ARCHIVE: Readers Poll Results – The Horwich Move!!
The following poll results and list of suggested facilties for the new stadium first appeared in Issue 7 of White Love in April/May 1996. The poll having been conducted in December 1995.
Just over 40% of you are still unhappy about the stadium switch to Red Moss, with 50% of you happy. However, 80% of you thought that the ground would NOT be as good as reported in the Evening News and 75% of you thought that the club had told too many lies and had been too secretive about the move. 60% of you reckoned the capacity should be 30,000, 25% thought 35,000 and a very small 5% thought it should actually be just 20,000. Only 10% of you were happy with the proposed 25,000.
It was difficult to decipher figures from the next section of the poll, which involved travel to Horwich. The majority of you appeared to be content with travelling to games even though your journey time increased and in some cases you didn’t seem too bothered about switching from foot to car, bus or rail – I reckon these answers were swayed by our then Premier League status (at the time of the poll) – but if you dare think about it, (god forbid) that we ‘do a Swindon’ (and drop two divisions) we could be in the Second Division by the time we start playing our first games at Red Moss… how many would still attend then?
“The majority of you appeared to be content with travelling to games even though your journey time increased and in some cases you didn’t seem too bothered about switching from foot to car, bus or rail.”
We asked you if you would still attend less significant games in competitions like the Coca Cola, Anglo Italian or Auto Windscreens cups at Red Moss… 45% of you would NOT attend these games whilst 90% of you would NOT attend any reserve games there, which is a huge increase from the 45% of you who don’t attend any at Burnden Park.
Free buses and a rail link were suggested as ways to ease travel costs to Red Moss. Cheap admission prices and a free/secure car park were also thrown into the melting pot, as were concessions for OAPs and DSS attendees. One reader thought we should change our name to “United”, which in turn would mean TV coverage of absolutely EVERY match and therefore we wouldn’t need to travel to home games!!!
What other facilities should the new stadium have?
Hopefully the ground at Red Moss will have close circuit TV, bars, bookies and flood-free toilets*. But what other facilities should it have?
Supporters club open 7 days a week
Better food
Top notch corporate facilities to increase revenue
Disabled access
Hot pies, Big Macs
Car park should be in the shape of the Munich Airport runway & taxiways**
An efficient ticket office offering quick service
Good commercial department
Food/snack bar which caters for vegetarians
Nubile hand maidens
“Throw Reds to the lions” pits
No ticket availability for ‘filth’ fans
A wide and decent range of food
Good seating with leg room
Video screens
Large ‘Happy’ shop***
Gymnasium with a museum
*For our younger readers, the toilets at Burnden were always overflowing with urine!
**We clearly all still had ‘Munich Angst’ back in those days!!
***Younger readers won’t know about the ‘Happy’ shop at Burnden – so just for the record – it wasn’t some kind of weird sex shop, ok!
Standing room
Easy exit for car park
Lunatic asylum
Shitload of parking
A decent team on the pitch – it’s no good having a decent ground if you’re playing Wigan!
A McDonalds
A football team
Topless barmaids
Crèche
Restaurant
Large social club
Public sports centre
24 hour credit card system for tickets
Free parking
“Rice & Easy” shop in the ground or nearby – this shop is legendary
A good football team with no McFarland/Todd