Brandywell Stadium Development

[marcoloco]

Sligo Rovers are pushing ahead with their plan for a redevelopment of the Showgrounds to a 6,100 seater, Category 3 stadium : https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2023/03 ... vsMRjBZ0yc

Sligo town has a population of 20,000 people (though the cliub obviously draws support in from the surrounding area too).

We're being left behind lads - even with the Mark Farren Stand finished.

Irish football is going through a clear growth phase, and we're outgrowing the constraints and the potential of the Brandywell. That should be plain for anyone to see. We need a Plan B.

100% Steve. Politicians need to be held to account. But that's what you get in a dysfunctional society where economic blight and stagnation is the aim of the game.

[stevebradley]

Sligo Rovers are pushing ahead with their plan for a redevelopment of the Showgrounds to a 6,100 seater, Category 3 stadium : https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2023/03 ... vsMRjBZ0yc

Sligo town has a population of 20,000 people (though the cliub obviously draws support in from the surrounding area too).

We're being left behind lads - even with the Mark Farren Stand finished.

Irish football is going through a clear growth phase, and we're outgrowing the constraints and the potential of the Brandywell. That should be plain for anyone to see. We need a Plan B.

100% Steve. Politicians need to be held to account. But that's what you get in a dysfunctional society where economic blight and stagnation is the aim of the game.

I disagree ML. Even when the Mark Farren is finished we'll still have a smaller capacity than the grounds being progressed for the likes of Sligo, Bohs, Harps, and the grounds already in place for Rovers and Cork. It's not the politicians fault that the Brandywell has a ceiling on it capacity-wise that is going to limit us. For me responsibility for that rests with the club for refusing to look at any option other than a Brandywell which both ourselves and Irish football in general are fast outgrowing.

[forza]

I remember kaiser soze saying on here a year or two ago we wouldn't fill the current brandywell as it was

[marcoloco]

Sligo Rovers are pushing ahead with their plan for a redevelopment of the Showgrounds to a 6,100 seater, Category 3 stadium : https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2023/03 ... vsMRjBZ0yc

Sligo town has a population of 20,000 people (though the cliub obviously draws support in from the surrounding area too).

We're being left behind lads - even with the Mark Farren Stand finished.

Irish football is going through a clear growth phase, and we're outgrowing the constraints and the potential of the Brandywell. That should be plain for anyone to see. We need a Plan B.

100% Steve. Politicians need to be held to account. But that's what you get in a dysfunctional society where economic blight and stagnation is the aim of the game.

I disagree ML. Even when the Mark Farren is finished we'll still have a smaller capacity than the grounds being progressed for the likes of Sligo, Bohs, Harps, and the grounds already in place for Rovers and Cork. It's not the politicians fault that the Brandywell has a ceiling on it capacity-wise that is going to limit us. For me responsibility for that rests with the club for refusing to look at any option other than a Brandywell which both ourselves and Irish football in general are fast outgrowing.

Agree with you on some of that. The Club have been slow to lobby the Council for further expansion plans even at the point when the MF stand was incomplete. There should have been another phase of the masterplan on the drawing board. There remains a lack of expertise within the club but please do not take that as criticism. That is entirely expected from any organisation that relies on volunteers to keep the organisation afloat as a viable entity. My point is that there was a lack of forward planning that is now costing the club dear. Yes, allot of it comes down to finances but it doesn't cost much to have the designs and permissions in place. So whilst i accept this is partly to blame for lack of ownership there is / was a distinct lack of foresight and forward planning. Or certainly it appears that way. As for the other clubs - its amazing to see the league and the interest in the game growing. If we keep improving at this rate we'll soon be back to 1985 attendance level by around 2030.

[marcoloco]

Re. the capacity its important to note that in every league in the world you get different stadium sizes. PL - Chelsea and Fulham are about 35k, Newcastle and Everton about 50k, Spurs, Utd and Arsenal about 65k. So its not all about having the biggest capacity. It's about having a modern stadium that is fit for purpose and we are a long way off that.

[Keyser Soze]

We'll not be back to 1985 attendance figures by 2030 simply cos we won't be able to accommodate such crowds.

We were getting 10,000 in 1985.

The way plans are, don't think I'll live long enough to see 10,000 at the Brandywell again.

[stevebradley]

Re. the capacity its important to note that in every league in the world you get different stadium sizes. PL - Chelsea and Fulham are about 35k, Newcastle and Everton about 50k, Spurs, Utd and Arsenal about 65k. So its not all about having the biggest capacity. It's about having a modern stadium that is fit for purpose and we are a long way off that.

But we are one of the best supported clubs in the league. Yet we have one of the smallest capacity's in our division. And that's the big problem. We're like Arsenal playing in Bounremouth's ground.

[stevebradley]

100% Steve. Politicians need to be held to account. But that's what you get in a dysfunctional society where economic blight and stagnation is the aim of the game.

I disagree ML. Even when the Mark Farren is finished we'll still have a smaller capacity than the grounds being progressed for the likes of Sligo, Bohs, Harps, and the grounds already in place for Rovers and Cork. It's not the politicians fault that the Brandywell has a ceiling on it capacity-wise that is going to limit us. For me responsibility for that rests with the club for refusing to look at any option other than a Brandywell which both ourselves and Irish football in general are fast outgrowing.

Agree with you on some of that. The Club have been slow to lobby the Council for further expansion plans even at the point when the MF stand was incomplete. There should have been another phase of the masterplan on the drawing board. There remains a lack of expertise within the club but please do not take that as criticism. That is entirely expected from any organisation that relies on volunteers to keep the organisation afloat as a viable entity. My point is that there was a lack of forward planning that is now costing the club dear. Yes, allot of it comes down to finances but it doesn't cost much to have the designs and permissions in place. So whilst i accept this is partly to blame for lack of ownership there is / was a distinct lack of foresight and forward planning. Or certainly it appears that way. As for the other clubs - its amazing to see the league and the interest in the game growing. If we keep improving at this rate we'll soon be back to 1985 attendance level by around 2030.

I think you're misisng the point ML. The Brandywell has a fairly low ceiling on how many it will be able to hold. It's been discussed in detail on her over the last few months. Even with the Mark Farren finished and the new wee stand at the Brandywell Road end, we'll still have a lower capacity than the like of Rovers, Cork, Sligo, Bohs, Harps etc either have or are aiming for. Not tbecause we don't have the demand for a larger stadium - but because the stadium we use doesn't have the space to grow much bigger, and we don't control what happens there anyway. That matters on the pitch - becuase professional sport is all about money, and if we have a low cap on how much we can generate for ourselves then it's going to hold us back.

The only way to increase the Brandywell capacity over 6,000 or so - and certainly the only way to get it to the 8,000 for the level that POD says he wants to get us to - will be to do major surgery on it. And the council are skint, and have spent £7m on it recently anyway. We've refused to consider anything other than staying at a stadium that is now starting to hold us back. Amd our response is to demand that someone else does something about it. IMO the club needs to start taking a lead on looking at other possible futures for itself, not just continually hold out the begging bowl to demand that the council sort it out.

[brandyball]

It's a pity the club has stuck to The Brandywell is the only show in town" mantra. Imagine if the club had investigated relocating, the Council would have had a fit.

[marcoloco]

Steve that's all true. But how do we go about acquiring land and building a stadium when the club can't even break even? You're talking about a £10m to £15m project based on the capacity that you deem necessary (8k plus). Look, i think the Brandywell is the natural heart of the club but if there was a commercially viable alternative then yes. I've no doubt that we'd fill an 8k stadium for big games that brought some travelling support. But asking a club to go private / go it alone and acquire land and development costs when we can't even hire full time professional staff due to cost issues i just can't see how it adds up. It's therefore a pipe dream if there's no viable business plan to deliver it. But i'm open to being persuaded otherwise. How do we do it?

[Keyser Soze]

I take it we'd never be allowed to go the 2 tier route, probably planning wouldn't allow it?

Imagine if they were able to build a Southend stand with 2 tiers instead of 1.

[marcoloco]

I take it we'd never be allowed to go the 2 tier route, probably planning wouldn't allow it?

Imagine if they were able to build a Southend stand with 2 tiers instead of 1.

If you owned the Brandywell and money was no object then one of the options would be to buy out the houses along Southend Park. Most Clubs that own their stadium start buying up properties around them when the opportunities arise as it gives them greater control and more options. This is common practice but it also is one of the things that hinders stadium growth. Think landsdowne Road and the north stand. Proximity to adjoining houses and lack of sunlight - daylight from a larger stand was the reason that there's only 3 decent sides.

In our case it makes sense to explore all the bits that havent been developed rather than a perfectly good existing stand.

[stevebradley]

Steve that's all true. But how do we go about acquiring land and building a stadium when the club can't even break even? You're talking about a £10m to £15m project based on the capacity that you deem necessary (8k plus). Look, i think the Brandywell is the natural heart of the club but if there was a commercially viable alternative then yes. I've no doubt that we'd fill an 8k stadium for big games that brought some travelling support. But asking a club to go private / go it alone and acquire land and development costs when we can't even hire full time professional staff due to cost issues i just can't see how it adds up. It's therefore a pipe dream if there's no viable business plan to deliver it. But i'm open to being persuaded otherwise. How do we do it?

The honest answer is - how do we do anything as a club ? How are we paying for a new stand at the Brandywell Road end ? How are we bulding an academy facility ? We have a very wealthy de-facto owner who pays for a large portion of everything the club does (though if we'd a bigger capacity he wouldn't need to pay as much). I wish he was interested in a proper long-term home for the club as the ultimate legacy of his phenomenal involvement with DCFC over such a long period, but unfortunately he doesn't seem interested. It's obviously his money to do with as he wants, but I believe we're approaching a point where it will become clear even to those who don't want to see that the Brandywell no longer works for us.

Beyond that, the botttom line is that the vast majority of football clubs in Britain and Ireland have their own stadia. Because they find a way to made it happen. We just view ourselves as a perennial charity case. If we all took the same attitude that Derry City does we'd never move out of our parents houses, and would expect them to continue subsidising our way through life instead. At some stage we all have to pull on our big boy pants and make our own way in the world - even if it means we take one step backwards for a few years before we can take many more steps forwards later as a result. At some stage we all have to make our own way in the world.

P.S. The club used to own land out the Buncrana Road that it bought in the 1980s to develop a stadium, But unfortunately lost it the first time we went bust. If only it had been bought as a free-standing entity, then it would've been safe (though that would've been a rare step in those days for a football club).

[stevebradley]

I take it we'd never be allowed to go the 2 tier route, probably planning wouldn't allow it?

Imagine if they were able to build a Southend stand with 2 tiers instead of 1.

If you owned the Brandywell and money was no object then one of the options would be to buy out the houses along Southend Park. Most Clubs that own their stadium start buying up properties around them when the opportunities arise as it gives them greater control and more options. This is common practice but it also is one of the things that hinders stadium growth. Think landsdowne Road and the north stand. Proximity to adjoining houses and lack of sunlight - daylight from a larger stand was the reason that there's only 3 decent sides.

In our case it makes sense to explore all the bits that havent been developed rather than a perfectly good existing stand.

I donlt think that's feasible. A lot of those properties are not privately owned - they'd be the Housing Executive - and you canlt force them to sell. Private owners would listen to a good offer, but not the public sector.

Anyways - it would be a lot cheaper to just start afresh somewhere else than to buy houses just to knock them down. The likes of Liverpool do that because they're very wealthy and massive international sporting corporations with limited alternative choices for where to relocate. We're none of those things.

[marcoloco]

I take it we'd never be allowed to go the 2 tier route, probably planning wouldn't allow it?

Imagine if they were able to build a Southend stand with 2 tiers instead of 1.

If you owned the Brandywell and money was no object then one of the options would be to buy out the houses along Southend Park. Most Clubs that own their stadium start buying up properties around them when the opportunities arise as it gives them greater control and more options. This is common practice but it also is one of the things that hinders stadium growth. Think landsdowne Road and the north stand. Proximity to adjoining houses and lack of sunlight - daylight from a larger stand was the reason that there's only 3 decent sides.

In our case it makes sense to explore all the bits that havent been developed rather than a perfectly good existing stand.

I donlt think that's feasible. A lot of those properties are not privately owned - they'd be the Housing Executive - and you canlt force them to sell. Private owners would listen to a good offer, but not the public sector.

Anyways - it would be a lot cheaper to just start afresh somewhere else than to buy houses just to knock them down. The likes of Liverpool do that because they're very wealthy and massive international sporting corporations with limited alternative choices for where to relocate. We're none of those things.

It's not intended to be a viable solution just an observation in response to a question. Just pointing out that if if you owned the stadium and money was no object then it's plausible if you wanted to extend that stand. Also, we can't use the argument that we're not a wealthy club one minute but we are wealthy enough to find £10m to 15m to build a new purpose built stadium.

I think POD's legacy for the Club will be the training centre not a stadium. A training centre is more achievable both in terms of securing land and costs (it can be delivered at a fraction of the cost of a stadium) and it's something that the Club is currently lacking, unlike a stadium. A training centre could be delivered in under 2 years whereas a stadium would require minimum 5-7 years. Lots of clubs don't own their grounds - Shamrock Rovers with the best stadium in the league are prime example. If we are saying that the only way to deliver a new stadium is for the owner to go and buy it out of his own pocket then I think that is telling. It wont happen. Nor can we change the past. Lots of poor decisions were made that hurt the club. We need to start making good decisions from here on and also we need to be realistic. The cost of this new stand behind the goal will be buttons. Expect that it'll be similar to that temporary structure Bohs put up. A covered shed that addresses a short term problem.

[marcoloco]

If you owned the Brandywell and money was no object then one of the options would be to buy out the houses along Southend Park. Most Clubs that own their stadium start buying up properties around them when the opportunities arise as it gives them greater control and more options. This is common practice but it also is one of the things that hinders stadium growth. Think landsdowne Road and the north stand. Proximity to adjoining houses and lack of sunlight - daylight from a larger stand was the reason that there's only 3 decent sides.

In our case it makes sense to explore all the bits that havent been developed rather than a perfectly good existing stand.
[/quote]

I donlt think that's feasible. A lot of those properties are not privately owned - they'd be the Housing Executive - and you canlt force them to sell. Private owners would listen to a good offer, but not the public sector.

Anyways - it would be a lot cheaper to just start afresh somewhere else than to buy houses just to knock them down. The likes of Liverpool do that because they're very wealthy and massive international sporting corporations with limited alternative choices for where to relocate. We're none of those things.
[/quote]

It's not intended to be a viable solution just an observation in response to a question. Just pointing out that if if you owned the stadium and money was no object then it's plausible if you wanted to extend that stand. Also, we can't use the argument that we're not a wealthy club one minute but we are wealthy enough to find £10m to 15m to build a new purpose built stadium.

I think POD's legacy for the Club will be the training centre not a stadium. A training centre is more achievable both in terms of securing land and costs (it can be delivered at a fraction of the cost of a stadium) and it's something that the Club is currently lacking, unlike a stadium. A training centre could be delivered in under 2 years whereas a stadium would require minimum 5-7 years. Lots of clubs don't own their grounds - Shamrock Rovers with the best stadium in the league are prime example. If we are saying that the only way to deliver a new stadium is for the owner to go and buy it out of his own pocket then I think that is telling. It wont happen. Nor can we change the past. Lots of poor decisions were made that hurt the club. We need to start making good decisions from here on and also we need to be realistic. The cost of this new stand behind the goal will be buttons. Expect that it'll be similar to that temporary structure Bohs put up. A covered shed that addresses a short term problem.

[stevebradley]

we can't use the argument that we're not a wealthy club one minute but we are wealthy enough to find £10m to 15m to build a new purpose built stadium.

I think we can in fairness. The club doesn't have the money - its de-factor owner does. We pay what is essentially a small sum to rent the Brandywell for games. With every game sold out our rent is approximately 3% of our likely gate receipts for each match. And we're looking for Stormont to pay to expand the stadium.

So there is money there for the things that the club's Chairman is happy to spend on (and thank god he is). Beyond that we get the begging bowl out.

I apreciate that POD has his own views on what he should spend his own hard-earned cash on, and rightyl so. But if I was him, I'd view a proper long-term home for the club as the best legacy I could leave. I'm sounding like a broken record here, but we will outgrow the Brandywell at some stage even after the Mark Farren and the new Brandywell Road stand are finished. And that's just with the current trajectory of the LOI. What happens when we inevitably get an All-Island League and crowds go up across the board again ?

[marcoloco]

we can't use the argument that we're not a wealthy club one minute but we are wealthy enough to find £10m to 15m to build a new purpose built stadium.

I think we can in fairness. The club doesn't have the money - its de-factor owner does. We pay what is essentially a small sum to rent the Brandywell for games. With every game sold out our rent is approximately 3% of our likely gate receipts for each match. And we're looking for Stormont to pay to expand the stadium.

So there is money there for the things that the club's Chairman is happy to spend on (and thank god it is). Beyond that we get the begging bowl out.

Steve I think you've hit the nail on the head.

There is money for things that the Chairman is happy to spend on. With that in mind I think he's prioritised a league winning team and youth academy - training facility. Every professional club in the world needs a good structure. That means having the infrastructure to support it in terms of personnel on and off the pitch, a youth academy and training facility, and a stadium for match days. I'm guessing that POD has assessed our position and has prioritised the team / squad and the youth academy and training facility as this gives us long term sustainability. The Stadium, albeit small, already exists and is low cost. So you can have any 2 from the list of 3 but if you opt for the new stadium it comes at the expense of the other two and then you can't fill it.
1. Squad capable of challenging for the league, domestic silverware and europe
2. A youth academy and training facility to attract and develop the best players, coaches, medical staff
3. A new 10k capacity stadium

[stevebradley]

we can't use the argument that we're not a wealthy club one minute but we are wealthy enough to find £10m to 15m to build a new purpose built stadium.

I think we can in fairness. The club doesn't have the money - its de-factor owner does. We pay what is essentially a small sum to rent the Brandywell for games. With every game sold out our rent is approximately 3% of our likely gate receipts for each match. And we're looking for Stormont to pay to expand the stadium.

So there is money there for the things that the club's Chairman is happy to spend on (and thank god it is). Beyond that we get the begging bowl out.

Steve I think you've hit the nail on the head.

There is money for things that the Chairman is happy to spend on. With that in mind I think he's prioritised a league winning team and youth academy - training facility. Every professional club in the world needs a good structure. That means having the infrastructure to support it in terms of personnel on and off the pitch, a youth academy and training facility, and a stadium for match days. I'm guessing that POD has assessed our position and has prioritised the team / squad and the youth academy and training facility as this gives us long term sustainability. The Stadium, albeit small, already exists and is low cost. So you can have any 2 from the list of 3 but if you opt for the new stadium it comes at the expense of the other two and then you can't fill it.
1. Squad capable of challenging for the league, domestic silverware and europe
2. A youth academy and training facility to attract and develop the best players, coaches, medical staff
3. A new 10k capacity stadium

I think the flaw in your analysis is a belief that Derry City can only have a maximum of 2 of the 3 things listed there. In reality when you have a multi-billionaire 'owner' you can easily have all 3 (and even add a few more things to the list and get them too). This all comes down to the club being and getting whatever POD himself believes and decides it should get. As he's the one paying for it all.

Land values in Derry are relatively low - probably the lowest of any key town or city on the island, and still way below where they were before the 2008 crash 15yrs ago. If Derry was any other city on the island its riverfront would be getting filled with flats (just look at Belfast or Galway) - but in reality the vast majority of hosuebuilding on the Cityside of Derry is new social units. Why ? Because the economics don't stack up for low or mid-market provate housing units in Derry. The cityside has a long list of private housing in the pipeline - from the former Tillies site to the huge H2 lands out the Buncrana Road - that are not being built yet. And that's because land values in Derry are so low that the end sales value of a private housing unit doesn't justify the cost and margin involved in building it (with a few up-market exceptions, like the Barleyfields in Culmore). That situation will change over time as the city's economy slowly improves, and you can see it in the vakue of house prices continuing to increase here (but hey're still below 2018 level, and that's before factoring in inflation). So I would argue that now is the most sensiblet time to look at securing land to build a new stadium. That's if it's beig down on greenfield land btw -rather than via a partnership with the council at Templemore, or with the Executive office at Fort George, which would be preferable options for me.

By the time it becomes glaringly obvious that even an expanded Brandywell is still too small for our needs, the options for an alternatuve home elsewhere will have shrunk dramatically and the cost of developng one will have sky-rocketed. And we'll have lost a fortune in potential gate receipts and support in the intervening years. So my fear is that we are lighting the fuse on a time bomb for ourselves here. It may seem clever for us to use the cheap rent at the Branydwell now, but it will get to the stage that that is actaully costing us money overall in lost income (not to menton by not having free choice over what kind of surface we play on).

I would also argue that a key part of attractign the best players is having a great stadium for them to play in. If a player form England is torn 50/50 on whetehr to join Rovers or us, I suspect that running out at Tallaght Stadium would sway the a lot more than doing so at the Brandywell.

And then we get onto where we'll play if we advance in Europe - whcih POD himself has said publicly he wants us to do. We can't play those games at an Academy. A proper stadium fit for the club's purpose is therefore in my view just as important as a winning team and a good academy are. They're 3 parts of the jigsaw for our sustainable future, and I don't believe you can leave any of them out.

[marcoloco]

Irrespective of land values the estimated cost of any new stadium is £10m to £15m. I'd argue availability of suitable sites is as big a problem as cost. Throw in your academy and team building and your looking closer at £13m to £18m investment. That's a serious ask of any owner with little hope of recovering any investment. Whilst charity can go so far there's still a need to be sensible.

Of course the best players want to play in the best grounds but salary, professional day to day facilities, and other factors such as housing, education for their families will come into play also.

We both agree that there is 3 parts of the puzzle. I agree that you can't leave any out. Its all about how and when you can deliver those 3 parts. Many teams move forward with a plan and build up but you are suggesting we deliver all 3 parts at once. I just find that a big ask for a club run on a tight budget and kept afloat by volunteers.