Theres nothing wrong with thinking big...

Not at all. Maybe only 2 sell outs but you'd rather get the extra thousand in there! Also what would happen if this year had 6/7 sell outs yet no plans to increase? Makes sense all around to me.

Makes sense to me, even if we DONT sell out a lot of games, it'll save the stewards (if you can even call them that) from walking up and down and squishing everyone in shifting them off the beloved yellow lines! i might have a bit of room to hold a pie as well as my 2 pinter!

Fantastic news- the return of Windy Corner!

Build it and they will come...

I remember 18 months ago Andy Gatcliffe saying that the fans needed to give him a reason to increase the capacity of the ground - that hasn't happened as yet - It's a nice to have not an essential. Even challenge cup semis dont sell out.
So are we loading unnecessary debt onto the club?

Need a new Pond Life Corner

I've heard the club are planning to try and tap into the towns polish community by naming the extension 'Polski Skelp'.

Great News.

doesnt matter that we dont sell out every week, how many people will be missing this Saturday and watching on tv because the South stand is sold out, I'd wager its a few...

the talk of only expanding when every games a sell out is a nonsense, if it ends up being a bit difficult to attend every Wires home game and certainly the big ones then we could end up losing fans to our neighbours and with Saints new ground on the horizon they are going to potentially steal a few warringtonians (the less bright and slightly odd Warringtonians but Warringtonians none the less).


I think there'll be more doom mongers from other clubs putting a negative spin on our positive work.
but we should leave them to stew in their flasks of hot Bovril.

I'm not bothered that we won't fill every week yet, if we carry on the way we are and the board carry on they way they are, promoting off field i think by 2014 we'll start seeing regular 13k crowds for some of the lesser supported games

The South Stand sells out quite often, it's common sense to increse the terracing in that Stand. The larger the ground, the more major events it will get picked for.

what as that got to do with expansion

it would help if you had a brain

I don't see how an expansion can be a bad thing. It's not like it's going to divert funds away from the on field activities.

Even if the extension is only really utilised for the games against Wigan and Saints it's still worth doing.

Good news.
The only worry for me re attendances, is the amount of specs some teams bring with them
Bradford used to travel in their thousands when they were in their pomp, now it's down to a couple of hundred (if they're lucky). Admittedly, they couldn't win a raffle with only 2 tickets sold, over the last few years.
Another, who's travelling support to the HJ over the last few years has dwindled, are this week's visitors. The game from a couple of years, being a case in point. SL champs bringing just a few hundred wasn't very good. A few of these games, have also been shown on Sky (which will affect numbers) but still, not great travelling support from big name teams.

Surely, we're not THAT horrible to away teams, are we?

oh the irony of that post, the word you were looking for was "has", we will expand as we need to, whether you see fit or not.

does anybody else find the terracing corner will be blocked slightly be the seats in that area? or is there a way around it so that if that corner is packed, everyone can see?

Perspex divide, like the zoo.

If the cap fits..............

I'm sure this will be a popular thread, if it turns in to (yet another) Wire/Wigan sausage contest people are having a week off.

personally i think the sausages in wigan are rubbish.... warrington has a much better quality of sausage.

Great News!

One question..how can you have seated specs directly next to standing specs... They have obviously thought of this (they must have done), but I'll be interested to see how they will manage this.

Also... if the builders are moving in "in the summer", one must assume that we will have to decrease the capacity whilst work is ongoing at some point?

The Warrington Guardian piece was great until the Gatcliffe quote

"Look at Manchester United. They made their ground bigger and they still fill it"

Whilst I am delighted by both the ambition and optomism shown by the club, I'm a little concerned by the maths.

If, by virtue of the increased capacity, Warrington have the opportunity to sell an extra 2,000 tickets, this would give extra revenue of £40k each time a 15,000 sell out were achieved (given a cost of say £20.00 per ticket).

So, if one game per season was a 15,000 sell out this would give extra annual revenue of 40k, if two games sell out an extra 80k would be generated, 3 games 120k, 4 games 160k, 5 games 200k and so on.

Given that the building costs have been quoted as "circa £2 million" (presumably this is ex VAT) and that this the work comes in on price and on schedule, it would take the following number of years before a profit is realised on the investment:-

2 sell outs per season = 25 years
3 sell outs per season = 16.6 years
4 sell outs per season = 12.5 years
5 sell outs per season = 10 years

My figures, whilst admittedly very basic, make no allowance for any interest payments (assuming that a loan will be taken out to cover the building costs), additional maintenance, insurance, general running costs etc,etc all of which will prolong these periods.

I'm sure that the club will have taken great care in costing the expansion, but as I have illustrated above it can only possibly work if the new 15,000 capacity is achieved on a far more of a regular basis than just Saints and Wigan games - otherwise I fear that a significant rise in ticket costs will have to be implimented to help recover the costs.

The designers have come up with some new fangled idea and untested at the present moment and could make or break the deal. It's called a dividing wall.

Trust them, this has been going on for some time, there was an announcement at least a year ago about a partnership with one of the banks.

I have every faith in the management of the club, they have obviously thought long and hard about the decision, and published the plans after studying the figures and consulting the builders etc. To suggest they hasven't discussed in detail the afore mentioned issues is an insult to their intelligence.

Expanding the stadium is the next logical step for the club, not only will it increase attendances, it will improve the match day experience for everyone.

So let me get this right...we shouldn't expand the stadium because we don't sell it out on a consistent basis?

Anyway I am glad that the people who made the decision to have a capacity at the HJ of around 13-14k at a time we had average attendances of 6k in a 9k capacity stadium at Wilderspool, are the same people who are making this decision.

Well done WWRLFC!