New Stadium

General overview and any opinions will do?

As I said earlier I was very impressed by what I saw and heard and it looks like the Club really have approached it in the right way this time, unlike Ron Gourlay's clumsy attempt to railroad the CPO before.

The idea of using large amounts of brickwork in the plans is visually keep the Council (who apparently are already well engaged in the process) onside with the visual look rather than a steel type look which probably would not go with the properties in the area.

Of particular interest is the fact that they are not deeming it necessary to have an egress at the North East Corner leading to West Brompton (which Bates considered essential) and the walkway directly into Fulham Broadway Station is going to like Empire Way proportions at Wembley to shepherd huge amounts of supporters straight into the Station and kept off the Fulham Road.

There looks like there will be less room outside the stadium perimeter to walk round in order to get the 60k of seats on 3 tiers all round (and wrap-arounds and the top of the stadium as one and all at the same sort of height) and everything else in. More corporate boxes than currently we have also. Achieving this means the Club are taking the pitch down 8 metres or so lower than currently but they are confident that lack of sunlight/wind is not going to be a problem with the artificial lights that they have and that the roof will fade to clear translucency at the tips of the roof to allow as much sunlight as possible in.

Things that will obviously go are the hotels, shed wall and a lot of the underground parking and (I am assuming) the Health Club as the stands are going a lot further back than the current ones.

As I say the Club do appear to have properly thought everything out and being a work in progress we were all invited to put our twopenneth in on cards they gave us which should provide even more of a coherent consensus moving forward. I did get the impression on my visit that a lot of my fellow tourists were also suitably impressed, by the efficiency of the Club's thinking. It looks like there is no danger of history repeating itself and the Club getting caught with it's trousers down like the Mears family did when they tried it.

We were also asked to provide feedback on the choice of temporary venue while we are building from the last game in May 2017 to the first game in August 2020. I also believe that there is no way that Mr. A is going to allow Levy to get the first option on Wembley (or Twickers if Spurs wanted it) during that period, however there is obviously a lot of work to do with planning permissions etc. before we can get to that point.

What I learned.

Chesea was the first club t record average attendances of 40+ per season.

Chelsea was the first club to have a 3 tier stand

The plans for the bridge from the 60's look remarkably like Old Trafford today.

We have something like 4.3k corporate season ticket holders today, they account for 50% of match day revenue (thats about 10%, I was quite amazed)

The average age of a season ticket holder at Chelsea is 50. The oldest average age in the league.

West Brompton cemetry is desgin around the The vatican Basillica in rome (or something like that)

There were lot's of other stats. No history of course.

Plans for the ground, direct access to FB, no need to use FB if you come by tube

We will be going down 4 metres, I question the impact on the pitch they claim to have done their homework and do not see it as an issue.

At ground level, inside the stadium you will be able to walk the entire ground.

There will be a corporate entrance round by the main entrance that will start at a replica of the original bridge that stood there and take corporate fans direct to the corporate level.

There will be no corporate seats behind either end.

No provisions have been made for a singing section or to move people to the shed.

Every season ticket holder will be offered the equivelant of their seat where it is today.

Away fans will enter roughly where the old bovril gate was into a tunnel which will take them to the east side of the Shed end were they will be located in the upper tier. They will get 3k seats as the do today (if they take that many)

The stands are built as such so that they could take a German style standing arrangement, at least some parts of it, mainly lower tier.

The locals I overheard do not seem onside, yet, at least not entirely but I only heard a couple. They just don;t seem to listen or believe what they are told, which is only natural.

The stadium will look fantastic, I can't do it justice in text but to see the pictures and hear the guide describe it kind of gives you goose bumps, wwhich is what he claims the impact will be when we start visitng it when complete. Something I used to experience regularly climbing the old shed end stairs to the crest by the white wall and watching the green arena spread out before me, at times the hairs on the back of my neck would be standing to attention.

In summary, I enjoyed it, I'm excited but I am sorry, is you have any questions for me I am away on my motorbike to Germany for a week in the Black forest so I won;t respond for at least a week.

I must make time and see it for myself, it sounds fantastic!

Summer & JDI thank you for your detailed explanation.

JFDI, enjoy your hols mate, I also am off to Germany soon with the family but we're doing Berlin. See you for a beer again some time early next season.

Excellent. Sounds fantastic, gutted I couldn't get out of work, wish they extended it until today.

Thank you chaps. Enjoy your holidays everyone.

comment by Chelsea_since_summer_1969 ✪ - nice guys always COME second!! (U1561)
posted 1 week, 1 day ago
JFDI, enjoy your hols mate, I also am off to Germany soon with the family but we're doing Berlin. See you for a beer again some time early next season.
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Look forward to it mate, Gemany was great, scorchio even but that gets me read for the States tour

Off to the States as well mate? I'm well jel.

Stopping in California?

Nah, just New York, Charlotte and Washington

Will be meeting Melchoit, Tambling and Canners on the 21st in Legends by the Empire Sate building. The New York Blues have a bit of a do on.