So he'd rather the ground was still a dump and not as spectator friendly when it rains? Odd attitude to have. I'd have thought the improvements would have played a part in increasing attendances.

I guess they'd rather have more money to throw at wages for over-rated players and staff instead.

Thats how i heard it. Franchising made them improve and now its been taken away.

Think the cost which was stated at 500k was the key issue especially for a club of our size and income streams. Basically that money could have been used in other areas.

I am glad they did do what they said they would re ground improvements and think had they not then the reasonably positive perception of the club that other clubs fans have would not be there

Got to remember also with plans to move to Newmarket in the pipeline it was always a significant investment for a short term benefit

I can't understand the need to see negativity in everything.

I read the piece on the website and come away feeling positive about where we are going and who is driving.

I think it's a silly thing to say really. I'd love to know what the money would have been spent on otherwise. Clubs should also look to improve facilities for supporters, whether they are forced to or not.

Agreed, but 500k is a lot of unnecessary expenditure. I love the roof and BV is at the loudest I have ever heard it but we are leaving soon (god feels nice to be able to say that) and the 500k could have been spent in other areas such as commercial or whatever.

Lets be right about it PopTart, it's par for the course

That's probably the big thing. If we were stopping here for the next 25 years it would be money well spent but for 2 or 3 not so much.

Didn't they say it was re-usable, so can be sold when we leave?

Whats done is done. RFL told us we need to make ammendments to our ground and we did it for nothing really with the licensing system on the way out..
I just hope they stick and see through what they're going to be doing with the Leagues and not changing it every x amount of years.

It was a throw away line. Lets not get too stressed about it.
If he;d said we were really happy to spend the money instead of on the youth development or we could have bought Kevin Sinfield but we were forced to buy a roof instead, I'm pretty sure you'd be moaning at that too.

All he is saying is that we were forced to do something rather than spend the money how we saw it

Maybe Feathestone (or Cas for that matter) will be interested in the feasibility of transferring the roof to their ground when the club departs BV.

My feeling at the time was that the stadium upgrades were effectively, buying our continued stay in SL; we were put on notice that our licence was under constant review and was contingent on stadium shortfalls being rectified - we did what we were told to keep them off our backs.

With hindsight, I'm not surprised that there's some irritation about the cost, given that Cas were on the same licence warning and having done absolutely zip about the state of WR, don't appear to have suffered any of the consequences that being on a conditional licence were supposed to incur.

I wouldn't read too much into it - a cash-strapped business was forced to spend £500k on something that turned out to be unnecessary; any CEO would be hard pressed not to express a view. That's not to suggest they wouldn't have made improvements, but maybe they'd have done it in a different, more cost-effective way.

You see there we are again, people picking up on one thing to gripe about instead if talking about the more favorable things .
Come on, loosen up a bit.
I would be more than a little irritated if I was Glover and had shelled out that amount of cash when perhaps it could of gone on other things.
Anyhow it was one small aside , in fact an answer to a question .

Its certainly not helped AG or the club, some small improvements did get made on the ground before the sheds went up and that would have been enough imo.

So i won't be reading anything into it.

The sheds may well be one of the reasons why our crowd numbers have held up this season. They've certainly given the place a bit more atmosphere and tempted people to turn up when wet weather has been forecast who may well have stayed away.

Where was the interview any link to listen again?

All in all I think the news coming out of the club is positive. As a fan uncertainty surrounding your club is never nice and fair play to the club for putting us in the picture. Regaring the roof - could it be worth writing a creative letter to the rfl asking for a contribution

Good idea, it is quite an iconic roof!

No.

If the roof is resaleable?
Why not sell it on to raise funds?
Why we need a roof for summer rugby is beyond me!
Might have been thankful in the old days when we used to get rain/hail/snowed on!!
It was always a poor investment and could have held off the RFL with Newmarket on the horizon!!!

You are aware that only 3 months of a 9 month season is played during summer, and even then I wouldnt exactly categorise an English summer as a dry one.

The new covers were put up when the RFL still had a bee in their bonnet re new stadiums and NM still hadnt had approval from the SOS. Trinity were on a conditional license subject to spectator facilities.. Its unfair to judge it now.

Last season it peed it down for a few home games. Obviously sods law comes in to play once we built the stand

Then it becomes a dual purpose stand, an umbrella in the rain and a parasol in the sun.