For those against franchising

Quote: Starbug "You're another one who just doesn't ' get it ' , do you , if we all wanted to sit down in a comfortable seat with the best views of the game , we could just stay at home and do it , unfortunatley thats what the majority now choose to do

The soul has gone from the sport , virtually all the stadia built now are the same , they lack atmpsphere unless they are almost full , in many you no longer have the choices you had before to stand or sit where you wanted to , which stadium draws the biggest support ? , then one that is almost unchanged for 60 odd years , the one that gives you the option of standing or sitting either alongside or at the end of the pitch , the one with old style food and drink vending
'"

I get the fact that in the 1990s clubs were on their last legs in many towns and at financial breaking point (many with the liabilities that their old ground represented).

I loved my visits to Thrum Hall (where i watched games against Halifax but also Ovenden in the Challenge Cup), Cas has always been a favourite away visit and I'm thankful that I got to experience Central Park, Wilderspool, Hilton Park, the Watersheddings and Station Road. But...

The Sheddings had barrier tape up around much of the ground on my last visit (in the grounds last year) - it had become unsafe to open parts. Similarly, Station Road was a hefty ground much of which was closed off - imagine the costs of maintaining that with what - 2,000 fans max? These grounds were liabilities - and ever increasing liabilities in many cases as their state of dis-repiar became worse and the standards expected by H&S (and paying customers!) increased. It is probably is not a coincidence that those clubs financially fell apart - not because they 'lost' their ground as an asset, but because their ground was a cost they coudn't afford and had left them in debt. Do you 'get that'? I might have enjoyed my visits but my head told me that those places wouldnt last - they couldn't in the condition they were in and there was no money there to be invested in what would be a sunk cost anyway.

things change - if you want to think that the past was always better than so be it - but that is precisely why the sport needed to change so dramatically just to ensure it survived. FWIW, the sport still has its soul - but is now has better facilities too.

And did Hilton park have atmosphere when empty? not from what I remember! That's just the case for any ground that is empty modern or old - and I remember a bare Hilton Park as much as i know a bare Willows now - the atmosphere can be flat.