Quote saint at wire="saint at wire"The club obviously hopes that the cladding in the west and east stands will be sufficient. I hope it is but I am right in the middle of the north stand and in the concourse the rain was coming in over the top of the turnstyles etc, mainly directly from the north and not from the west so I'm not sure how cladding in the two ends will help the north stand especially near the middle. '"
They will have taken plenty of engineering and other specialist advice on this. The last thing the club will want is (a) bad press, and (b) law suits (not to mention injury to fans). The club has clearly stated that the ends are to be clad first and if that doesn't keep the rain out of the North Stand then the North Stand will also be clad. That the corners are being clad means there is a good chance the prevailing winds will be redirected away from the North Stand and if this does happen - something which will only be finally established once the cladding is fixed - then why should the club spend money when it doesn't need to? The North Stand has the lift building in the middle of it so there will be hardly any open space left anyway once both ends and corners are clad.
Given that there were men on the roof recently it would appear that the cladding has turned out to be a more complex proposition than first thought following on from the roof damage. Hopefully the engineers have been able to advise on appropriate cladding that won't put the roof structure under too much strain otherwise the club is going to be in serious bother.
