the bigger four’s large stadia, QPR and maybe a new Crystal Palace, London could easily host any subsequent World Cup alone without spending a penny on infrastructure or creating a single white elephant. That is truly unique for any city in the world, which is why London must be seen as the world leading Stadium City.

Laying the foundations

As well as the lure of reading about stadia in Simon Inglis’s Sightlines, I found this book was just as memorable for a captivating piece of travel writing – the story of one journey to South America that weaved its way between chapters.

The closest I’ve got to the location of this tale is a beach holiday on the Mexican coast. Despite this, I have discovered a great fondness for Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires or ciudad de los estadios as Simon refers to it – the city of stadiums.

Buenos Aires is a sprawling conurbation of 12 million people with a huge concentration of clubs that are strewn across the country’s football heartland, each one a major part of its local community. And there are many communities with the Greater Buenos Aires area, comprising the main city itself and 24 municipalities. Each club, no matter how large, has its own home. A visit is not yet on the horizon, but taking a close look at the homes of Boca’s La Bombonera and River’s El Monumental, amongst numerous others, is certainly one for my bucket list.

The one thing that did strike me whilst reading about the ciudad de los estadios was that Buenos Aires is perhaps not that unique as far as the number of stadia go, though its 36-plus sizeable football grounds might be. It did made me think that maybe there are other contenders that could be crowned the world’s number one Stadium City.

Brazil has certain similarities within each of the main football cities, Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro. Both are major cities and with a club structure more focussed around these hubs than the wider country.

Heading west from Buenos Aires you eventually reach Melbourne – a place with a more varied base of popular sports than the South Americans who major in football. Melbourne is a home to cricket, football, Australian rules football (it is its spiritual home with 10 teams playing in the AFL), both rugby codes and has hosted both the Olympic and Commonwealth Games. I’ve managed to get far closer to this one, having visited Sydney a few months after its own Olympic effort. Whilst there, I managed to pop into the Olympic rowing and white water canoeing venues as well as the twins of Moore Park – the Sydney Football Stadium (now Allianz stadium) and the stunning SCG – wishing I’d had more time for a trip to Victoria’s capital. Melbourne, you are also on my list!

Elsewhere, other countries have a spread of stadia across their entire territory, brought about from having several large cities. Places like Germany, Italy and Spain have a number of impressive stadia, again heavily football focussed, but no single city has very many professional sports clubs.

The USA is blessed with an enormous number of massive stadia – probably making it the Country of Stadia. It also has an enormous number of huge population centres with a franchise system that leads to one club cities, with LA and New York the notable exceptions. That said, the Americans love their sport and play several games that need big venues. Additionally, the majority like their own space, built solely for use by their team, making Los Angeles North America’s candidate city.

In writing this, I realise I have lots of travel to do in the coming decades, having only visited one stadium in the States – Orlando’s Citrus Bowl for my first live taste of the Olympics. This was the first hint for my future wife that holidays could be interrupted by a stadium visit.

In most countries, the size of cities or, more accurately, their greater metropolitan areas broadly follow Zipf’s law, which suggests that the size distribution of cities within countries tends to follow a pattern in which the largest city is about twice the size of the second city, three times the size of the third city, and so on. In countries where it does apply, wealth is also less concentrated in a single location. This appears to also affect the concentration of top-level sports clubs and facilities.

To be considered the true candidate for the title of Stadium City we are, firstly, looking for a metropolis with a disproportionately large population. And to ensure it is more than a city of football stadia, it needs a broad interest in several sports. Best of all, we need a place with teams and governing bodies who are reluctant to share the use of their venues.

Epitomising the phrase ‘an Englishman’s home is his castle’ and a desire for teams and stadium owners to control what goes on their own homes, which leads to a lack of sharing, there is an obvious contender closer to home. It is a major footballing hub and the spiritual home of rugby, cricket and tennis. It is four times larger than the nation’s next biggest metropolitan area, a massively wealthy financial centre and the only place to have hosted three Olympic Games. Better still, it’s on my doorstep!

In the next part, I will explore what, for me, makes London such a special sporting hub and why it should be considered the Stadium City.

Image: Boca Junior’s La Bombonera

In my previous post titled ‘Variety, please!’ I suggested that football clubs might benefit from a new stadium by finding it easier to attract newcomers. Well, I recently had the chance to test this theory.

My wife and daughter were planning a girls’ afternoon of retail therapy, leaving me a free Saturday afternoon with my son, who is beginning to take an ever greater interest in the beautiful game. I opted to complete the stereotypical double and take him to watch some football.

There was no match at White Hart Lane and had there been, the place would have been sold out – regardless of the recent levels of performance. Regrettably, watching Premier League football is not something you can really do spontaneously. It’s simply too popular and clubs are wary of building grounds that they can’t fill every match. Like most things, it’s all about balance. I’ve written before about West Ham and their tenancy of the Olympic Stadium, and it is likely that it will be full more often than not. But, once that initial novelty wears off, I can foresee times when a trip to see The Hammers could happen on the spur of the moment.

Whilst it is great to see full stadia, the balance I’d prefer to see would be for 80-90% occupancy at every game, with the ability to flex when the big boys come to town. I guess that’s harder if you are one of the big boys but, in principle, having some space to expand into just seems a logical way to maximise your spectator numbers and that all important revenue.

Returning to my dilemma, I was left with a small choice of places to consider – Colchester United, Dagenham & Redbridge, Leyton Orient, Southend United or a trip lower down the football pyramid. The latter didn’t appeal because, as you may recall, I want to be wowed by the venue as much as the action. Southend were away, so Roots Hall was out of the equation, which was a blessing as I had never been remotely tempted when I’d driven past previously. I’d already been to see The Daggers and The Os, and knew that standing at Victoria Road was not an option for my little ‘un as he wouldn’t see a thing. Paying even more for a seat to watch a struggling League 2 side also put me off, especially as I wasn’t sure that the game would hold his full attention. I briefly toyed with watching the Os at their cleverly disguised Brisbane Road ground – one that is so well integrated with surrounding housing, it is effectively camouflaged. Finally there was the lure my most local stadium -more alluring and newer than the other candidates, as well as being one I’d not previously visited. Despite that allure and the numerous times I’d seen it rise to my right en route to Suffolk, I’d not been curious enough to take a closer look. This was my chance.

Building work started in the summer of 2007 after Colchester United had been flirting with the playoff places in the Championship. They’d just finished in 10th place with an average attendance of 5,466 at their Layer Road ground containing only 2,000 seats, within a total capacity of a little more than 6,000. It seemed the perfect time to upgrade. Unfortunately, the following season saw Col U relegated, so they started life in their new home down in League 1.

Their new home is clean, simple, functional and a good example of what can be done without spending a fortune. The ground is owned by the council who paid £14 million on its construction. The problem is that it had to be built away from the town centre at the site of a new business park next to the A12. This, along with the continued stay in the third tier, has contributed to the attendances falling to between three and four-thousand. For me and the other curious visitors, this was, strangely, a benefit. Tickets in a family friendly stand were available on the day and nowhere was particularly busy – especially handy when taking kids to a game.

The match itself wasn’t much to write home about. Port Vale muscled their way to a 2-1 win, with the last 10 minutes the highlight as Colchester tried in vain to steal a point. My son enjoyed the atmosphere created by the hardcore supporters in the stand to our left. And with so few people there, he got to meet Eddie the mascot, who I believe is supposed to be an eagle, but more closely resembled a duck-billed platypus.

However, Eddie wasn’t the oddest sight that day. That particular honour was reserved for the lone ball boy sat in the centre of an otherwise empty stand behind one of the goals. It looked strange, but demonstrated how an operator can keep costs down, whilst retaining that important ability to expand when popular rivals are coming to visit or you find yourself suddenly promoted to the next division – the playoffs seem to catch some teams by surprise and before they know it, a good late season run leads to a day out at Wembley. Colchester are ready for those bigger paydays whenever they next appear.

The overall experience of my trip to the Weston Homes Community Stadium (now, doesn’t that just trip off the tongue!?) was very positive, especially for a fairly priced afternoon out with children. Despite the small crowd, the place had a great vibe, helped by the welcoming locals, friendly stewards and the band playing outside the southern end of the stadium to those enjoying a drink in the sunshine.

I love visiting any stadium for the first time and I’m glad I made the choice to go local. There was enough wow in the roof structure and overall size to satisfy my needs and to tempt me back again. There will always be times when an old, quirky stadium draws me in, providing that extra bit of character and history. On this occasion, the newness won out, going some way to proving my hypothesis about attracting newcomers. Whilst I think I’ve won the battle to convert my house to follow the sometimes mighty Spurs, Col U have gained a couple of extra part-time fans.

London 2012 will always have a very special place in my heart. That magical summer still seems like a dream. And even though I was involved directly for over two and a half years, I never truly imagined the impact it would have and its dramatic success. It showed off what an amazing place London is, surprised the world with the way the public and Games Makers were so welcoming and, frankly, un-British and how to plan and execute such a large scale event and manage to leave a positive legacy.

I’m sure much will continue to be made of the sporting legacy and whether participation in sport has simply remained stagnant. I guess only time will tell whether the phenomenal medal haul by Team GB and Paralympics GB has really inspired a generation. There is, without doubt, an increased interest in volunteering, which has been further enhanced by this year’s Tour de France and Glasgow’s Clydesiders.

The other success of the Games is evident for all to see. If you’ve not done so, I urge you to take a train to Stratford station, walk briskly through the wind tunnel alongside Westfield and spend some time in one of the world’s few fully functioning, living, breathing Olympic Parks. The wait for the transformation work after that heady summer was well worth it. We are blessed with a spectacular, free to attend, attraction that is brilliantly served with a plethora of public transport links. I’m not a big shopper, but the Westfield complex is impressive in its own right and handy if you are looking to refuel during your visit.

The now iconic, state of the art venues that have finished their transformation from Games-mode and are now all open to the public. The Velodrome remains a magnet for visitors with its distinctive Pringle-shaped roof, timber cladding and the bizarrely inviting polished concrete interior. The Copper Box, whose simple but perfectly descriptive name mirrors its simple, yet attractive design. Then we have the butterfly that underwent a reverse metamorphosis and lost her wings to become the stunning beauty of an Aquatics Centre that Zaha Hadid always intended her to be.

Most importantly, these glorious pieces of reborn architecture are in constant use by members of the public, who just fancy having a go in the playgrounds of their sporting heroes, local clubs and a smattering of professional athletes looking to hone their skills and further improve their performance levels.

The key difference compared with previous Olympic Parks is that a legacy was identified and designed into the build from the outset. Something that, sadly, cannot be said in the case of Athens – this summer’s 10-year anniversary photos of derelict venues a tragic sight for any lover of sport and of sensible public spending. Back at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, the media complex is becoming a new commercial hub, named Here East, and Eton Manor is now home to both Hockey and Tennis. Meanwhile, the BMX Track and the Basketball, Riverbank and Water Polo Arenas embraced the need for temporary seating. The first is now reconfigured as a less challenging track with no grandstand, with the other three all a distant, happy memory. Aside from all the success, there was one major change to the original plan – the Olympic Stadium.

When I first saw Populus’s designs for the focal point of the entire Games, I was distinctly underwhelmed by what, at first glance, seemed a very dull, functional bowl. However, as I heard more about the structure, minimal use of materials and legacy plans, I became quickly impressed and proud of what London was looking to achieve.

The fate of an Olympic Stadium in recent decades has been one of two options – remove the track and convert for other sports or try, often unsuccessfully, to remain as a multi-use venue. London’s plans rewrote the rulebook by making the upper tiers a temporary structure that could be unbolted and removed like a giant meccano set. This would leave a home for athletics with a sensible 25,000 capacity, with the scope to increase for major championships.

Where I was utterly convinced that this ingenuity was perfectly aligned with London’s apparent desire to be a different Summer Games, something also evident from the unique logo and mascots, others felt that the cost was too great to pull most of it down in order to leave a venue that would only be filled a few times each summer.

Suddenly, there was a new news story and a political push to find a tenant for the entire stadium. The disappointing thing for me and, I suspect, the architects was that plans were made specifically for a ground-breaking two-piece construction. In the blink of an eye, that had all changed. Had this been planned from the outset, tenants could have been confirmed and the design process would have been able to account for the various needs of whichever events were to take place there. Taking a decision so late in the day to look, in all reality, for a football team to become the main user immediately meant that there would have to be compromises.

As soon as the tenancy debate started, it was only ever likely that West Ham would be the main tenant and that British Athletics would have to be given access during the summer months. As a Spurs fan, I understood that Daniel Levy had to become involved, not because any of us wanted to move to Stratford, but that we didn’t want to see a local rival benefit from a low-cost new home. White Hart Lane is not blessed with public transport options and the local roads quickly become gridlocked before and after each match. With a plan to add 20,000 seats, the challenge of transport becomes all the more critical.

Had Spurs won the right to the Olympic Stadium site, the transport challenges would have been resolved immediately, but the plans to demolish the entire stadium and remove the track would not have sat easy with me. Whilst I am from Essex and my journey would have been eased, I’d have felt like a trespasser on West Ham’s manor. The same could be said of Leyton Orient’s claims – they are not from Newham and I’m not convinced their survival is at risk.

Reluctantly, I have to accept that West Ham’s tenancy was the next best decision once the original plans were axed. This is a one-off opportunity for a team that flatters to deceive even more than my own to make their mark. That so many people will be able to get to the Olympic Stadium within an hour gives The Hammers a chance to expand their fan-base and half a chance to even fill every seat it on a regular basis. They may need to be creative – cheap seats for children and maybe a neutrals section for the curious to come along and experience the home of London 2012 without becoming embroiled in football’s rivalries. This alone means Daniel Levy has a huge challenge to ensure Spurs don’t get left behind in the coming years.

That the lower bowl, ironically the one part that was designed to be permanent, is being reconstructed to have sliding seats that can cover the athletics track is a big positive. It’s far from perfect as the upper tier remains a long way from the pitch and it will be interesting to see this new configuration at next year’s Rugby World Cup, and to listen to the experiences of those seated up in the gods. The Stade de France works, to an extent, and does allow multiple use as a venue for team sports and athletics, which suggests this model could also succeed on this side of The English Channel.

Although it wasn’t in the original masterplan, I’m glad an option for a multi-use venue in London was found and that the legacy for athletics is retained. From a personal perspective, I also hope that Essex’s Eagles manage to get a look in with one or two T20 games. Chelmsford is a riot of noise with just 6,500 fans, so just imagine what a large crowd of Essexers might be like on a balmy summer’s evening. I, for one, can’t wait to find out.

I know that my introduction suggested that the topics I would write about were in no particular order, but I couldn’t decide where to start, so I’ve opted for the first one on that list. Not only did it seem a somewhat logical place to start, I was also prompted by the BBC Sport article I read on Sunday about England’s lost football grounds
(see BBC Sport). To start my ‘Lost’ post now would have felt like looking over the shoulder of my classmate and risking treading the path of plagiarism – I decided it’s far too early in my journey to be accused of that. It also gave me a bit more to think about and research on that particular topic, so you’ll just have to wait for that little gem. However, I have found a neat link – I’ve decided to look at the result of a lost ground, which usually means the birth of a new stadium.

I’m a bit like an expectant father when it comes to news of a new stadium. Whilst excited at the prospect of something new coming into the world, I do want it to be good-looking, to function successfully and, to an extent, to fit in.

I’m fortunate to be able to say my kids tick these particular boxes. Yes, I know I’m biased, but I’ve heard positive noises from others to know I might be right! Though that’s a good start, I’m greedy and I want more. I want them to dream big, to have a few unique traits and to not always follow the same old, well trodden path of conformity. In short, I would love them to be outgoing, independent and interesting.

Being a parent gives me half a chance of influencing my offspring by encouraging them to try new and different things. I also want these from a new stadium, without me having any kind of influence over their design or construction – I am reliant on the ‘parents’ to do their job well.

New stadia tend to look impressive when you first look at them, especially when compared to the old versions they’ve replaced. They are certainly designed with the safety and comfort of spectators in mind and have the requisite needs for corporate hospitality – something that cannot be ignored due to the amount of money this generates for clubs and stadium operators. They are also more aligned with the requirements of the media and, most importantly, the athletes.

Despite this, even modern stadia never seem to tick all the boxes – often needing small tweaks when hosting events in a competition they’re not used to being involved with. Extra press positions, coaches boxes, taller advertising boards and extra cameras all mean one thing – ‘seat kills’. Building over seats, reallocating spectator seats to other clients and creating brand new restricted views of the field of play all result in a negative hit on revenue for the operator, and a reduced probability of getting a precious ticket for the average fan.

For the individual club, upgrading their stadium is a major boost to their image that may bring in even more fans, corporate guests and cold, hard cash. It sounds mercenary, but the reality is that this could be the difference between survival and a slow death.

For the outsider with no vested interest in a given stadium, aside from having an excessive enthusiasm in stadia, the collective result is a series of seemingly identikit concrete bowls popping up across the country. And, despite my desire for something shiny and new, the result is that we’ve lost much of the character that once existed.

Even cricket, with a general distain for the word ‘stadium’ (sorry, MCG, you are impossibly huge and I’d love to come and see you, but you really should be referred to as the MCS), its quaint old pavilions, grassed banks and a hotchpotch of stands is undergoing the same metamorphosis. Lords and The Oval have managed to replace large chunks of their infrastructure, simultaneously creating new, characterful spectacles. On a recent visit to watch cricket at Headingley, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the towering Carnegie Pavilion. Whilst others have just gone down the ‘pop a big concrete tier in and we’ll have lots of seats for the Ashes tests’ road, I can forgive Yorkshire CCC’s sweeping western stand because of the variety of the other buildings. It is all about balance. Back to Australia, I’ve been fortunate to visit the Sydney Cricket Ground. Unlike Melbourne, I think it just about manages to remain in the category of a ground because of the evocative green-roofed members’ and ladies’ stands. The new Adelaide Oval is now a stadium, but what a beauty she is – all down to a striking roof structure.

I used the word ‘spectacles’ in the last paragraph because part of the joy of attending any event is, at least for oddballs like me, to be in awe of the the physical space I am sitting in. Yes, I want to be wowed by the atmosphere and the performances. But, if either of those disappoint, I want to experience more for my entry fee. I also seek a kick from vastness, a novel media centre, beautiful multi-use pavilion or by the shape created by the roof and mind-boggling feats of engineering. I want the three ‘i’s of imagination, innovation and inspiration. I’ve already said I’m greedy, so, even though I love my sport, my senses need to be overloaded.

In addition to my cricketing examples, there are numerous other exceptions out there. The Etihad in Manchester is simply the best stadium in Britain, although there are many I’ve not been to and I’m sure others will contest this claim. All I can say is that I look forward to visiting anywhere with more impact. I fell for the combination of size (still growing), the soaring masts that support the dramatic sweeping roof, the corkscrew spectator towers, the sky blue that is everywhere you look and the quality of every fixture and fitting around the stadium. Even the décor in the press conference room takes your breath away. It just shows you what money can buy. Of course, you can’t blame the ‘parents’ for doing the best they can to see their child develop. Elsewhere, the Fédération Française de Rugby have commissioned a design for their own stadium – Grand Stade – that is as impressive as any of François Mitterrand’s Grands Projets elsewhere in Paris. I can see a trip on Eurostar on the horizon.

I am pragmatic and realise that decisions often come down to finances, and I concede that there is a place for straightforward, practical solutions. If an existing ground is on prime real estate, then a new location and a chance to start afresh must be tempting. It is a chance for even the smaller clubs to create an enclosed stadium to keep the wind out and the noise in. So, I’m not against them per se, I’d just like to see more variety wherever possible.

When staying put, developing what you have within the constraints of the surrounding area may be the best option. La Bombonera in Buenos Aires is as quirky as they come given no room to expand and massive clubs like Manchester United have built piecemeal over the years to end up with an enormous, still iconic, venue. I’m sure the new White Hart Lane, if we ever see it, could have been developed stand by stand at a lower cost without the risk of becoming a white and blue version of The Emirates, albeit with the desire to get closer to the pitch and the move to having a steep single-tiered stand at one end. There was once a plan for a new East Stand and there is now plenty of space next to the West and North stands. The Park Lane end to the south could have remained a noisy hub for the die-hards, but it looks like that opportunity has past. Even if you knock the whole thing down and start over in the same place, you can find ways to innovate – the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, with its exaggerated drop in height at one end of the stadium is like nothing I’ve ever seen. This innovation was dreamt up to keep the locals, who didn’t fancy (quite literally) being in the shadow of their neighbour, onside.

I guess I will always remain excited by the prospect of any new stadium, hoping that the architects will have made the most of the available budget and endeavoured to find a solution that meets some of my three ‘i’s. I’m prepared for a few less inspirational creations, knowing that they will be balanced out by some real masterpieces that really do overwhelm the senses. All I can ask is that the look was considered at least as much as the functionality and that the ‘parents’ take their role very seriously. It shouldn’t take too much to make a new build stand out. If you’re in doubt, take inspiration from Bursaspor and wrap it with a big green crocodile!

Photo borrowed from gizmodo

This first post is just to give you a flavour of who I am and what you might expect to see on these pages in the coming weeks, months and years…

Why stadia gaga?

I love stadia*. Actually, I think I’m gaga^ about them.

*Inspired by reading Simon Inglis’s Sightlines (twice), I can’t now bring myself to talk about stadiums. Conversely, arenae is just weird, if it’s even a word, so I’ll stick to arenas. Fortunately, every other derivative needs a simple ‘s’ to make it plural!

^Nothing to do with Lady Gaga, about whom I have no strong views. More that I am excessively and foolishly enthusiastic or, perhaps, infatuated about these creations.

My thanks go to the ‘creative genius’ of Tom Allen for the name of this site, which came to him after he’d witnessed my excessive enthusiasm first hand.

What to expect

Whilst I intend to write primarily about stadia (this covers anything that can be referred to as a stadium, arena, bowl or ground), I’m also interested in any venue that spectators can go to in order to watch some kind of performance. It’s also quite likely I will find myself talking about theatres, cinemas, concert venues and more. And it’s entirely possible I may drift off topic from time to time, but I will try to relate everything back to stadia in some way.

Why am I doing this?

I’ve loved stadia for as long as I can remember. Whilst collecting football stickers and annuals, I was always drawn to the pages with photos and facts about the places that housed people in their tens of thousands in a shared desire to watch their team perform and, ideally, beat their opponents. For a junior geek, reading about the huge capacities and even more huge record attendances were addictive. And the photos always looked so inviting – especially those lit by blinding Spanish sunshine in my España 82 Panini sticker album. Whilst I love a good beach and natural beauty, these were like perfect holiday brochure vistas to me.

As time has passed, I’ve continued to be drawn to these structures, both large and small. I’ve toured a few as a member of the public, watched sports and concerts in some and been lucky enough to have worked in and around them in recent years. This has given me an opportunity to visit even more and gain a greater insight into their operation both empty and when full of fans. I’ve also found that I enjoy the contrast between the buzz of a venue in full swing and the slightly eerie tranquility when the bowl is empty.

I realise now that, had I put the pieces of the jigsaw together earlier, I should have become an architect or an engineer specialising in large, complex buildings. Now I have to settle with attending events and public tours, making the most of any work opportunities that bring me close to stadia and watching documentaries about their design and the challenges of building them. Additionally, I thought that writing about these majestic landmarks would bring me closer to making something resembling a picture from those puzzle pieces. It looks like this blog is the picture that is emerging.

Coming up…

As well as random thoughts that pop into my head and comments about stadia in the news, I’m looking to cover these topics (in no particular order) in a bit more detail in future posts…

• Variety, please!
• Embracing nature
• Lost
• Olympic legacy
• Over ambitious
• Size matters
• The sharing conundrum
• Future proofing
• New build or redevelop?

I do hope you come back and share this with as many people as you can. It’s amazing how many people either have an underlying passion for stadia, or simply great memories of their experience in one.

Back soon…