New Stadium

On a pizzing down Tues night between Oct and April you bet ya. You experience Odsal Top on a bad night and you think three times to do it again. Especially as others indicate there is an awful lot of walking involved. I’ve done it, I know what it’s like, as I am sure you do?

 

Unfortunately the Odsal situation has been ongoing most of yours and my lifetime, its a shame no one with imagination going forward saw what it could offer, apart from a few million being spent for the 1985 World Speedway Final, as you say it could generate our City many millions of pounds as land fill and maybe something could be done in the future (not sure how many years landfill has to be left to settle etc) in the present climate I wouldn't want our council getting involved, there are far too many other things they have as a priority to spend council tax money on.
I don't think we will be moving anywhere in the near future and certainly cant see the pension fund doing the club any favours as they are legally obliged to get the best deal they can from the tenants at Valley Parade, so although I'll be called for having no ambition I think we will be at Valley Parade and still using the facilities at Rawdon Meadows for many more years.

 

This scenario is just as relevant at VP though.
I’ve been in VP many times on a cold/wet/snowy midweek game where the crowd was down by thousands.
Walsall on a Tuesday night a few seasons ago was the wettest and coldest I’ve been at a football match for a long time.
I then endured a 15/20 minute walk back to car as did the many hundreds of fans who park on the streets towards City road/Thornton rd/Listerhills.
I’ll word my original question differently.
If we moved to a stadium in South Bradford,do you think season ticket numbers would drop by thousands?

 

Odsal has had a stadium on its land since 1934, had a crowd of over 100,000 in days before the m62 was built and had a super League record crowd at the time of over 24,000 rugby League fans, most of whom enjoy a drink. Now i understand that as a stadium for football it's inadequate, although I watched rugby there for 20 odd years with no problem bar the cold weather of winter rubgy. And not once did I have a problem getting there or parking my car or getting there when I didn't have a car.

 

It might ok for people who drive but those that use public transport it's a ballache. It'll be 2 buses for most and that'll include wandering the Interchange trying not to get stabbed.

Plus it's had smelly rugby fans in it,

Flatten it amd build the worlds biggest hand car wash.

 

No

 

The council will put in bus routes if there's a stadium with 20,000 people going to it evert other week. They'll make money from it. Why would they bother making an investment now for so little revenue?

 

I lived in BD 6/12 for 37 years and have been back in BD2 for the last 20 years (supporting the Bantams since 1973). The cask beer issue is a good point but not a game changer for me, I'll settle for a couple of pints of Guinness or even lager pre-match and afterwards head for Jacobs Well, Corn Dolly, North Parade for my celebration tipple post match.
My point is, yes I would love to see Valley Parade finished with the Main Stand and Midland Road joined up. Having said that, if the club decided the best course of action was to move to a NEW stadium on the Odsal site I wouldn't be dead set against it, I would just workout my travel plans for matchday.
In 14 months time I will be retiring and moving to the coast. I am already working out my travel plans back to Bradford for the home games and who will have the pleasure of giving me a bed for the night on a Saturday.

 

I lived in BD 6/12 for 37 years and have been back in BD2 for the last 20 years (supporting the Bantams since 1973). The cask beer issue is a good point but not a game changer for me, I'll settle for a couple of pints of Guinness or even lager pre-match and afterwards head for Jacobs Well, Corn Dolly, North Parade for my celebration tipple post match.
My point is, yes I would love to see Valley Parade finished with the Main Stand and Midland Road joined up. Having said that, if the club decided the best course of action was to move to a NEW stadium on the Odsal site I wouldn't be dead set against it, I would just workout my travel plans for matchday.
In 14 months time I will be retiring and moving to the coast. I am already working out my travel plans back to Bradford for the home games and who will have the pleasure of giving me a bed for the night on a Saturday.

 

Run by Fordy?

 

Seems a perfect match.

"Let Fordy Foam your Focus"

 

Yes unfortunately, I do, unless £m’s are invested and that I know won’t happen.

 

How would they make money from it?

 

Try explaining that to some BB. They'd think you'd just invented fire.

 

Those times of no other competing attractions, Tv, computers , etc etc etc etc etc etc are long gone Rog. You know it will never happen again where we will see 102,000 at Odsal .

Trying to think who we were playing when all those cars got stuck, certainly a night match …Was it Wimbledon, perhaps Charlton. I can’t remember but even my underpants were soaked! Terrible. What would make it any different in 2022? People just would not go….it’s as simple as that.

 

Because too many people start the conversation with the assumption that nothing will change I.e. We'll build a stadium but the roads, public transport, shops, restaurants, anything in fact will just be as it is. Its very unlikely that a town or city would be supportive of a stadium being built and invest in nothing else to complement it.

 

I've probably been to Odsal as many times as anyone on here kev, in the 80s when city played there, to watch Northern and then the Bulls. This is all hypothetical as a new stadium would never get built at Odsal and Bradford City will not move from Valley Parade. I can honestly say I've never had a problem in all those years ever getting to either ground. It's not like Odsal is the other side of the moon, it's at most 15 minutes away from VP in a car. I guarantee you if Odsal was the only viable alternative for a new stadium it would not put off 99% of fans going because of its location. I found the match day experience better at Odsal during the Bulls days too, drinking establishments a short walk away in Wibsey and down Manchester Road and more choice of food in the stadium. Let's not kid ourselves here, Valley Parade is in a right shit hole of an area.

 

I know it wasn't. You answered my first question and now I'm asking another question.

Having pubs close to the ground isn't much use if they take forever to get to, via several public transport changes, for most people. Unlike the pubs close to VP, which are also close to easy public transport links from all parts of the district.