The Kraken

Very debatable. A football stadium, particularly in Southampton, is only worth anything as a football stadium, it doesn't really do anything else. So it's only worth that money if someone will come in and actually pay the price for it. Take St. Mary's for instance; it cost £32M to build. Did it add £32M to the share price? Only going by memor, but the share price in the last few months prior to our ultimate demise as a PLC only priced the whole of SLH at around £15M or so; and that included the training ground, Jackson's Farm etc. It's a very imprecise calculation to just say that what you spend on infrastructure gets instantly added to the value of the club. Cost doesn't alwalys equal value, or price; particularly when investing in something as specific as a football-only stadium.

It's a shame, but the only thing crazy were the Premier League rules that prevented us from playing decent teams when we were relegated to the Championship. Despite our team always having done well in the reserve league, just because the first team weren't in the Premier League we couldn't participate in a league against the likes of Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal etc and instead had to fill a league with, literally, Forest Green Rovers. So, with the prospects of the likes of a weekday evening trip to Gloucester, to play against the reserves of a team not even in the football league, I can fully understand why the club pulled out of the league; they get much more flexibility over who they play and when. Look at today, de Ridder and Barnard involved, and without any extensive travelling or a late finish they can be in training tomorrow as usual.

Sadly I can see this happening too. In previous years we've had a much lower allocation and it's always gone well beyond the ballot. Add in the travel restrictions, most notably for those who live outside Southampton, plus all the other little bits and pieces (plus that it's on terrestrial TV) and I just wouldn't be surprised if we were well below capacity on the day.

That would be logical, wouldn't it? No, the club have said that they will not allow that. The coach ticket has to be collected prior to the day itself.

And that's assuming that the investment comes in the form of an interest free loan; at £50M, that's quite an assumption. Any interest payable on that amount of expenditure is going to set that break-even figure back even further.

I do agree with this. The bubble trip; I don't necessarily agree that we've completely bypassed other measures (such as holdback and segregation after the game) to get to where we are, but clearly something had to change from years gone past and while the bubble is draconian, it's a tried and tested procedure for minimising trouble. The sad actions of a number of fans from both sides has therefore unfortunately led to this. Not mailing out coach tickets though is just unexplainable, at least by any rational logic. And it totally smacks of making attending the match as hard as possible for supporters, IMO.

I think it's perhaps a start to look at how much Wolves are spending; they have budgeted £40M to rebuild two stands (Stan Cullis and Steve Bull stands) and take their capacity from 29,303 to 36,000. So that's a capacity increase of 6,697, or to put it another way, just under £6,000 per seat. Using those figures alone, taking our capacity to increase the size of the Kingland and give us a 40,000 odd capacity would cost around £50M. Kind of puts it into perspective a little, doesn't it?

Sadly, I don't believe it would. I would actually almost bet on the fact that the police are hoping for lower numbers, as it makes their job easier. And I doubt the clubs are all that bothered either. It strikes me that the clubs really wouldn't be fussed if the police "instructed" them that all future games had to be home-fans only. It would certainly save spending out on such a mammoth policing effort.

You're missing my point (again). I've said I think we would sell more tickets than capacity, especially against the top teams. What I don't know is by how much, whether it's tens, hundreds or thousands, and if so, how many thousands? And I simply don't believe there's any point in speculating how big a stadium we should build until we have a pretty reliable indicator as to how many people are going to come and actually fill it. So please understand that, unlike you, I don't believe we have this reliable figure yet. I've really got no idea what you're saying here. Stadium expansion at St. Mary's allows us a number of options which can all be implemented independently. So we could go to 36,000. We could go to 40,000. We could go to 44,000. Or we could go to 48,000. At any time; no need to do it all at once. It's the lowest-risk opportunity to build abigger stadium incrementally to satisfy any extra demand (rather than build a brand new one). St. Mary's wouldn't get knocked down to build a brand new 38K seater stadium; one stand would be added to, to either create a 36,000 stadium or 40,000 stadium (depending on which stand). I'm really confused what you mean there, so that's the best interpretation of it I can give. And I've answered the post about Wolves.

Disingenuous really; firstly, we're not Wolves. Secondly, as you say only phase 2 is guaranteed for now. And also, some of the stands that they are knocking down are undergoing a massive improvement so it's not being done just as a capcity increase, it's increasing the facilities on offer. In any case, who knows what evidence they've used? But I'd hope and expect that it would be along the lines of the evidence I've told you in this thread that I'd look for; namely: - what is their season ticket base, and how close to home capacity is it? In fact, do they have a season ticket waiting list? - how many games sell out? - how quickly do these games sell out? Is it hours before the game or is it more? - if certain high-demand home games went to a ballot, just how many fans would want to go? Whether they've done that, I don't know. But I'd certainly hope that they have, rather than just pluck a figure out of the air because it sounds nice. For what it's worth, my mate is a Wolves fan and often goes to their games, he thinks the potential of them actually getting on with the full implementation of the final phase is pie in the sky. But that's just his opinion.

I'm sorry, but I won't respond to it as there is no evidence. Read your last sentence; you're asking me to speculate if we could potentially sell more tickets, and by how much. I've already said I THINK we probably could sell more, but in the light of neither seeing no evidence nor being made aware of any, I have no idea to suggest if it would be by tens, hundreds or thousands. And I've already highlighted the manner in which I think this evidence can and will be gathered; so please don't continually question me on this, I have no wish to keep labouring the same point over and over again. Firstly, I'm not sure if I do agree that there's no point in only increasing to, say 38k, no. The Northam, Chapel and Kingsland stands can all be increased in size independently. Northam and Chapel by 4,000 seats each, Kingsland by 8,000. So it's obvious we have various options available to us. We could increase to 36,000 with a couple of different options, or we could increase to 40,000, again with a couple of different options. If you're asking for a prediction, I honestly have no idea. I do not have a clue what sort of maximum crowds we could get on a regular basis in the Premier League. I know I don't agree with you that a 50K stadium is realistic, as I don't think we'd even sell that many for even one league game per year unless we gave a huge amount to travelling supporters and discounted loads more, which really defeats the object. I would suggest what I would like to happen (if we do find that demand is there) would be for the Kingsland to be expanded, and so take capacity to 40K. Most of that is based upon aesthetics though, a ground with either just the Chapel/Northam expanded would look a bit weird.

I'm not sure if the whole MK "experiment" is all that viable. Huge stadium, yet last season their highest league crowd was just under 12,000 and their average for the season only 8,500. We, Leeds, Norwich etc have shown what sort of crowds can be achieved in that division. Unless MK's owners have got some brilliant ideas beyond football up their sleeves for the additional capacity, I can't see the stadium as becoming anything other than a huge white elephant.

This is the only bit I'm going to respond to, because the rest of your post is just speculative and you're trying to argue a point I'm just not going to waste my time discussing without any evidence, which you clearly don't have. Cortese made public the fact that he would not rule anything in or our with regard to either a new stadium or a bigger one. He also said that it was a long way off. Only you have turned that into a "promise" that we're going to start building soon, and that the evidence is there we need one. Cortese has never said that; ever. He's said that he would look to support it if the demand were there. Massive difference. If Cortese believed the demand were there for a huge 50K stadium (as I believe you've pushed for in the past) I just don't understand why we would not be building one now. Why he would not be talking about his grand plan, about the evidence he has to hand about our enormous supporter base, and how plans were being submitted/approved so that we have this new stadium in time for the PL. Why he would not be putting the marketing steps in right now to ensure that 50K stadium will be full up when we kick off in the PL. But then I'm pretty sure I know why that's not happening. And while i commend how optimistic you are about the situation, unfortunately I cannot see anywhere beyond the naievety of your belief, and I'm sorry but none of your lecturing is going to make me think otherwise.

It's a dreadful business plan. You don't build a bigger stadium to then have to rely upon the bigger clubs bringing a huge away contingent to fill it. You don't build a bigger stadium to give away free/cheap tickets just to fill it. How many of the other stadia in the PL that were expanded then decided to double their away allocation. It doesn't happen, and there's a very good business reason for it. You only build a bigger stadium because there is an obvious short term and long term demand for more home tickets.

And your memories seem to clash very much from others on here; others (including myself) who can't remember having too much difficulty getting to games when they wanted to. Again, without any clear evidence either way you're trying to enter into a debate based upon speculation. I think you're being a bit dim if you think I'm saying that demand for tickets will decrease if we go up. I've never said that, and I think you know that. Even in this thread you can read where I've agreed with David in Sweden that gates of 35K - 40K against the top sides are potentially within our reach, in time. What I have consistently maintained however, and it is a point that you have continually argued against, is that there is no evidence that we could sustain such a 40,000 seater stadium. We would likely sell some tickets above 32,000, I don't think that's ever been in doubt for the bigger games. What is a massive doubt is just how many over 32,000 we could sell. And the only way for the current owners to start figuring that out is to get back to the Premier League and put some proper checks and balances in place. Such as: - what is our season ticket base, and how close to home capacity is it? - how many games sell out? - how quickly do these games sell out? Is it hours before the game (such as our recent game against West Ham) or is it more? - if certain high-demand home games went to a ballot, just how many fans would want to go? Only some of these answers can be found using empirical evidence; maybe the club has access to it, maybe they don't. Other questions, particularly the last one, can only be ascertained as and when we get to the PL. And I feel for certain that Mr. Cortese will adopt this policy rather than your one of "we don't need to wait and see". which is why expansion of capacity is still massively premature.

Here we go yet again. You have absolutely no evidence whatsoever but continue to come out with "factual" lines such as "a lot of games sold out long in advance of matchday". How many games? How long in advance of matchday? Without that evidence all of your posturing and speculation is baseless and therefore just idle gossip. As for your "If the club is promoted it will return to this straight away, no need to wait and see". The lack of evidence clearly lies in the fact that we're not expanding already; thank God that Cortese seemingly has a sounder business mind than you.

Yep, a fair assessment, though I think we'll need to see sustained sell-outs over a number of seasons and a higher season ticket base than we've ever seen before it actually happens. This is the issue that gets so overlooked in the whole debate; at the time of building St. Mary's it was estimated that stadium expansion would cost £3,000 per extra seat. Given that was nearly ten years ago now, and with staff and material costs only having increased in that time, you're talking at least £4,000 to £5,000 per additional seat, potentially even higher than that. So to take the capacity of St. Mary's up to 40,000, that's a potential additional cost of £30M - £40M (minimum). More than the cost to build the original stadium. That money isn't just going to present itself, there's going to have to be a very real potential for earning that outlay back from increased revenues within a relatively short timeframe. For as long as the FA have got the financial millstone of Wemblet Stadium around their neck, international football will be going nowhere else. Even if it did, the FA are all about maximising revenues which means the likes of Old Trafford, Emirates, St. James Park, Stadium of Light etc etc would be in the queue way before us.

Don't think there's anything stopping you from going to watch? I assume you mean the scheduling, weekdays at 2pm doesn't do everyone a massive favour...

It may well have changed since, I'm not 100% sure; but I lived in a flat in central town during the design/build and at the time there were loads of discussions about crowds, noise etc whereby the club had to satisfy a certain number of conditions. One of those was that the club wanted to maximise revenues from the stadium but there was a lot of opposition to having regular football plus regular concerts etc, which was why the 1 per year limit was put on it.

A condition of getting planning permission for the stadium was that it would only host a maximum of one concert per year, no more. We are therefore extremely limited in what else we could use the ground for; no local rugby club to host, minimal concerts, aside from the hospitality side there's not a great deal of other uses for it. Which makes the decision whether to spend another £30M just to bring the capacity up to 40K an extremely important one, and one that should not under any circumstances be rushed into.

No reason they couldn't sign as a partner for Lambert, or just a completely different option. I'm sure Nigel Adkins would love a proper opportunity to rest RL once in a while for games, or certainly to bring him off after an hour or so as he has done with Connolly. To be fair to Guly though, since being moved up front he seems to be on a mission to prove he can do the striker's job himself. Also credit in that department to Chalow for his stints at RM (and LM against Reading) which have been superb. Agree about a keeper; you just have to look at Ali Al Habsi at Wigan to see the level of goalkeeping that is now required at even a lower-ranked Premier League team. The standards that Niemi set while with us need to be the benchmark, and as decent as Kelvin has been for us I don't quite hold him up in that bracket.

I think he's the victim of not being good enough, really. Despite some important goals he's never really looked like he could make a lasting impact for us in the league; as has been said he was probably bought with "impact sub" in mind, but having been overtaken by de Ridder, Forte has really gone backwards and probably isn't doing himself any favours at all by missing out on so much game time. I of course wish him no ill will and, if he does leave, I hope he can push on and pick his career back up again. But he unfortunately will go down as a signing for us that just didn't work out.

Came second in the mascot race; too tired to mascot since. Great late burst to beat the daffodil though.

The best reason I can see so far is so that the majority of our fans can work out that it's called the Premier League, and not the Premiership.

I only remember it as a Leeds song; can't remember us ever singing it before.