POD Stand

[StirlingDosser]

If I'm not mistaken the cantilever design of the Davie Cooper and South Stands could be considered when building a new main stand. The floodlight pylons for Fir Park actually are the main roof supports for those stands so I suspect they could be used to support a new main stand similar in design to the Davie Cooper...and to be honest we should have done that in the 90s during the upgrade to comply with the Taylor report.

Thar said any further work on Fir Park is not cost effective. The footprint of the site isn't overly workable for one and the proceeds from sale of the land (I'd assume with a value of around 7 million when you consider the astro and stadium area) would need to be used to fund any new ground. 

I personally would hope for something which replicates Falkirk Stadium but fully complete with filled in corners. Falkirk's main stand has great hospitality and player facilities alongside with other usable space. The stand behind the goals has a supporters bar and the stands are of a good angle. Given the Ravenscraig new town clearly ain't happening, the council (or whoever owns the land) would be best transferring the land to the club for both stadium development and an adjacent training facility. This would bring all club operations together on a single campus and allow the club to move forward without the continuous patch up jobs we need to do every year on infrastructure.

[steelboy]

14 minutes ago, StirlingDosser said:

 

I personally would hope for something which replicates Falkirk Stadium but fully complete with filled in corners. Falkirk's main stand has great hospitality and player facilities alongside with other usable space. The stand behind the goals has a supporters bar and the stands are of a good angle. Given the Ravenscraig new town clearly ain't happening, the council (or whoever owns the land) would be best transferring the land to the club for both stadium development and an adjacent training facility. This would bring all club operations together on a single campus and allow the club to move forward without the continuous patch up jobs we need to do every year on infrastructure.

Falkirk need to fill a full touchline before they consider filling in the corners. Their main stand looks good but in general it's a grim stadium. 

Building a brand new training facility less than a kilometre away from Dalziel Park doesn't seem a like a good use of resources to me. 

[Ya Bezzer!]

15 hours ago, weeyin said:

It would, but looking at the details is cost about 11.5 million to build 20 years ago. Unless we find some serious cash or a generous partner, we'd struggle to afford that - and no doubt that price would be about 20 million now.

We could probably recoup some from the sale of Fir Park, but would still leave a large wad to find.

From what I understand most football stadium in Europe or part or fully owned by the local authority.

Good luck getting North Lanarkshire Council to pitch in.

[weeyin]

1 hour ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

From what I understand most football stadium in Europe or part or fully owned by the local authority.

Good luck getting North Lanarkshire Council to pitch in.

That would certainly be ideal, but even in better economic times, I agree there would be no chance of that happening. (Or worse, they'd want to open it up to the community by laying an artificial pitch).

[Kat]

Just a random mention that I thought was quite cool. I was at the Meet the Manager event the other week, and while I was helping put things back at the end of the night, I was shown a few interesting things. It's well known the stand was built upon when we sold Quinn and St. John, but next to the home players' dressing room there is a cupboard, and when you peel away at some of the panels, you see plenty of the old corrugated metal and brickwork from the old stand. I know I'm probably answering this myself; I know it would have been more costly, but I wonder why they just didn't reduce the old stand to rubble and build the new one from scratch to future-proof it in a way.

Quite a few main stands in our league must be a fair age; I don't think Dundee's has changed much; half of Dundee United's was built the same year as ours with Aberdeen's, Killie's, and Old Firm just going through renovations at various points. I wonder how things would have looked for UK stadiums if Hillsborough never happened and the Taylor report hadn't been introduced.

I know it has been mentioned previously in the thread but Brian spoke about moving out of Fir Park soon as being very unlikely I was however surprised to see St. Mirren got £15 million for Love St, then subsequently spent around £8 million to build the current stadium just a short jaunt up the road.

[wellwell91]

St Mirren played a blinder with regards to the Old Love Street. Played Tesco of against Morrisons !!!!

Morrisons was desperate to get a site in Paisley and Tesco desperate to keep them out. Tesco won the battle a paid over the odds for Love Street. There is still nothing been built on the site. Not sure if Tesco still own the site. 

[stv]

17 minutes ago, Kat said:

Just a random mention that I thought was quite cool. I was at the Meet the Manager event the other week, and while I was helping put things back at the end of the night, I was shown a few interesting things. It's well known the stand was built upon when we sold Quinn and St. John, but next to the home players' dressing room there is a cupboard, and when you peel away at some of the panels, you see plenty of the old corrugated metal and brickwork from the old stand. I know I'm probably answering this myself; I know it would have been more costly, but I wonder why they just didn't reduce the old stand to rubble and build the new one from scratch to future-proof it in a way.

Quite a few main stands in our league must be a fair age; I don't think Dundee's has changed much; half of Dundee United's was built the same year as ours with Aberdeen's, Killie's, and Old Firm just going through renovations at various points. I wonder how things would have looked for UK stadiums if Hillsborough never happened and the Taylor report hadn't been introduced.

I know it has been mentioned previously in the thread but Brian spoke about moving out of Fir Park soon as being very unlikely I was however surprised to see St. Mirren got £15 million for Love St, then subsequently spent around £8 million to build the current stadium just a short jaunt up the road.

St Mirrens ground is totally shite . You loose sight of the ball against the crowd at the other end, shambles to get into the ground, typical new wee stadium out the box build. The surrounding area is a dump as well with uneven pavements n poor parking . I hope we never build anything like that.

[Kat]

10 minutes ago, wellwell91 said:

St Mirren played a blinder with regards to the Old Love Street. Played Tesco of against Morrisons !!!!

Morrisons was desperate to get a site in Paisley and Tesco desperate to keep them out. Tesco won the battle a paid over the odds for Love Street. There is still nothing been built on the site. Not sure if Tesco still own the site. 

I think it's houses on the land now. 

[Kat]

1 minute ago, stv said:

St Mirrens ground is totally shite . You loose sight of the ball against the crowd at the other end, shambles to get into the ground, typical new wee stadium out the box build. The surrounding area is a dump as well with uneven pavements n poor parking . I hope we never build anything like that.

I seem to remember John Boyle at an AGM had based the cost of any new stadium on that blueprint. 

The seating in the POD was supposed to be upgraded a few summers ago, I assume these plans were shelved due to the unforeseen work over on the Hunter Stand.

[Gaag]

It feels very much like we’re caught between a rock and a hard place on this. 
Personally I’d prefer to see us invest in modernising fir park as any move to a new stadium… we’d be lucky to get four stands, never mind a good design given the current environment and costs of construction. 
Whatever happened to the jumbotron in the corner that Alan Burrows had in his grand plan? 

[MJC]

“The PO’D stand will be out of action for several months due to age related decay and being generally unfit for purpose in this day and age. 
 

Speedy recovery PO’D Stand”

[Motherwellfc1991]

Unforeseen works in the east stand - what works were that ? 

[Spiderpig]

33 minutes ago, Motherwellfc1991 said:

Unforeseen works in the east stand - what works were that ? 

Fixing the front of the stand after the new pitch was laid, and having to install barriers and emergency exit gates I think.

[weeyin]

4 hours ago, Gaag said:

Whatever happened to the jumbotron in the corner that Alan Burrows had in his grand plan? 

I think that was 100% dependent on a sponsor (or "partner") paying for it.

[2/6 tae get in]

Cleaning the seats in the POD would be a good start. And let's not forget cleaning the general filth off the metalwork as i'm convinced somebody is gonna catch  Avian Flu at some point.

[Spiderpig]

28 minutes ago, 2/6 tae get in said:

Cleaning the seats in the POD would be a good start. And let's not forget cleaning the general filth off the metalwork as i'm convinced somebody is gonna catch  Avian Flu at some point.

Well said, I've emailed the club every close season for the last few years to get  the bird crap cleaned and it never is, the seats never get cleaned either unless the wind blows the rain in.

And while I'm on a rant, the gents toilets on the POD south side still have adverts featuring Joe Efford, someone needs to step up and get the minor details sorted, cleaning seats and removing out of date adverts is not rocket science.

[Kmcalpin]

3 hours ago, Spiderpig said:

Well said, I've emailed the club every close season for the last few years to get  the bird crap cleaned and it never is, the seats never get cleaned either unless the wind blows the rain in.

And while I'm on a rant, the gents toilets on the POD south side still have adverts featuring Joe Efford, someone needs to step up and get the minor details sorted, cleaning seats and removing out of date adverts is not rocket science.

Aye, and hand dryers and soap dispensers in the toilets that actually work would help too.

[grizzlyg]

Not sure if this would be a worthwhile suggestion but maybe club could put out memo to see if fans would want to volunteer to help tidy up the POD stand. I know it shouldn't be our job but say we got 20-30 turning up on a Sunday then I am sure it would be tidied up and looking a lot better

[wellfan]

35 minutes ago, grizzlyg said:

Not sure if this would be a worthwhile suggestion but maybe club could put out memo to see if fans would want to volunteer to help tidy up the POD stand. I know it shouldn't be our job but say we got 20-30 turning up on e Sunday then I am sure it would be tidied up and looking a lot better

Free pies and pints would see me sign up to this. 

[grizzlyg]

29 minutes ago, wellfan said:

Free pies and pints would see me sign up to this. 

Ditto

[SteelmaninOZ]

Someone likes the view from the PoD 

 

 

[David]

it does offer a cracking view of the game, to be fair. 

[Spiderpig]

1 hour ago, David said:

it does offer a cracking view of the game, to be fair. 

Best views in the stadium for me, needs some money spent on it though as has been previously discussed.

[Stuwell2]

13 hours ago, Spiderpig said:

Best views in the stadium for me, needs some money spent on it though as has been previously discussed.

You’ve a great view and good seat but you now want your surroundings improved, ffs, next you will be wanting a good team to watch - some folk are never happy 😃 

[weeyin]

If you take advantage of one of the hospitality packages that includes a ticket in the POD it's a great day out, even if (when) the result goes against us.