News Jack Dyer Stand -Demolition Has Begun

[Ned_Flanders]

Yep, that patch of dirt quite literally represents our roots.

the back seat of a Torana represents your roots

 

[Rayzorwire]

the back seat of a Torana represents your roots

Nah, was much better to be 'shaggin' in a wagon'...

Padlock the amp to the rear bumper and you were good to go.

Real bummer if you were a drummer...

 

[Bojangles17]

To the latter point, people protect and restore dilapidated old buildings all the time precisely because they inform our sense of place. The vista looking across PRO to the JD stand is iconic for 10s of 1000s of people who pass there every day, and I think the David Mandie building has also achieved a special place in peoples hearts in much a shorter time.

I am all-for expansion, but by adding to that rich tapestry of significant buildings, there is space to do it and an opportunity to fix the Bruntun Av/Richmond station safety hazard at the same time.

I am not all-for expanding the training surface to be the size of the MCG, I think that is over-exuberant and would take too much amenity away from that corner of Yarra Park.

Hardly think addressing Brunton Ave Richmond station is within the scope of the clubs punt rd development

 

[_RT_]

lol so tell me in which of the recent 37 years in the wilderness would the Tigers have won a premiership if we had had a bit bigger training ground? 1982? Not to mention that from inception to 2010-ish, the club wasn't even using the centre of the ground for half the year as it was a cricket pitch, and yet we are still just a few cups behind the leaders, having been in the league for less time than them.

We shouldn't forget that PRO is actually the Richmond Cricket Ground. We just ten years ago muscled out the Richmond Cricket Club who had been playing there since 1854. That's already a massive change in the traditional use of the arena, and it's place in Richmond community life.

Back then Gale said we wanted a Docklands-sized training ground once we got the cricketers out. Apparently that has now escalated to MCG size and we now have to muscle out the heritage stand too?

It's pretty clear what is going on here. The club is having a fantastic run, but it needs to keep its feet on the ground and understand that it has to curb some of the exuberance and ambition to live within the Richmond community.

You do know that some of the facilities at within the new stand would be available to the local community to use, unlike the current stand which nobody can actually use as it can't be insured against risk.

We spent 37 years in the wilderness in part because our old facilities weren't updated until we were well into the 2000s. We were a success in the late 60s 70s and early 80s because we has outstanding coaches and players and training back then wasn't as advanced as it is now.

Clubs like WCE Essendon Hawks(Dingley) Lions are/have spent millions to upgrade to state if the art facilities and people here want us to fall behind so that a stand that is unusable isn't touched and somehow they also expect that we'll just continue to be one of the front runners in terms of trying to win premierships.

 

[RFCGloryJC]

There's a lot of buildings that are not necessarily grand to look at but meet heritage preservation guidelines and criteria.
Like the railways goods shed at Docklands.
If heritage experts believe the building has historic value they have a legal right to try to preserve it.
It's a democracy.

 

[Infamy]

It's a democracy.

Be prepared to lose then

 

[PetterdHoisted]

Im answering this in a separate post because it deserves a proper answer.

back when the Mandie building was built, we had this at RFC:

- RFC mens senior team (still were with coburg back then, so the players jumped between the two and coaches were not all here)
- KGI

Since then, the following has happened:

- massive expansion of football dept
- big expansion of admin, marketing, membership, and support roles
- Reserves moved in-house
- AFLW team
- Next Generation Academy
- expansion of the KGI
- establishment of our indigenous transition school
- Bachar Houli Foundation
- Aligned Leisure
- Training JV with Swinburne

now, some here say "kick out xxxxx" we have plenty of room. Here is the argument against each:

1) Kick Out the Women!!!
There is a big advantage to sharing things like medical teams, rehab staff and so on. Also coaches benefit for sharing ideas and learning off of each other. The AFLW is being taught the same gameplan for example as the AFL team (as is the VFL). Splitting them means duplicating some resources needlessly.

Our govt funding was only granted because of the AFLW/KGI/BHF. Remove a key part of this, we lose the funding for Punt Road. While this may mean we get a great new AFLW facility at Glen Waverley (for example), it means no upgrade for our mens team. We are effectively using the expansion for the women to improve a lot of our common use facilities, and we lose this by splitting the two.

Also, they are Richmond. They are not a circus act, a novelty, or something lesser. They wear the same jumper as the mens team because they are Richmond. We dont have "Richmond A" and "Richmond B"

The consequence is we need more room. We dont have female change rooms, and this severely limits our ability to have both teams train and work at the same time.

2) Play our VFL/AFLW games elsewhere!!!
Go to other boards, people are enthusiastic about the idea of Richmond playing out of Princes Park. Means bigger crowds for us, and helps justify spending more on that site. Neg is everyone on our board hates that idea, and we want our home to be Punt Road.

Reality is our lights and crowd capacity hurt our ability to be scheduled for particular games.

3) Move the KGI/BHF out!!!
This we cannot do. The govt funding is tied to these (and the AFW). Move them out, and you can guarantee the govt money stays strictly with the KGI.

Also dont underestimate the benefit of the KGI and BHF on our mens team. Much of the improvement off field for Martin has been tied back to the work he does with the KGI. Working with the kids on leadership helped him develop himself as a leader. This is an inhouse resource we shouldnt send away (geographic separation means contact only happens when it HAS to happen. Our players regularly speak to the kids during their breaks and when they are training in the Laguntas)

4) Move out Aligned Leisure!!!
This on the surface sounds like a no brainer, BUT there is a big but!

we have been a little cunning with AL. While it appears to be a standalone separated business, we have integrated the fu** out of it. Students from our Swinburne training get potential access to jobs with AL. So we want those two to be close together (a likely job is a big motivator for people signing up to these training arrangements). Also the NGA used the AL network of sites are bases to run programs out off across our region. Now with the AFL taking over the academies, what involvement we will have up there is still TBD, but my understanding is the club is not happy to walk away completely, and is still trying to figure out how we can do this in a post covid world. Again, a reason we want to keep AL and our junior development workers under the same roof.

5) Move out Swinburne!!!
See above. Also learn from VU and the doggies. Their sports science courses are now in hot demand because you study real life situations at WO. Having our training on site makes it "real" and more likely to get punters signing up


So what does all this mean? If we keep everything together, we have to expand. To do this it either means replacing the JDS, or moving our entire base.

Seaford is available, just saying.

awesome summary, thanks.

and just imagine, if what everyone says will happen re. Gale happens. He will move to AFL House and we will have a new CEO coming in sooner rather than later. That CEO will surely have their own grand plans for expansion a la 0-3-75 from Gale 10 years ago.

This is off-topic but it becomes a question of 'what is a footy club' at some point, running an AFL footy club, running businesses for profit, running community programs, at what point would a club like Richmond start to rival a Local Council in influence and funding?! At that point you could demolish what you wanted. I wonder if AFL House has an opinion on how 'big' (diversified in activities) the clubs should get.

 

[Serenity_Now]

There's a lot of buildings that are not necessarily grand to look at but meet heritage preservation guidelines and criteria.
Like the railways goods shed at Docklands.
If heritage experts believe the building has historic value they have a legal right to try to preserve it.
It's a democracy.

Yea but heritage Victoria will determine that it’s not worthy of heritage listing and down she’ll go. I doubt the club would’ve gone through all this planning and not had some consultation with heritage Victoria.

 

[RFCGloryJC]

Be prepared to lose then

It's not winning or losing.
It's a democracy and people expressing their opinion.

 

[Bojangles17]

You're gunna have to explain this to me.

I have full faith that Richmond FC and the Board would have consulted the appropriate heritage experts at the time. I may be wrong, but I'd honestly be surprised. We don't mess this stuff up lately. Do you have evidence that we didn't consult the appropriate heritage experts?

So why do the National Trust have any say? Why do we have to go to them?

I don't want to lose the stand either, but this is the way forward decided by the democratic principles of our Board, and I believe in it.

Of course they would have engaged professionals such as property lawyers that are across parameters such as heritage overlay , you DONT phone up heritage trust , not will they five you ADVICE. That’s your responsibility when scoping your development plans . You sound very naive to the process, like it’s some help line . It’s a complex process that will need specialist contracted resources to successfully navigate our way through. Our connections and cash will help

 

[Bojangles17]

There's a lot of buildings that are not necessarily grand to look at but meet heritage preservation guidelines and criteria.
Like the railways goods shed at Docklands.
If heritage experts believe the building has historic value they have a legal right to try to preserve it.
It's a democracy.

The context is significantly different in that this site is being leased as home to a professional sports club. It’s a similar context to the former stands at Caulfield and Flemington that made way for contemporary replacements

 

[PetterdHoisted]

It's not winning or losing.
It's a democracy and people expressing their opinion.

it's very tough to run the 'save the JDS' line on here, I think because people believe we are holding the club back, but I believe it is the opposite. Preserving our history, and respecting PRO history will make our club stronger going into the future.

There are solutions to overcrowding that dont involve demolishing the JDS.

There are no solutions to having an MCG-sized training ground and keeping JDS however. That can't work, but I think that is unnecessary anyway.

 

[RFCGloryJC]

It doesn't really matter what we think.
Some heritage experts believe the stand is worth saving, and will pursue legal avenues.
Most of my family supports the Dons, in their coterie.
From memory, Essendon preserved the Windy Hall stand before relocation.
Their new hangar and the footy club since are a disaster.

 

[Ned_Flanders]

awesome summary, thanks.

and just imagine, if what everyone says will happen re. Gale happens. He will move to AFL House and we will have a new CEO coming in sooner rather than later. That CEO will surely have their own grand plans for expansion a la 0-3-75 from Gale 10 years ago.

This is off-topic but it becomes a question of 'what is a footy club' at some point, running an AFL footy club, running businesses for profit, running community programs, at what point would a club like Richmond start to rival a Local Council in influence and funding?! At that point you could demolish what you wanted. I wonder if AFL House has an opinion on how 'big' (diversified in activities) the clubs should get.

Our business is football, and as KiwiTiger will tell anyone who listens, we are not here to make a profit.

Ever dollar we earn is to ultimately benefit our footy teams.

Now people ask about KGI and BHF. They also help fund the team, because they get us the grants that would be impossible to get if we perform no community service.

As for a change in strategy, I will not ask KW to comment, because he probably shouldn't. What I can say is any competent board will have two plans in place. The first is the succession planning of our board, and the second is the succession planning of our senior management.

Failure to do both in the 1970s killed us in the 1980s.

This also matters because it's the board who has the vision for a club, the CEO is their to create the plan and team to implement it.

Our current vision is to be a team that is sustainable and walks the talk. We are moving from pokies to sports centres and training because it 1) better compliments our core mission of a sports club, and 2) it's a positive influence on our community.

This vision will continue after Gale leaves. How it's done may change, but the core philosophy will not.

Look at the NRL teams. Some have billion dollar pokies castles, but they can no longer properly support junior clubs. They are now gaming empires, not leagues clubs.

 

[RogerDean]

Yep, that patch of dirt quite literally represents our roots.

My grandfathers ashes lay under that turf, that patch of dirt...he played footy on that patch of turf. He lived opposite the ground but spent almost all his days in and around that stand. Yep, I have a personal attachment to the place, but I'm not the only person who feel attached to that stand and not all of them are football members or even supporters. It's part of the fabric of Richmond and Melbourne. Its worth saving.

 

[Ned_Flanders]

it's very tough to run the 'save the JDS' line on here, I think because people believe we are holding the club back, but I believe it is the opposite. Preserving our history, and respecting PRO history will make our club stronger going into the future.

There are solutions to overcrowding that dont involve demolishing the JDS.

There are no solutions to having an MCG-sized training ground and keeping JDS however. That can't work, but I think that is unnecessary anyway.

What's a solution that doesn't cost over $100m? Let's get serious, we are not tunnelling Brunton Avenue.

Your solution is to either relocate entirely or divide the club up into multiple bases across Melbourne. In either case, where is the Greenfield site big enough for us to do this (and it won't be an existing park, learn from the saints and Dee's that this pipedream will never happen)

 

[Ned_Flanders]

It doesn't really matter what we think.
Some heritage experts believe the stand is worth saving, and will pursue legal avenues.
From memory, Essendon preserved the Windy Hall stand before relocation.
Their new hangar and footy club since are a disaster.

The bowls club has a say there don't they?

 

[HTT]

lol so tell me in which of the recent 37 years in the wilderness would the Tigers have won a premiership if we had had a bit bigger training ground? 1982? Not to mention that from inception to 2010-ish, the club wasn't even using the centre of the ground for half the year as it was a cricket pitch, and yet we are still just a few cups behind the leaders, having been in the league for less time than them.

We shouldn't forget that PRO is actually the Richmond Cricket Ground. We just ten years ago muscled out the Richmond Cricket Club who had been playing there since 1854. That's already a massive change in the traditional use of the arena, and it's place in Richmond community life.

Back then Gale said we wanted a Docklands-sized training ground once we got the cricketers out. Apparently that has now escalated to MCG size and we now have to muscle out the heritage stand too?

It's pretty clear what is going on here. The club is having a fantastic run, but it needs to keep its feet on the ground and understand that it has to curb some of the exuberance and ambition to live within the Richmond community.

I dare say the Richmond community gets a decent boost out of the club winning flags.

 

[Rayzorwire]

My grandfathers ashes lay under that turf, that patch of dirt...he played footy on that patch of turf. He lived opposite the ground but spent almost all his days in and around that stand. Yep, I have a personal attachment to the place, but I'm not the only person who feel attached to that stand and not all of them are football members or even supporters. It's part of the fabric of Richmond and Melbourne. Its worth saving.

Great story, Roger, thanks for sharing it.

I think most people would like to retain the stand in at least some form, I hope they can come to as good a compromise as possible.

 

[RFCGloryJC]

My own view is the Junction Oval redevelopment is the gold standard.
They refurbished the two heritage stands and built a new complex too.
The board should contact the architectural firm and ask advice on how they went about it.

 

[The Goon]

Gee theres some naive commentary in this thread.
- Roads are not being built over or put in tunnels. The club doesn't have the money and the state government has no interest in it.
- We're not getting a centimetre of parkland. The community would, rightly so, kick up an almighty stink.

We've proposed a scheme that is within our budget and that keeps the club together at Tigerland, at the expense of a stand that the local authorities have not deemed worthy of heritage listing. So it's a bit of a no-brainer for me.

The fact that the National Trust has taken an interest is not itself evidence that the stand deserves saving - it is their literal job to ask the question. I love what heritage we have (I actually make part of my living from heritage interpretation), but we go to some absurd extremes in this country.

 

[_RT_]

Im answering this in a separate post because it deserves a proper answer.

back when the Mandie building was built, we had this at RFC:

- RFC mens senior team (still were with coburg back then, so the players jumped between the two and coaches were not all here)
- KGI

Since then, the following has happened:

- massive expansion of football dept
- big expansion of admin, marketing, membership, and support roles
- Reserves moved in-house
- AFLW team
- Next Generation Academy
- expansion of the KGI
- establishment of our indigenous transition school
- Bachar Houli Foundation
- Aligned Leisure
- Training JV with Swinburne

now, some here say "kick out xxxxx" we have plenty of room. Here is the argument against each:

1) Kick Out the Women!!!
There is a big advantage to sharing things like medical teams, rehab staff and so on. Also coaches benefit for sharing ideas and learning off of each other. The AFLW is being taught the same gameplan for example as the AFL team (as is the VFL). Splitting them means duplicating some resources needlessly.

Our govt funding was only granted because of the AFLW/KGI/BHF. Remove a key part of this, we lose the funding for Punt Road. While this may mean we get a great new AFLW facility at Glen Waverley (for example), it means no upgrade for our mens team. We are effectively using the expansion for the women to improve a lot of our common use facilities, and we lose this by splitting the two.

Also, they are Richmond. They are not a circus act, a novelty, or something lesser. They wear the same jumper as the mens team because they are Richmond. We dont have "Richmond A" and "Richmond B"

The consequence is we need more room. We dont have female change rooms, and this severely limits our ability to have both teams train and work at the same time.

2) Play our VFL/AFLW games elsewhere!!!
Go to other boards, people are enthusiastic about the idea of Richmond playing out of Princes Park. Means bigger crowds for us, and helps justify spending more on that site. Neg is everyone on our board hates that idea, and we want our home to be Punt Road.

Reality is our lights and crowd capacity hurt our ability to be scheduled for particular games.

3) Move the KGI/BHF out!!!
This we cannot do. The govt funding is tied to these (and the AFW). Move them out, and you can guarantee the govt money stays strictly with the KGI.

Also dont underestimate the benefit of the KGI and BHF on our mens team. Much of the improvement off field for Martin has been tied back to the work he does with the KGI. Working with the kids on leadership helped him develop himself as a leader. This is an inhouse resource we shouldnt send away (geographic separation means contact only happens when it HAS to happen. Our players regularly speak to the kids during their breaks and when they are training in the Laguntas)

4) Move out Aligned Leisure!!!
This on the surface sounds like a no brainer, BUT there is a big but!

we have been a little cunning with AL. While it appears to be a standalone separated business, we have integrated the fu** out of it. Students from our Swinburne training get potential access to jobs with AL. So we want those two to be close together (a likely job is a big motivator for people signing up to these training arrangements). Also the NGA used the AL network of sites are bases to run programs out off across our region. Now with the AFL taking over the academies, what involvement we will have up there is still TBD, but my understanding is the club is not happy to walk away completely, and is still trying to figure out how we can do this in a post covid world. Again, a reason we want to keep AL and our junior development workers under the same roof.

5) Move out Swinburne!!!
See above. Also learn from VU and the doggies. Their sports science courses are now in hot demand because you study real life situations at WO. Having our training on site makes it "real" and more likely to get punters signing up


So what does all this mean? If we keep everything together, we have to expand. To do this it either means replacing the JDS, or moving our entire base.

Seaford is available, just saying.

 

[Bojangles17]

My own view is the Junction Oval redevelopment is the gold standard.
They refurbished the two heritage stands and built a new complex too.
The board should contact the architectural firm and ask advice on how they went about it.

Poor analogy They don’t house a FT professional sports team , vic cricket team home ground , gold standard lol

 

[Bojangles17]

Gee theres some naive commentary in this thread.
- Roads are not being built over or put in tunnels. The club doesn't have the money and the state government has no interest in it.
- We're not getting a centimetre of parkland. The community would, rightly so, kick up an almighty stink.

We've proposed a scheme that is within our budget and that keeps the club together at Tigerland, at the expense of a stand that the local authorities have not deemed worthy of heritage listing. So it's a bit of a no-brainer for me.

The fact that the National Trust has taken an interest is not itself evidence that the stand deserves saving - it is their literal job to ask the question. I love what heritage we have (I actually make part of my living from heritage interpretation), but we go to some absurd extremes in this country.

Well said

 

[Aristotle Pickett]

This is interesting,

'After the 1964 season, the capacity of the venue was to be reduced to only 22,000, after much of the outer was to be lost to the widening by 50 ft of Punt Road, a notorious traffic bottleneck. Under the stewardship of President Ray Dunn, Richmond negotiated to move its home games to the Melbourne Cricket Ground starting from 1965.'