The Infrastructure Projects

[Mcforest]

EM might have played a blinder here boys rumours are the freehold option might be dropped as low as 6 million for the city ground

[wassy04]

Spurs increase matchday revenue alone from 40m to 106m when they moved into their new stadium so if its done right it can clearly greatly increase revenue.

As for the political thing, one person's covering for Tory f**k up is another's bargain. This land has become available, the govt is keen to sell quickly, to me that sounds like EM trying to take advantage of a good opportunity to get a bargain.

I'm not saying I necessarily support it, I thinking moving is probably the best option but only if the right location and done right. I guess we're unlikely to know whether they were right until after it's done!

Your comparison with Tottenham is totally unfair. They are a London club charging London prices although they have managed to alienate a good proportion of their traditional fanbase in the process.

Tottenhams cheapest ST is now £850 compared to ours at £465. Indeed their cheapest is the same price as our most expensive. As moeny grabbing as our price increases are we could never go to that level.

In addition the capacity increase at Tottenham is way more going from 36k to 62k. They will easily fill theirs and realistically will never be relegated. We may or may not fill 50k if thats the aim and certainly won’t fill it if we ever have to play Barnsley on a Tuesday night again.

Your point is will we increase matchday income which I believe is currently around £14m. Yes we will, we would do so by revamping the current ground too. We will increase will further with a new ground probably to the tune of about £5m a year more than we would by revamping the CG. Add another £5m for events and the fact they will have a captive audience in their plastic bars drinking their own overpriced tasteless beer.

But its ridiculous to claim our matchday turnover could increase by 250% with a new stadium, its plain wrong.

I wasn't suggesting we'd necessarily increase our matchday revenue but the same amount but merely that it showed what was possible.

The London factor doesn't impact it as they'd have also been charging London prices pre stadium move rather than post move so not sure of the relevance. I'm obviously not suggesting we'll suddenly make 100m matchday revenue. 

Why are Spurs, a fairly average team until very recently, so easily able to fill 62k compared to 36k? I'd actually argue their ability to fill it easily shows that your fears of not filling the stadium are likely not as big a deal.

If you were Marinakis, what would you do out of interest? Buy the Freehold and rebuild the City Ground to get an extra 8k people in at a particularly poor value for money? Or look to move somewhere you could buy at a more reasonable price? 

As I understood it the original proposal relied heavily on selling flats or something, perhaps that part is no longer possible. I don't think it's realistic or particularly fair to expect the owner to stump up crazy amounts to marginally improve a stadium personally. What do you think?

Agree the economics on the build are better with a new stadium. Can also understand if there is frustration on planning or if the flats on site isnt happening, to be honest not sure that was ever a great idea. So if thats the case say so. Don’t blame it on the city council and lie about the rent increase.

If I was EM, not sure but I don’t think he is the emotional attachment type. Quite the opposite I suspect he would quite like the Evangelos Marinakis Stadium.

Finally and its irrelevant but Tottenham have always had a bigger support than us and the old WHlL was far too small for them. One thing to note is their prices have gone up exponentially since the new stadium, ask their fans if they think its worth it.

Haha, I think you're right there! Yes agreed, not defending the clubs handling of it either.

[wassy04]

EM might have played a blinder here boys rumours are the freehold option might be dropped as low as 6 million for the city ground

May as well buy the Freehold regardless surely so that they have control over what happens the the site if they do move.

[BomberBowyer]

EM might have played a blinder here boys rumours are the freehold option might be dropped as low as 6 million for the city ground

Controversial I know but maybe this was the plan all along. Someone as rich and successful as EM is not daft but is also used to driving hard bargains and, can I suggest, usually getting his way. From what others have said the freehold wasn’t previously on the table. Noises are made re about the council, talk made of moving, creating a sports village etc etc and suddenly the freehold is available for £10m, possibly less. Maybe the intention was to stay at the CG all along but our owner etc have played hardball to get the deal they want.

[ozzyten10]

Demolishing main stand and half of bridgford went to tender then was pulled in last 6 weeks. Make of that what you will…

[wassy04]

Based on that DT Q&A we may need a new Toton thread soon, sounds like it's gone pretty far down the line already. It's one of those things that could be great but could also go pretty spectacularly badly.

[Salvatore Matrecano]

Very good q&a with DT. His take home is that the council have put the freehold on a plate for a reasonable fee which we can easily afford and have said they will negotiate lower if needed. The council leader wants to talk. Therefore if we don’t go ahead with the freehold this summer…..then we are on the move.

The bit on Toton is interesting to see so will put it here:




To answer your question, Toton is currently seen as the only viable option for a new stadium.

I’ve been up there a couple of times to have a look around. It’s a strange feeling. I drove through this estate where there is really nothing but suburbia, a chippy, a newsagents, a hairdresser etc and I parked up on Banks Road. Then I walked up through this common and eventually there was a clearance in the trees when you could look down on Toton Sidings. The proposed stadium site is a bit further up. And yeah, it’s strange to think you might be standing on the future Nottingham Forest.

Anyway, never let it be said I have my priorities jumbled. I did actually type into my phone ‘nearest pub’ (don’t judge me) and it came up 1.1 miles away. The nearest river is the Erewash, which is pretty much the Derbyshire border. And I ended up in the Toton Tesco for a bit of lunch. There wasn’t much choice, to be honest.

It’s a big site, though (the land, not the Tesco).

The land is 33 acres in total and, to put that in context, the City Ground with is carparks etc is 11 acres. Forest have been talking to the relevant people since early in the new year. They have been to see the landowners, Nottinghamshire County Council, and obviously have this relationship with its leader, Ben Bradley.

The county council needs the money from a sale, it’s fair to say.

I’ve been told Forest have met planning officers from Broxtowe Council, which covers Toton. And the new partnership with EON is interesting because one of the ideas – hypothetical for now, yes – is to make it a carbon-zero stadium. They have even talked about tree-planting schemes for the surrounding land. So when you get that level of detail it does make you think the idea is more advanced, perhaps, than people realise.

How would people, in theory, get there? The trams go out to Toton. But the proposed idea would be to develop a train station on the sidings. Plus there would be a new road network to get people out on to the A52 and the M1 and avoid everyone going through the nearby housing estate. It sounds like a traffic nightmare to me – the Bardills roundabout gets snarled up at the best of times – and I’m not sure all those thousands of extra cars really aligns itself to a carbon-zero plan.

But the biggest point I’m trying to make here is that all of these details are, or have already been, actively looked at. It’s not just ‘here’s a plot of land, interested?’ This has been going on for months while the talks for the CG have stalled and the blame game has started.

Toton, by the way, is not - as the song goes - a shithole. It’s very different though to that ‘sporting triangle’ of Forest, Notts County and the cricket ground, with the river, the beer gardens, the walk across Trent Bridge, all the things that make the City Ground so special. The history!

So then it becomes a head/heart decision and clearly there is all sorts of data and other evidence that the clubs with the 50k stadiums stay in the PL much longer and finish much higher than the teams with the smaller stadiums. Yes, of course the bigger stadia make more money, in an era when making money is really the only way to be successful. In terms of ‘growing the club’, there is a solid argument that, yes, in 10 years’ time it could, or would, be a bigger club than it is now. This is what you will hear from the pro-Toton camp going forward and, factually, it's true.

A new stadium, by the way, would potentially cost upwards of £500m and Marinakis seems prepared to foot the entire costs. His wealth is extraordinary.

At the same time, there is a lot of talking to be done and it’s absolutely clear that the vast majority of fans would rather just develop the City Ground, like the club have been promising for years.

I wrote this eulogy to the City Ground to mark its 125th anniversary. It’s just special, isn’t it?

So my personal opinion is that it would be a lot easier to persuade fans it was the right thing to leave if we were talking about, say, the Eastcroft incinerator site that was also briefly discussed, just up from Meadow Lane. Toton feels like a stretch. It’s six miles out of the city centre and, to a lot of fans, that’s a different world.

I was at the event at the Metronome last week for ‘a celebration of Nottingham fanzines’ and the rather brilliant JS Pritchard (Julie to her mates), editor of the much-missed ‘Brian’, was among those on the stage.

She was asked about moving to Toton and the reaction was very interesting. "My least favourite away ground is Reading,” she said, “and if we move to Toton we will just be a big Reading." The entire place – a sell-out – started clapping

[stirred]

One thing that concerns me is if we move to Toton so the city council goes the extra mile to let Notts County have a load of that land to expand into the Eastcroft site.

[ToryTom]

The truth is if Forest want to progress and establish themselves as stalwarts in the premier league we will need to produce a lot more income. It looks like football spending is going to be based upon 80% of income. We are light years behind the top dozen teams. Our local rivals have potential for making more income than we do. The only way we will be able to compete at the top level is to have a much bigger stadium which is designed for multi use and monopolise most of the hospitality income generated from match day and other events. The City Ground site is simply not big enough. Demand for tickets grows every season we remain in the premier league. The city ground is iconic but it is no longer fit for purpose for where the club wants to go. If a new stadium is well designed there is no reason it will lack atmosphere. I was at Tottenham this season and thought the stadium was good for atmosphere. At the end of the day it is people who create the atmospher.

[Widdow]

The truth is if Forest want to progress and establish themselves as stalwarts in the premier league we will need to produce a lot more income. It looks like football spending is going to be based upon 80% of income. We are light years behind the top dozen teams. Our local rivals have potential for making more income than we do. The only way we will be able to compete at the top level is to have a much bigger stadium which is designed for multi use and monopolise most of the hospitality income generated from match day and other events. The City Ground site is simply not big enough. Demand for tickets grows every season we remain in the premier league. The city ground is iconic but it is no longer fit for purpose for where the club wants to go. If a new stadium is well designed there is no reason it will lack atmosphere. I was at Tottenham this season and thought the stadium was good for atmosphere. At the end of the day it is people who create the atmospher.

Yet a new stadium would be 5 plus years away, so how do we compete till then? A


We could be back in league one in 5 years.

[Reds73]

The truth is if Forest want to progress and establish themselves as stalwarts in the premier league we will need to produce a lot more income. It looks like football spending is going to be based upon 80% of income. We are light years behind the top dozen teams. Our local rivals have potential for making more income than we do. The only way we will be able to compete at the top level is to have a much bigger stadium which is designed for multi use and monopolise most of the hospitality income generated from match day and other events. The City Ground site is simply not big enough. Demand for tickets grows every season we remain in the premier league. The city ground is iconic but it is no longer fit for purpose for where the club wants to go. If a new stadium is well designed there is no reason it will lack atmosphere. I was at Tottenham this season and thought the stadium was good for atmosphere. At the end of the day it is people who create the atmospher.

Yet a new stadium would be 5 plus years away, so how do we compete till then? A


We could be back in league one in 5 years.

Well we can obvs compete to remain in the Prem.
That’s not the modus operandi for Marinakis though 
Challenging and competing on Europe is his goal

[Salvatore Matrecano]

The truth is if Forest want to progress and establish themselves as stalwarts in the premier league we will need to produce a lot more income. It looks like football spending is going to be based upon 80% of income. We are light years behind the top dozen teams. Our local rivals have potential for making more income than we do. The only way we will be able to compete at the top level is to have a much bigger stadium which is designed for multi use and monopolise most of the hospitality income generated from match day and other events. The City Ground site is simply not big enough. Demand for tickets grows every season we remain in the premier league. The city ground is iconic but it is no longer fit for purpose for where the club wants to go. If a new stadium is well designed there is no reason it will lack atmosphere. I was at Tottenham this season and thought the stadium was good for atmosphere. At the end of the day it is people who create the atmospher.

Yet a new stadium would be 5 plus years away, so how do we compete till then? A


We could be back in league one in 5 years.

This is a very good point indeed.

Everton's new stadium was announced in 2017 and wont open until 2025, that’s assuming they dont go bankrupt in that time.

Tottenhams new ground was announced in 2008 and didn’t open until 2019, a full 11 years.

Forest have now been dithering for 5 years since they first announced a redevelopment and have now gone back to square 1.

Its going to be a very long time until the grand opening of the Evangelos Marinakis stadium and who knows where we will be then.