Playing games at Arden St

[Horace]

Arden Street is a dead option. Impossible. The only existing option for us is if they bring Princess Park back up to game standard. I hear the AFL is considering that as a real option at the moment.
Forget WA as the AFL has said no and forget Skilled Stadium. The Dome and MCG will change their deals before season's end and this won't be an issue.
The Dome in particular will be paid off with extra games as the new teams come on board.

Please explain GK how the extra teams in Gold Coast and Western Sydney will provide extra games at Etihad. No one has come up with a plausible argument on this yet. Thanks.

 

[Twinkletoes]

Not a chance in hell that AFL games will ever be played again at Arden St, as much as I loved going to games there. I WISH! Won't happen!

It's a public sports field with trees growing out of the mini versions of the old terraces, with no toilet facilities and little room for any temporary construction to house any sort of crowd. When it was holding 18,000 crowds those terraces were much bigger, and on those days we were either sitting in the 9 or so rows of seats surrounding the ground, or packed in like sardines standing around the outer. The atmosphere was magnificent but it's yesteryear stuff now unfortunately. No corporate facilities either!

Princes Park or Cardinia Park are the only options, and only one of those is in the city of the teams who require it's use.

 

[Twinkletoes]

Please explain GK how the extra teams in Gold Coast and Western Sydney will provide extra games at Etihad. No one has come up with a plausible argument on this yet. Thanks.

Unless a satisfactory deal is done between stadium management/owners and the AFL tenant clubs then beyond 2014 the AFL won't play one game more than the minimum required under the contract with Jihad Dome(30 games), no matter how many additional teams are in.

 

[NICK_ROOBOY83]

As others have stated there's no way in hell we will be allowed to play any official AFL game at Arden street. Just won't happen, we need the AFL to work on getting a new third stadium built or just get Princess Park upgraded.

 

[numchuks]

Not a chance in hell that AFL games will ever be played again at Arden St, as much as I loved going to games there. I WISH! Won't happen!

It's a public sports field with trees growing out of the mini versions of the old terraces, with no toilet facilities and little room for any temporary construction to house any sort of crowd. When it was holding 18,000 crowds those terraces were much bigger, and on those days we were either sitting in the 9 or so rows of seats surrounding the ground, or packed in like sardines standing around the outer. The atmosphere was magnificent but it's yesteryear stuff now unfortunately. No corporate facilities either!

Princes Park or Cardinia Park are the only options, and only one of those is in the city of the teams who require it's use.

Harold Henderson Pavilion could house the corporate stuff. There'll be no gym in there next year.

Toilets? Portaloos will do the job. List that under the temporary stuff we'd need to hire.

As for the trees, they are mostly around the perimeter of the ground, but point taken some would get in the way.

Certainly alot of issues to consider.

 

[Twinkletoes]

Harold Henderson Pavilion could house the corporate stuff. There'll be no gym in there next year.

Toilets? Portaloos will do the job. List that under the temporary stuff we'd need to hire.

As for the trees, they are mostly around the perimeter of the ground, but point taken some would get in the way.

Certainly alot of issues to consider.

Nothing a few $$$$ wouldn't fix though I guess. When weighed up against the net loss of actually playing at Etihad, maybe the AFL would be willing to fork out for the necessary upgrades etc. It's a very restricted site though, especially on the Macaulay Rd side of the ground.

 

[gokangas]

Please explain GK how the extra teams in Gold Coast and Western Sydney will provide extra games at Etihad. No one has come up with a plausible argument on this yet. Thanks.

They will play Thursday and Mondays so the AFL has new games to add to a venues contract. Probably one a week or at least 14 a year. Thats mega dollars to trade and the MCG and Etihad will be competing for them.

 

[Devil Fish]

Yep, a cyclone fence around the ground & away we go. I would love to be a Bill Gates -type millionaire & step in & re-vamp Arden St - It would be SENSATIONAL!!! But you would obviously need to run it by Caro, Sheahan, Maher, KB etc. to make sure they approved.

 

[Horace]

They will play Thursday and Mondays so the AFL has new games to add to a venues contract. Probably one a week or at least 14 a year. Thats mega dollars to trade and the MCG and Etihad will be competing for them.

Sorry GK that is not the answer.
Two new non-Victorian clubs will bring no more games to Victoria. Only additional rounds of football will increase the number of games to be played in Victoria.

In addition Demetriou has been quoted as saying that Etihad does not want more games. This is in itself very mystifying. Why would a stadium which is making so much money under the current arrangements, want to cut the number of games it hosts?

 

[gokangas]

Sorry GK that is not the answer.
Two new non-Victorian clubs will bring no more games to Victoria. Only additional rounds of football will increase the number of games to be played in Victoria.

In addition Demetriou has been quoted as saying that Etihad does not want more games. This is in itself very mystifying. Why would a stadium which is making so much money under the current arrangements, want to cut the number of games it hosts?

Surely the extra two clubs play away games in Melbourne so there has to be more games - this is assuming that the season is longer which is the model I have read about. The stadium leverage is simple. Etihad is guaranteed a certain number of games annually and they currently are fixtured more. From memory about 14 extra - the number may be wrong but the principle is correct. The AFL can just fixture more games to the MCG and cut back to the minimum contracted number at Etihad and they lose (say) 14 games they currently get. Thats the AFL's main leveraging point at the moment.

 

[numchuks]

As others have stated there's no way in hell we will be allowed to play any official AFL game at Arden street. Just won't happen, we need the AFL to work on getting a new third stadium built or just get Princess Park upgraded.

There's about a 5% chance that a 3rd stadium will get off the ground, and it wont come soon enough for us. It'll be a 5-10 year proposition for us at best.

As for Princess Park I don't see that as the solution to our problems. We've played home games there in the past, and the fans didn't turn up. What'll be different this time??? Imo we wont be pulling more then 10k.

Arden St. is diffrent because it is our spiritual home. It has a special connection with supporters that Princess Park doesn't. If Euge made the call to turn upto Arden St the fans would respond.

Look at this thread, there's people who would travel all the way from Sydney to see a game a game at Arden St. I don't reckon anyone on this board would miss it. It would be the event of the season. Think about it. Suburban footy returning to Arden st after 25 years. Would be massive.

Start small. Trial a game, if it is a success then we can look at building some permanent facilities.

 

[Zvim]

We used to be able to fit 25-30k there packed in like sardines, hasn't really happened for a long time and we don't have the stands anymore.

If we wanted to play at Arden Street the club would have to find out if the members would rock up there and want games there, if our corporates would be happy with that and we would need to do a Geelong and have a long-term project in mind which was done in stages. Ie, we would need to build one stand at a time every few years as we paid off the old stand and just make it modular.

We don't have the means to build a 30k stadium in one fell swoop but could plan for building one in say 4 or 5 stages which each section introducing more seating and corporate boxes, etc.

The initial stand would have to be built to house both teams, media, etc.

What would be required is to get the temporary seating up to about 15k, and the capacity would go up a bit as the permanent stands were built and the facilities would improve out of sight with each stand.

We would need council approval, etc.

I'd definitely go and think we wouldn't have any problems getting capacity and we would probably make $300k a game with 15k and it would go up significantly from there as we expanded the seating capacity and added more corporate facilities.

A project like this would mean we would play a lot of our games at Arden Street and means we would be stuck there after TD went into AFL hands.

A lot depends on how much the AFL plan to return to clubs when TD goes back into AFL hands.

 

[NMFC Est 1869]

Yes, you're mad! Forget it, it's not going to happen
Not cos our supporters wouldnt embrace it, but for 100 other reasons, AFL, Council, Residents, Facilities, Money, TV just to name a few.

 

[NICK_ROOBOY83]

There's about a 5% chance that a 3rd stadium will get off the ground, and it wont come soon enough for us. It'll be a 5-10 year proposition for us at best.

As for Princess Park I don't see that as the solution to our problems. We've played home games there in the past, and the fans didn't turn up. What'll be different this time??? Imo we wont be pulling more then 10k.

Arden St. is diffrent because it is our spiritual home. It has a special connection with supporters that Princess Park doesn't. If Euge made the call to turn upto Arden St the fans would respond.

Look at this thread, there's people who would travel all the way from Sydney to see a game a game at Arden St. I don't reckon anyone on this board would miss it. It would be the event of the season. Think about it. Suburban footy returning to Arden st after 25 years. Would be massive.

Start small. Trial a game, if it is a success then we can look at building some permanent facilities.

Don't get me wrong, i'd love to see us play a game or two at Arden st, but the AFL just won't let us do so.

 

[utility]

Anybody who thinks Arden St is an option is living in a fantasy land. There is NO way the ground will be suitable for matches, and there is NO money to redevelop the ground for matches.

A more likely and attractive scenario would be playing in Ballarat and even that is highly unlikely.