I've just read elsewhere that the concourses are going to be fenced off from Friday for the foreseable future. This is because around 200 Saints fans moved from the seated areas into the West Stand and the club want to ensure the ongoing approval of the Council's H&S person. Someone had been speaking to the Chairman about this.

What a shame.

These are the same kind of teething troubles that dog all new grounds. No matter how much forward thinking is employed during the design phase of a large project such as a stadium you're never able to fully address the unpredictability of crowd behaviour. I remember both Wigan and Bolton having similar problems early on.

I'm sure Saints will get things straightened out. We just have to put up with a few temporary inconveniences - especially whilst the various H&S agencies are sniffing around.

It's not a major issue in all honesty.

I don't remember another ground where you can walk freely between different areas of the stadium unchecked? You certainly can't at Wigan.

It was an entirely predictable outcome that should have been foreseen. Having the 360 degree concourse is fine, it's allowing people into the stand without checking their tickets that brings the problem. It always happened at Knowsley Road, hence the stewards standing in the vomitories of the main stand checking everyones tickets. Having unallocated seating sections also seems a strange situation given how many season tickets have been sold, why fall into the trap of having to reduce capacity because of the daft H&S rules?

As you mention these are teething problems, but surely the club should have hired someone with experience in this field and I've not seen any sign of that.

I'm waiting to see if the club has learned any lessons from the friendly. I am going to be getting to the ground pretty much on time for kick off, so being able to get a drink and something to eat at half time would be splendid. Judging by the queues in the friendly, only those willing to give up half an hour of the match will be able to.

Along with the cladding these issues seem relatively minor, but they could have a massive impact on the club's ability to grow it's attendances. First impressions count, especially with new fans.

you could at KR

And most RL grounds, segregation is for football louts

Millennium Stadium. But that is an all-seater stadium and so overcrowding isn't a problem.

Massive backward step for me. Hope it's not a permanency. I was sold a season ticket on the basis of an open concourse whereby I could meet up with others at half time and before the game. Much as I like the Saints Gold I might just be persuaded to take my pre match drinkies elsewhere such as The George or Witherspoons.

Cricket grounds allow free movement, as do rugby union grounds, the stoop being a fine example.

Wembley stadium allows you to walk around the stadium.

Only soccer due to its hooligan problem has for a long time penned people into certain parts of the ground.

I hope these barriers are just there for certain matches, as i see no reason when there are only 11k on v the likes of Catalan and Harlequins that free movement isnt allowed.

Doesn't that show how far we've come already, when we talk of a crowd of 11,000 as being 'only 11k'.

At the stadium tour last Saturday we were shown what looked like big gates at the North West corner that had not yet been fitted, rather than just the webbed barriers I'd seen previously.

Nearly 15k sold according to redvee's tweet. Compared to KR it's excellent I suppose, a couple of thousand increase on your usual opening day, but I was hoping for a sellout.

If you've not bought your ticket yet, or are considering staying at home because it's cold, but a ticket now FFS.

I know its not in your nature to be positive but as I posted on Red Vee to my knowledge this will be by far the biggest home gate for a fixture against Salford probably in over half a century. When we consider that Salford appear to have sold less than 300 tickets its augers well for when the bigger and better supported teams are in town. This is for a game televised live as well which is usually a factor. A crowd of over 15,000 guaranteed already is a magnificent result.

I can't understand where the extra 2000 places are. I went online to buy mine 3 weeks ago and wanted one for myself and my wife but there were only about a couple of dozen scattered about in the alloacted seating sections meaning we wouldn't be sat together so I had to go for the unalocated sections which is not what I really wanted.

The spaces will be in the unallocated seats, especially at the North-East and South -East of the ground and in the East terrace. In the Widnes friendly no one was sat there until they moved people from the West stand into those sections.

Cheers. I'll just have to go early which is not in my nature, used to getting there just as the teams come out. lol

Over now 15K according to the club email.

when I was at the ticket office earlier in the week to pick up at long last my season ticket, they were telling a couple of old dears that they only had East stand tickets left and that was on Monday!

We will do 16K easily now.