Cottage: Long or short stay?
Arenafrågan fortsätter; I dagens Fulham & Hammersmith Chronicle skriver Emily Williamson om BTTC's kommande möte med klubben.
Dedicated Fulham fans will present their plans for a return to Craven Cottage to the club next week. Campaign group Back To The Cottage (BTTC) has already given details of long and short-term scenarios for the club’s return at a supporters’ meeting.
Goda nyheter, klubben tar BTTC på allvar och att man startar en dialog stärker trovärdigheten hos kampanjen.
The research has been done by Peter Hyams, John Burns and Kevin Shea, who have consulted architects and stadium building specialists, talked to them on and off site, and studied issues such as seating regulations and building costs to come up with the plan.
Mr Hyams said: ‘We’ve had a fantastic reaction from supporters, both at the meeting and afterwards. They particularly liked the fact that we had done our homework and were able to give detailed reasons for all the points we were making - our figures weren’t just plucked out of the air.’
He added: ‘We offer our ideas as a reality check to the chairman and everyone who loves Fulham. Whether we have a capacity in the 24,000s or the 28,000s, we’ll still have the ground of a typical Division One, or small Premiership club in terms of raw numbers.
‘But going for the lower figure does three things - it saves a disproportionate amount of money. It leaves the ground’s outstanding architectural heritage and character intact and it opens the possibility of using aspects of the ground outside matchdays. With a capacity of about 24,000 the council may be more amenable to uses which the club has worked out in consultation with residents.
‘You’d anticipate for sure that the neighbours wouldn’t want a nightclub on the site, but would, for example, a really nice café on the river be a blight on the area?’
Här belyser Hyams en viktig del. Även om klubben väljer att gå vidare med de planer som tagits fram av BTTC så finns problemet med Fulham Alliance kvar. Om dessa får säga sitt och att en dialog även inkluderar dem och deras intressen så kan processen gå smidigare. Men visst, vi (klubben) har rätten på vår sida och har redan vunnit i domstol en gång så vill de gå den hårda vägen så är det upp till dem.
Nu har jag personligen aldrig hört talas om planer på någon nattklubb i anslutning till arenan i ursprungsplanerna, men även om det skulle stämma så känns ett café mer rätt.
Absolut viktigast är nog ändå att man gjort sin hemläxa och konsulterat proffs på respektive specialområde.
Short term
Under BTTC’s plans, for £1 million Fulham FC could return to Craven Cottage with a short-term fix and 17,500 capacity. Arena Seating Ltd, based in Hungerford, are specialists in temporary and bolt-on seating - and has worked on sporting events such as Wimbledon and the British Grand Prix.
The budget quotation given to BTTC from the firm is subject to a detailed specification, which can be drawn up for free if Fulham FC’s board is seriously interested. It shows for just under £1m seats could be installed on re-profiled terracing at the Hammersmith end and the Stevenage Road enclosure and on temporary structures at a demolished Putney end, with such a scheme being implemented at about four months’ notice.
Seating at the Putney end and front section of the Hammersmith end would stay uncovered, but BTTC cites the away end at Fratton Park, Portsmouth, as another example of uncovered Premiership seating. In a statement it said: ‘BTTC favours the £1m quick fix as a way of giving the club breathing space and thinking time. While a capacity of 17,500 is restrictive, our average Premiership attendance at Loftus Road was only 16,706 - in a season when only three teams won more home games than us.’
I sammanhanget låter detta väldigt billigt, i alla fall om man ställer det i relation till £110 miljoner. Nu får vi ju ”bara” sittplatser för pengarna, men det skulle möjliggöra en flytt hem inom ett år.
BTTC also takes as a warning the example of Charlton Athletic, who had crowds of just 9,398 in the 1988-9 season in the top flight, the fourth campaign spent ground-sharing away from home.
Detta är lysande, se och lär vad gäller Charltons snarlika situation som finns i färskt minne. Dels är Charlton en klubb i liknande storlek och geografiskt läge, men framför allt så är det bara att åka “down the road” för att besöka dem. Jag skulle gissa på att de är allt annat än ovilliga att bistå med råd, tips och guidning.
Long term
In the long term, BTTC estimates Craven Cottage could be redeveloped at a cost of £30m for a 24,000 capacity. This could take place in one go or in stages.
Mr Hyams said: ‘Our starting place was the reasons the club gave for its original scheme being so expensive. We decided to eliminate the two main exceptional cost factors - imposing beyond the river bank and interfering with the 1905-listed structures - and see what would still be possible.’
By doing this, Mr Hyams says that 20 per cent of potential capacity would be lost. The plans include leaving the Stevenage Road stand and Cottage untouched, except for installing five rows of seats in the Enclosure seating area. There would be a new corner at the other end of the Leitch stand of the Cottage, of matching height.
A continuous double deck of seating would make up the rest of the ground, with 20 rows in the lower deck, 14 rows in the upper deck and viewing boxes at the top, giving six storeys. Factoring in the widths, depths and lengths of new regulations and modern practice in seating, this would give a capacity of around 24,250.
Going back to the 1997 ‘Jimmy Hill scheme’, the new plan would have deeper double decks, because no flats would be built around the site perimeter. BTTC says three storeys in each stand would not be required for spectator facilities other than seating, and could be used for something else.
Igen, ett bra och till synes genomtänkt förslag. Som ni kanske redan har sett på forumet har jag propagerat för en något större arena, men man kanske ska sätta klubbens storlek i relation till sin arena, inte bara hur många platser som kan säljas. Jag menar, titta på Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea m.fl större klubbar än oss, men deras arenor i relation till deras ”fanbase” är mindre än vad FFC får med dryga 24.000 platser. (Hoppas ni förstår hur jag menar!)
Nedan följer ett bra exempel från verkligheten som understryker realismen i BTTC’s förslag.
It is taking the Matthew Harding Stand at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge as a cost example, as it is also a double decker and was built in Fulham. Costing £1,000 per seat in 1994, including concourses, refreshment and hospitality areas, and taking into account inflation, BTTC estimates the cost today would be £1,500 per seat.
Känns som om kampanjen är på rätt väg, man har dels inlett samtal med klubben, man har konkretiserat sina planer och man tas på allvar även i media.
Det allra viktigaste är inte vare sig kapaciteten, utseendet eller om det blir nattklubbar eller caféer utan att vi kommer hem till Bishop’s Park.
