Stadium Expansion

[leicesterseddon]

40 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

How long does it take to draw plans up ?? The original announcement was over two years ago (3 if you include Top's on Vickie Park). Seems the shift towards Seagrave wasn't on the agenda at the time and that's changed everything.... which is fair enough but just give us an indication that is the strategy. I tend to believe that very little, if anything, is happening as any proposals will need to be done alongside the council and if that were the case it would've leaked by now.

 

Wolves (and even the Snotties) manage to let their fans know of the clubs stadium expansion intentions but we are always kept in the dark.

 

It’s probably sensible to focus on the training ground first, but I do think the club may have over-inflated expectations by saying they would work on both at the same time. 

 

Having said that, it may be Vichai’s death that has changed the timescale. We just don’t know for sure really. 

 

Whatever it is, they would be sensible to wait until they actually have deliverable plans before they announce anything. 

 

Wolves for example have released an image (and a rather basic one at that) of what they ‘hope’ Molineux will look like, at some undefined stage in the future. 

 

As far as I can tell there are no actual building plans, no dates, no indication of how it will be paid for, etc. 

 

The problem if you release a mock-up image on its own is you can get everyone excited without being necessarily able to deliver. 

[st albans fox]

As with most things that happen at our club, many will be surprised at the time scales when the announcement eventually comes 

 

 

[red5]

The plans should have been done when it was clear we were going to win the championship, the east stand extension would have been done during the great escape season.

We would have had 40k for the title winning season and all members would have made the Everton game instead of being sacked off for a load of thai's who had never been to a game.

 

 #lcfc Together we are one

[Stoopid]

13 hours ago, Stadt said:

We’re a bit weird in the sense that our support doesn’t really come from the city as (in my experience) most of our fans are from the county.

Really?

I find that questionable to say the least. Unless you conduct an exhaustive survey, it's rather hard to be sure.

Maybe it's true, which might go someway to explain the pervasive gentrification and decline in atmosphere discussed so much on this forum.

The county has always seemed a weird place to me, full of Tigers fans and Tories.

But if my experience is anything to go by, there's still fervent and widespread support for The City in the city.

[MattFox]

2 hours ago, MarriedaLeicesterGirl said:

My kids' school is almost exclusively Leicester City on sports day -- 10 years ago? Not so much (so I'm told).

I am constantly told by parents that they are "surprised" I got tickets to the game, because they thought it was nearly impossible. They also are unaware how inexpensive it can be, especially in the family stand. 

There won't be a problem filling 40,000+ because there are a bunch of people who right now don't even try to get tickets because it was impossible 3 years ago.

 

Club are hopeless at advertising.

 

Loads of games made general sale last season often with the entire block next to the away end available, but you’d have never known unless you check the site.

 

 

[Sol thewall Bamba]

3 hours ago, SemperEadem said:

Price match day tickets right and they will come.

 

The new under 16 bracket helps this.

This. Season ticket prices are pretty good but match by match tickets are bad. We won't tell 10K tickets in an extended East stand if we're charging £40 to watch Bournemouth and Palace.

[Sol thewall Bamba]

11 minutes ago, MattFox said:

 

Club are hopeless at advertising.

 

Loads of games made general sale last season often with the entire block next to the away end available, but you’d have never known unless you check the site.

 

 

It's probably because gate money is small fry for us now. 10 or so years back when it made a difference they'd bang the drum and rightly so, I remember them calling you directly asking if you fancied going. Now with the money floating around, having 1000 seats returned by the away side going unsold makes so little difference to the bottom line they just won't bother. 

[MattFox]

13 hours ago, Stevosevic said:

Being out of the prem for 10 years we probably lost a large chunk of a generation to sky TV and the top 6. 

 

Remain in the prem and young children are more likely to start following us and attendances will grow. 

 

Being out of the prem for 10 years can really hurt you in terms of converting local youngsters. 

We still averaged over 20,000 every season in the championship and League 1 , despite high ticket prices 

 

Forest were getting below 20,000 when they were struggling in the championship likewise Coventry could barely scrape 20,000 when they were mid table championship 

 

Even Leeds were only averaging around 23000 until they started getting good again despite having double the population of Leicester 

 

Our support has never been poor

[Paninistickers]

1 hour ago, Stoopid said:

Really?

I find that questionable to say the least. Unless you conduct an exhaustive survey, it's rather hard to be sure.

Maybe it's true, which might go someway to explain the pervasive gentrification and decline in atmosphere discussed so much on this forum.

The county has always seemed a weird place to me, full of Tigers fans and Tories.

But if my experience is anything to go by, there's still fervent and widespread support for The City in the city.

Depends on the definition of 'county'...those who live in syston, Birstall, Anstey, Blaby, Enderby, wigston, Oadby etc etc would consider themselves as suburban city people I.e. 'greater Leicester'....yet technically are county.

 

The middle england county towns/villages kibworth, Oakham, bosworth. Ashby. Quorn are more tigers

[Stevosevic]

12 minutes ago, MattFox said:

We still averaged over 20,000 every season in the championship and League 1 , despite high ticket prices 

 

Forest were getting below 20,000 when they were struggling in the championship likewise Coventry could barely scrape 20,000 when they were mid table championship 

 

Even Leeds were only averaging around 23000 until they started getting good again despite having double the population of Leicester 

 

Our support has never been poor

Well I never said it was poor...

 

But if you're out of the prem for 10 years you're going to lose some local youngsters. 

 

If you're a 7 year old and your local team is flirting with relegation from the Championship as we were - you're going to lose a lot to sky TV and the big 6. 

Especially if your parents are not from the Leicester area so there is no forceful parent 

 

If you're a 7 year old now, with Leicester a top half Prem side and people like Jamie Vardy you've got a much better chance of them becoming a Leicester fan.

 

 

[Apollo]

Few more years of 9-10th everywhere interest will wane slightly - don’t agree with “build it and they will come” wouldn’t like to see us go past 40,000 personally 

[Stoopid]

12 minutes ago, Paninistickers said:

Depends on the definition of 'county'...those who live in syston, Birstall, Anstey, Blaby, Enderby, wigston, Oadby etc etc would consider themselves as suburban city people I.e. 'greater Leicester'....yet technically are county.

 

The middle england county towns/villages kibworth, Oakham, bosworth. Ashby. Quorn are more tigers

Fair point.

[splinterdream]

3 hours ago, MarriedaLeicesterGirl said:

My kids' school is almost exclusively Leicester City on sports day -- 10 years ago? Not so much (so I'm told).

I am constantly told by parents that they are "surprised" I got tickets to the game, because they thought it was nearly impossible. They also are unaware how inexpensive it can be, especially in the family stand. 

There won't be a problem filling 40,000+ because there are a bunch of people who right now don't even try to get tickets because it was impossible 3 years ago.

Agreed, there is literally no marketing, with some effort you could easily attract more people.

[Ted Maul]

15 minutes ago, Apollo said:

Few more years of 9-10th everywhere interest will wane slightly - don’t agree with “build it and they will come” wouldn’t like to see us go past 40,000 personally 

Interest might dip, but I'd rather it went down by a couple of thousand from 42,000 than 32,000.

 

It's all about having the room when demand is high, and it is at the moment. 

[splinterdream]

17 minutes ago, Apollo said:

Few more years of 9-10th everywhere interest will wane slightly - don’t agree with “build it and they will come” wouldn’t like to see us go past 40,000 personally

Short sighted, you can keep saying what if all you like but businesses need to move forward whilst they can, if team position were to get worse in the future you'd still successfully be building a core support of die hards, you deny future increases in attendance and you're a standing still as a club. You increase attendance and you attract better players as well. 

[Guest Markyblue]

3 minutes ago, splinterdream said:

Short sighted, you can keep saying what if all you like but businesses need to move forward whilst they can, if team position were to get worse in the future you'd still successfully be building a core support of die hards, you deny future increases in attendance and you're a standing still as a club. You increase attendance and you attract better players as well. 

Absolutely spot on mate,  the most successful period in our history must see tangible benefits ie new training ground and ground expansion. 

 

 

 

[sylofox]

53 minutes ago, MattFox said:

 

Our support has never been poor

Perhaps not in your life time. But 8k in a 30k filbert Street was poor. We've had some pretty grim turn outs in the past. 

[red5]

3 minutes ago, sylofox said:

Perhaps not in your life time. But 8k in a 30k filbert Street was poor. We've had some pretty grim turn outs in the past. 

30k?

[Apollo]

11 minutes ago, red5 said:

30k?

Terraces 

[sylofox]

14 minutes ago, red5 said:

30k?

It wasn't always all seated. Football really did exist before the Premier league. Perhaps you should look at some of our attendance records

[splinterdream]

Football attendances suffered during hooliganism period but filbert street saw a record attendance of 47,290 in the 20's, bet the cities population was half of what it is now

[sylofox]

4 minutes ago, splinterdream said:

Football attendances suffered during hooliganism period but filbert street saw a record attendance of 47,290 in the 20's, bet the cities population was half of what it is now

71/72 we averaged 28.5k the eighties we dipped as low as 11k average I think capacity was around 34k then. 

[MarriedaLeicesterGirl]

1 hour ago, splinterdream said:

Agreed, there is literally no marketing, with some effort you could easily attract more people.

What I can't do right now is organize a day to go to the game with classmates, since I have memberships for the family, it's easy to get four together -- when things hit general sale, it's hard to get 8 seats together. Frankly, if it were easier to organize multi-family tickets for individual games, you'd sell more.

 

In addition, the Tigers this season have pushed special school offers this year, due to their atrocious form. City doesn't have enough available seats to do something similar.

 

Right now, the club does very little marketing (aside to those already following it on social media or already members). 

[MarriedaLeicesterGirl]

11 minutes ago, sylofox said:

71/72 we averaged 28.5k the eighties we dipped as low as 11k average I think capacity was around 34k then. 

My mother-in-law stopped taking my wife and brother to the games in this period because of the "negative element." My brother-in-law is now an Arsenal fan.

[Gazza M]

Essential as we look to grow. 45,000 would be nice.