Solihull Panda's - The Pitch

Team 2 Zenith Force



Team Name:
Solihull Panda's

The Location:
This was all important to us and we have opted to base our team in Solihull.

With a population of over 200k, the metropolitan borough of Solihull in the midlands is the ideal location for a start up football team.

The only existing team in the borough was cobbled together from a merger of 2 existing teams in 2007 (Solihull Borough and Moor Green). This merger came about following an arson attack on Moor Green's stadium - the cost of starting again was deemed unacceptable so a merger was sought following 2 years of groundsharing. However, historically, the two clubs have been rivals, both geographically and playing at the same level. This leaves us with the potential to aquire back a percentage of disgruntled fans, who have lost their own identity over the last 7 years.

We plan to use the purpose built Alexander Stadium in Birmingham until Birmingham City move to their new stadium, at which stage we'll seek to take over St Andrews (8 miles away from Solihull), meaning the club can develop and grow into a Premier League standard stadium.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Stadium


The area is right in the centre of all transport hubs, with Birmingham New Street station, Birmingham international airport and the M5, M6, M6 toll, M40, M42, M45, M56 and the M69 all being within reach.

Furthermore, in terms of long term sustainability, the H2S rail link promises to lead to massive regeneration in the area, with 14000 jobs, 2000 homes and an anual boost of £1.3bn to the local economy announced by the Transport Secretary.

Therefore, it seems a no brainer to base a new football club in such a thriving, vibrant area, with a clear long term growth strategy to bolster the existing first class infastructure and bustling population.

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2014/07/21/hs2-stations-to-be-fitted-for-international-trains/an-overview-of-the-proposed-new-curzon-street-station-part-of-the-massive-hs2-development-in-the-city/

As Cadbury world isn't far either we aim to set-up some kind of local sponsorship deal and/or ground naming rights. In addition we can subsidise their employee's with match/season tickets.

Why Cadbury world you may ask?

There are approximately 1000 employees at Bourneville - we could use our spare £3.82m to subsidise 5 x season tickets for each employee for the first year, knowing we could hook 5000 fans straight away for the following season. Plus fans from the wider area (Stourbridge, Kidderminster, Coventry, Birmingham) and all of the fans who can travel from a wider area due to our incredible transport links.

The Team
Armed with a rather generous £30m budget we set to work on the task in hand, signing established names as we don't aim to solely compete in League One but to go on and become a Premiership side.

The Signings:

Gordon £880,000.00

Trippier £2,640,000.00
Dawson (Craig) £1,320,000.00
Batth £660,000.00
Cole £1,760,000.00

Brown £3,960,000.00
Barry £3,080,000.00
Whittingham £2,200,000.00

Dyer £3,960,000.00
Defoe £5,280,000.00
Ibe £440,000.00


Cost a combined fee of just £26.18m leaving us a balance of £3.82m with which we have taken the liberty of subsidising match tickets as per the previous point

After much discussion we have managed to get the attention of Sir Alex Ferguson to come out retirement and help to get our project up and running, he assures us he will line the team up in the following style:

......................Gordon..................
Tripper.....Batth.......Dawson....Cole
.......................Barry....................
..............Brown..........Whittingham
Dyer................Defoe.................Ibe

Pace and power up front, with a strong defence and 3 midfielders that each bring a bit of everything to the table, allowing us to play a fast paced aggressive brand of football as we look to take the game onto each and every side we encounter