The Big Interview

[KRS]

I'm pretty sure the safe standing option in parts of the ground would be part of their plans to boost the capacity rather than 60k all seater.

[IFWaters]

Make Lower Holte all safe standing, build new North Stand and I'd say we'd have all we'll ever need no matter how successful we got.

This. It'd look great too if the North stand was done properly.

Ive changed my mind. New North Stand and McGrath stand to mirror the Holte and Trinity takes you to 53k. Knock the top bit off the Holte and extend and rebuild it as a single tier standing with capacity increased from 13k seated to 25k standing to pip the Sudtribune as the largest end stand in the world.

The other stuff about 4 seperate stands, brick etc all stands.

[PeterWithesShin]

I doubt we can do much with Witton Lane, we can't build over the road like we did with the Trinity so we're stuffed.

[AV82EC]

Whenever we have this discussion I always say we should make the Holte one tier, it would add so much to the atmosphere. Safe standing the whole thing would be fantastic.

Knock down the North and rebuild with safe standing bottom tier and seated upper tier. No need to touch Trinity or Witton Lane.

All that should have us at 60ish.

[dave.woodhall]

Whenever we have this discussion I always say we should make the Holte one tier, it would add so much to the atmosphere. Safe standing the whole thing would be fantastic.

Knock down the North and rebuild with safe standing bottom tier and seated upper tier. No need to touch Trinity or Witton Lane.

All that should have us at 60ish.

When the new Holte was being built it was found that a single tier stand of such capacity would have sightlines too far away from the pitch to meet regulations. And yes, St James Park...

[IFWaters]

I would be interested what the regulations are and whether they are applied to the sudtribune as well. Does anyone have an idea what capacity of existing Holte would be as safe standing, ie like German standing areas ?

[Ads]

Dortmund reduce capacity my about 15,000 so at a guess, it's 7-8000 more standing than seating. Lower Holte has 8,000 so you'd probably get an extra 2,000-3500 in there.

[SoccerHQ]

If the North Stand is completely rebuilt I'd imagine some of that would be set aside for safe standing.

[Stu]

Heard all the same crap from various directors (or whatever) over the years. I'll believe a corner has been turned when it happens.

[FatSam]

Whenever we have this discussion I always say we should make the Holte one tier, it would add so much to the atmosphere. Safe standing the whole thing would be fantastic.

Knock down the North and rebuild with safe standing bottom tier and seated upper tier. No need to touch Trinity or Witton Lane.

All that should have us at 60ish.

When the new Holte was being built it was found that a single tier stand of such capacity would have sightlines too far away from the pitch to meet regulations. And yes, St James Park...

I don't know for sure, but Spurs are building a single tier stand of a similar if not larger scale, so I would be surprised if this was the case. A single tier that is gently curved (or perhaps faceted) to get steeper towards the top and provide better sight lines wouldn't be a bad thing in my opinion. You would still have the experience in the stand of being part of an immense mass of humanity - in fact you would be able to see the other parts of the stand and therefore be perhaps more aware of it. However, I do like the unreconstructed (in the other sense) simplicity of a sheer single tier stand. I do like the brutal simplicity of Kaiserslautern's stadium:



There is no point trying to compete with completely new stadiums like Tottenham, Arsenal, Man City etc. in terms of being a perfectly implemented stadium concept. The redevelopment at Anfield is a better model in my opinion. It is perhaps obvious that Fenway Sports Group's experience with Fenway Park will have influenced this. Better to see Villa Park as a Fenway Park or Wrigley Field, and acknowledging what makes it special and distinctive and trying to enhance that is the important thing - part of this is the four individual stands. There is no doubt that recent developments have lowered the quality/ distinctiveness of the ground, even if there is an argument that they were necessary to meet contemporary expectations. I would like to see future redevelopment increase capacity whilst improving the quality of the architecture and enhancing the distinctiveness. I don't automatically trust Xia/ Wyness to do this, but then I wouldn't have trusted Doug to do it either.

I can't believe that Xia/ Wyness would start increasing the capacity to 60k immediately on promotion. I think Wyness is just saying that to make it sound like there is a lot going on behind the scenes. There is an enormous gap between initial thoughts about redevelopment, and actually having concrete plans. I agree with him that regenerating the area around the ground will be important. For a start it will help all of the other activities that go on at the ground through the rest of the week, and that are needed to make it viable. The previous regime were waiting to see if there was sufficient demand before investing in the ground - but it didn't materialise, even with significant (but misplaced) investment in the team. However, it feels like we have been making ourselves irrelevant over the part 20 years, and are now so far behind the clubs that should be our peers that it is difficult to make comparisons.

[ChicagoLion]

All seems a bit redundant now.
Wyness must have really believed that his faith in Bruce was about to be repaid to be involved in that level of hyperboll.
What an idiot.

[itbrvilla]

All seems a bit redundant now.
Wyness must have really believed that his faith in Bruce was about to be repaid to be involved in that level of hyperboll.
What an idiot.

A prize part, full of shit. Get the fucking basics right.

[Des Little]

How's that engine looking, Keith?

[ASHTONVILLA]

Run out of steam engine

[passport1]

I think the Fat Controller has run it into the buffers.