Old postcards of Torquay

quote from merse on relocation thread




I think Yeovil's ground does very well on non match days, so you argument kind of falls down Merse.

Andy certainly not in any bate merse mode and I must confess I do not know the area. My point was only that why use a stadium to highlight the point about it being in the same place, IE near housing etc, if most fans can't even afford to use what is on offer there. I understand that we are talking about a top flight club here and not one at TUFC level.

Fair enough Andy I understand it the way you have put it, I will still argue that our club could do better for itself away from the Plainmoor area and all this really has come about because of the idea that one day we could have a stadium at Clennon Valley.

There was I once getting shot down and being called small minded Merse wants to defend staying at Plainmoor now, but he was all for a move to the Rec site. Please tell me the nearest pub and book makers down on the seafront.

You're both asking and answering your own question Dave.

By building next door, Arsenal have enabled their fans to patronise the same outside facilities that they always enjoyed. That's why they opted for the site they did rather than re-locate down to Kings Cross or up to Alexandra Park................that's why Spurs are doing the same rather than accept a deal in the Olympic Park.

It's Yeovil who are denying the majority of fans the home comforts, because they are only available to the minority who pay for that facility on just one side of the ground and consign everyone else (including you and I as visitors) to looking after ourselves well away from the ground.

The way you grasp at straws and mention "closing pubs" is as ludicrous as the NIMBYS who buy a home next to a ground and then spend their time moaning about it. I bet the police have had more calls to pubs in the Plainmoor area far more often on a non match day than ever they do on a match day.

My long abiding memories of trips to temples of the game like Anfield, St James' Park (the real one!) and Hillsbrough are the outstanding atmospheres in the streets around the grounds. If you blindfolded me and took me to Sheffield Wednesday, there's no way I wouldn't get an instant appreciation of where I was where as if you took me to Scunthorpe or Yeovil I'd be buggered if I could tell the difference.

In fact if you took me to Walsall BEFORE they built that double decker behind one goal and told me that they shared the same stadium I'd have believed you!

To me and my mates going to football IS a day out (often ruined by a 90 minutes of crap we joke) take us to Hamburg and we naturally stray to the Reeperbahn and St Pauli , NOT state of the art SV Hamburg. Take us to grimy old towns up North and we certainly don't go bemoaning the fact we can't stroll on Walls Hill before the match...................................take us to a field outside Yeovil and we're bored out of our heads!

Having lived in Plainmoor for the first 21 years of my life, less than 200 yards from the ground I still call home, I can honestly say I have only once experienced any trouble with visiting fans, from Wolves back in the mid/late 1980's when the two clubs found themselves in the same division.

That was the one game (at any level of football or in any country) when inside the ground I feared for my own life (at around 13 or 14 you did get scared easier) and when we almost felt the need to board up our family house's windows for fear of them being broken.

That worst game was one that saw Wolves fans invade the pitch at half-time and almost cause the game to be abandoned, and I and countless other fans were clamouring at the gates to be allowed to leave early.

Apart from that, the only problems have arisen sometimes with parking, but even that was only ever a minor inconvenience with the police asking some residents to move their cars to enable traffic to flow both ways down Victoria Park Road on matchdays when a sell-out was expected (hence not very often).

I still prefer and will always prefer Plainmoor as the home of Torquay United, but I am not going to say I would stop going completely if they moved somewhere else.

I'd complain about the inconvenience, since I would have to rely on the lousy public transport in Torbay to get there, but I would expect the club to help out the Torquay public if they were to move to Clennon Valley, Newton Abbot or wherever it might be.

Even if they didn't do something to help, I'd also admit my own passion to go would probably not wane, even though I know nothing different to the gentle 200 yard stroll to the entrance to the Main Stand or Popular Side that I have always enjoyed. But I would guarantee that would not apply to everyone, and it would be my expectation that if TUFC relocated, attendances from fans in Torquay would drop. Whether that would be accompanied by an increase in support from the area of the new stadium (wherever it might be) I don't know, but in my own mind I would expect overall attendances to suffer as well.

Honestly, I hope it never happens, and that a nice new main stand is built to complete the four-sided redevelopment of our own stadium I am proud to call home.

I've probably been to the majority of the new grounds built over the last 20 years. Some are cruddy but most clearly "tick the boxes" (don't you love that expression?) on all sorts of criteria. As with so many things, it's hard to argue a case against on technical grounds (I'm not confident enough on the commercial pros and cons). But I still think we ignore things like soul and the wider experience at our peril.

It strikes me that some of the "out of town" grounds are fine to visit every now and again. But on a regular basis, 25 times a season? I think that would knaw at me at somewhere like Yeovil or Wycombe (up-and-down that bloody cul-de-sac).

Spot on BD. As Merse pointed out in another thread about Wycombe, their chairman Steve Hayes would love to build a town centre ground for them and let Wasps stay at Adams Park (he also owns the rugby club as well now). I'd hate to have to go to all of their home games, facing either miles of walking to the ground or using very limited public transport plus then having to walk through the business park as well to get there. The same very much applies to Northampton.

If people in Twickenham, for example, can get by with one huge 80,000 seater stadium and a second 12,000 seater at the Stoop, both of which are surrounded by housing, schools and local parks, we should be able to cope at Plainmoor on the attendances we get, which face it unless we get to the Championship are not going to average over 4,000.

All of the favourite grounds I have visited; Hillsborough, Villa Park, Spotland, the old Feethams in Darlington, White Hart Lane - the thing they have in common is their position in amongst local housing, local shops and local people; not soulless business parks and green fields.

Darlington is possibly the most interesting of the lot; I found the whole experience of going to the new TFM/Reynolds/whatever it is called now Arena a completely different one to visiting the old ground, so handy for the excellent pubs of Darlo's main thoroughfare. Now all you get is one huge pub on the other side of the roundabout from the ground, albeit serving good beer and food, and some huge empty car parks for a ground that is never going to be more than 25% full unless the team goes up at least one division. And that ground is not even THAT far out of town!!