In terms of sporting facilities, would Manchester need another large stadium?

Nowhere 'needs' a large stadium. For what its worth I think this idea is about as sensible as some of my clubs supporters plans of a magical London Broncos stadium built by elves on the mythical free land in London paid for by all the RFL handouts that we receive.

Rugby League needs to walk before it can run and at the moment its barely crawling. I'm all for ambition but the domestic game needs to improve before anything as right now it isn't sustainable and a random new stadium won't help.

Whilst I don't agree with RL "barely crawling" (we're not doing as bad as the pessimists who "support" the game think we are), you've pretty much said what I've said in terms of needing to get things right before it could even be considered. A stadium could be a catalyst to even greater things, but we'd need to be in a much better place first.

I have to disagree about the "nowhere needs a large stadium" comment. There's probably a few places that could do with one. Leeds definitely could.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!

Odsal is in BRADFORD for a start. It's nowhere near prestigious enough and will only consolidate our Northern flat cap image. Bradford NORTHERN, remember?

Plus, Odsal is a hole in the ground. It can't be realistically redeveloped.

Please, leave the Odsal suggestions there now. It's getting embarrassing. Seriously.

Course it is. It's more important culturally, financially and stragecially than Birmingham, which was often marketed as Britain's second city in the 80s. It is also the centre of the largest British conurbation outside of Greater London.

In any case, we're talking RL here, and your major cities as far as RL is concerned are Leeds and Manchester. Its a no-brainer.

Correct.

Which city has more prestige? Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds or Bradford?

Leeds is the 2nd largest financial centre in the UK behind London. This is a fact, it would be pretty ignorant to suggest Manchester is more important in a financial sense.
Your not the PR Manager for the Manchester Tourist Board by any chance?

So it's more important because a few bands have come from there?

And how is Manchester an important RL city exactly? Just because it happens to have big football stadium that is convenient for RL to use?

Utter nonsense.

A bit like the Noup Camp????

If you say that, then so is the Etihad. Didn't they dig down to increase capacity after the commonwealth games?

Camp Nou and Etihad were 'from scratch' projects. Odsal was a quarry.

You could do a lot with odsal, its massive

No you couldn't.

Odsal is almost impossible to develop in a way that would make it a modern stadium - certainly no Wembley of the north. The Nou Camp and Etihad were never just a big hole in the ground with terracing built on the banking.

To start with it would either need to be filled in or dug out at an astronomical cost. Only then could you plan a Stadium on the site. This idea that you can bang a few roofs up and hey presto simply isn't the case.

To upgrade Odsal to "modern" Stadium standard simply isn't economically viable in any sense of the word. You'd be better finding a new site and building again at possibly a third of the cost.

The best you could do is improve it for the speccies - new roof on opposite side to main stand and behind the sticks - better bogs, bars etc.

Problem is no one will stump up for this because it doesn't offer enough increased revenue to cover the cost.

Ever wondered why Odsals capacity is so low relative to it's size? Because it's infrastructure is so hopelessly out of date or inadequate to handle any more people.

HTH

It is? Have you got some sources to back that up?

Not that this is my area of strength, but a quick look online (OK, I'm using Wikipedia as I can't be bothered to look anywhere else yet) shows that Birmingham ranks higher than Manchester in terms of GDP, it has a bigger population, and the urban area it is the centre of (West Midlands Urban Area) is larger than the Greater Manchester Urban Area.

How have you measured culture?


You're right, it is a no brainer. Manchester isn't a rugby league city. Leeds is. It's in the centre of the biggest population of RL fans in the country. In fact, it is central to the country full stop. It would also benefit more and probably receive greater demand for external users of the stadium than Manchester and the North West would (Manchester having two stadia already bigger than 40k, and the NW having four, whereas Yorkshire has zero).

It would make far more sense for a hypothetical national RL stadium to be in Leeds than Manchester. Only opinion of course.

See you continue to demonstrate what a prize idiot you are?

Odsal's capacity is actually restricted because around 40% of the periphery of the pitch has no stands or terracing, other than the Coral Stand which has seats for around 700. If it has a capacity of 26k as it stands, then you would be looking at around 43k if all the sides were fully built round in similar fashion to what is there now.

You really are a class sad sack and some.

IMHO Odsal as it stands could hold more with better access etc etc, however it's not needed so why bother. Also that wasn't really the point was it, still ifyou think Odsal infrastructure is up to speed then best of luck.

Despite your pathetic show of petulance I see nothing wrong with Odsal, as a RL stadium get it?

It could and should be upgraded, especially the cover, get it.

However despite the above being a vast improvement for your average RL fan - it still puts Odsal a million miles away from being a world class stadium - which is what it was being suggested it could be turned into.

Despite your almost child like belief in all things Bulls, Odsal cannot be upgraded to modern stadium standards in any kind of financially viable way. You could build a Stadium on Mount Everest if you wanted, the technology exists - the finances to do it DON'T!

I can tell you right now Adey, I know stadium development - you can chose not to believe me but I do. The real cost to turn Odsal into even a relatively modest KC sized stadium would cost 4 x what the KC cost (not including inflation). This is almost all down to the cost of getting the site ready to build on. The only kind of stadia they build now are modular steel framed and part assembled - to build one of those at Odsal would require it being filled in and leveled. You go there, just try and imagine how epic a task that would be!

Odsals problem is it's to big, it's construction to unique and thus too expensive for a facelift - but not important or iconic enough for a full redevelopment using public/private money, the kind of money required for such large scale developments.

It will never happen - the RL know this, they own it for it's land value and nothing more.

Now either join in the debate or bog off.