ARCHIVE: Let’s Hear It For... The UK Waste Stadium
It’s got a certain ring about it hasn’t it? The ring of a beggar rattling a tin pathetically for another coin. The ‘UK Waste Stadium’, the ‘Pepsi Challenge Stadium’, how about the ‘Sold Our Soul Down The Bloody River For Thirty Pieces of Crappy Silver Stadium’.
How pathetic it is in reality when you weigh up all that the name of a ground means to it’s fans against a million or so quid that would in most cases buy you two-thirds of a reasonable Division One player. I am not alone in being somewhat perturbed by the prospect of holding dear the name of a brand of washing powder when it comes to identifying with the home of our team. When Middlesbrough sponsored their new home, they at least had the decency to allow it a double barrelled name. A name for the sponsors, and a name for the fans; The ‘Cellnet Riverside Stadium’ is palatable, whereas the ‘Sir Alfred McAlpine Stadium’ in Huddersfield (could be on Mars or in China for all the connection it has with local identity) is not.
Come on Mr. Hargreaves, let’s have some sort of compromise. Alright if you want to exploit a sponsorship opportunity go ahead, but don’t completely (again) alienate the fans for the sake of a few quid. Some sort of campaign by the fans is needed to force a re-think. Come on guys, send a letter, or at least suggest a reasonable name.
“From the visible cross section you can see where all the proposed facilities will be housed, as space behind the stands seems considerable.”
On the plus side, I took my first look at the towering edifice that will be Burnden Park Mk2 last weekend. Things are certainly happening. Sceptical people like myself like to see proof. A drive down by Tesco provides ample. The pitch is laid, closed in by a ten foot tall metal fence, and is surrounded by a substantial amount of heavy engineering. The two main stands are underway. The far side is further along than the near one, but both tower about eighty feet up in the air, angling steeply towards the ground. From the visible cross section you can see where all the proposed facilities will be housed, as space behind the stands seems considerable. The prefabricated steel Lego bricks being used are travelling only about a quarter of a mile from Watson’s steel works near British Aerospace. Watson’s, you may well remember, built the original Burnden Park floodlights, and also made the ‘BIG-ONE’ at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. A team of steel erectors can build a twenty foot section in a couple of days, and so according to a couple of opinions, the steel substructure should be completed inside three months. One stand is being worked on at a time. ‘Why not build them all at once” may seem a reasonable question. The answer is that fine tuning and positioning can only be done accurately by one team working their way around.
Future completion schedules can be a bit vague, but rumours that a virtual reality computer generated model (like Middlesbrough had) will be used to show fans what their views will be like before they buy next years season ticket, leads one to believe that there may be something of a race on. Other suggestions that whilst the stadium and seating will be completed for the start of next season, other facilities like executive boxes will not have been confirmed. The 25,000 seater capacity has alarmed a number of fans, but it seems that the stadium is being built to accommodate 30,000 spaces, with 5,000 seats left out. These other 5,000 seats are dependant upon our league status, and the traffic generated on the surrounding roads.
It looks an exciting development, and if you’re like me in liking your big engineering projects, it’s worth a look, although don’t expect to get on to the site. A twenty-four hour guard rota and extensive perimeter fence restrict you to about 200 yards and security is very tight indeed, although this does not really matter.
First appeared in White Love Issue 11, Autumn 1996.