So it's generally agreed, then, that the pitch issues at the DW are more about drainage than about the number of football and rugby games played on it?

Well surely it would be much cheaper to spend money on fixing the drainage issues than building a new stadium, which seems fantasy talk anyway. If DW wants us to pay more, couldn't it be contingent on the drainage issue being addressed (which, after all, would be in everyone's long-term interest)?

They need to raise the pitch imo. It would cost initially but reduce the long term costs of replacing the pitch every year. MU obviously did it when you look at the steep drops at the edge of the pitch. Taking player welfare into account is loose the front couple of rows of seats and raise the pitch above the water table.

As for the tenancy agreement IL is a smart bloke and will have a decent legal team advising him. I have learnt to trust that he will do the right thing for the club.

That makes sense, Trainman. Although I would say that in my view, that slope at OT, combined with a very narrow in-goal, and the proximity of the wall, make it unsuitable for rugby league (and less than ideal for football, too). For a club with Man Utd's money, though, nothing that couldn't be sorted.

And for sure, why not the same kind of thing at the DW?

Given it was Whelan's penny-pinching in the first place that allowed the thing to be built too low to the water table and without adequate drainage, I'd put the costs squarely on him.

It goes deeper (literally) than just drainage, there is methane pollution rising from the old sewage tanks underneath that were never removed when it was built.

IL Will do the right thing for the club - Tick Tock Tick Tock for DW & The Latics.

I thought major work was carried out last year to resolve the issue "once and for all?"
It is literally built on a shoite hole so I'm never surprised with the ongoing issues with uncle Dave keeping his hands in his pockets

It's always the bottom line that it comes down to money though raising the pitch should significantly reduce upkeep and renewal costs.

The reason I said to loose a couple of rows of seats is that a slope similar to old Trafford could be avoided. It's not like either us or latics fill the stadium very often so no big deal to loose a thousand seats or so.

Yea thats what i thought,funny how once and for all keeps happening year on year.

also their ground was free, Tesco paid for it

Everton reserves perhaps?

They play at the totally wicked stadium now. There was nothing on the HJ website about any other sports club currently playing there.

Yes think was for one or two seasons they played at the hj tho it's a different scenario in that the rent or gate whatever was agreed went to warrington not the stadium owner and a rugby league game was never changed for a game of football

There's nothing to stop most rugby clubs trying to do something like we did in terms of funding the stadium !

I don't think we have been given all the details of the deal with the stadium company. I think our published turnover is too low for us to be getting 100% of the gate receipts. I suspect the stadium company takes a cut. That said, I don't think it's a bad deal, other than the issues around priority over matches. We get to play in a Premiership standard ground (so we can have 20k+ crowds for our big matches) without a lot of the costs that come with that. Saints fans made a lot of noise over how with their own stadium they would be a richer club than us, but it has proved much harder than they thought to make the stadium pay. As Langtree Park ages (and it doesn't look to me to have been built to anywhere near the quality standards of say the DW or the Macron so I would expect it to age quite quickly compared with the DW or Macron) Saints will have some serious maintenance and refurb costs. The Saints club continues to run at a loss, when you think about how low the SC is this really does show that the ground is seriously detrimental to their financial position. I would not want to be in their position, the club is not financially viable without handouts from the owners at the moment.

Hopefully if Latics are relegated this will prompt a serious discussion with the stadium company. I suspect there is a deal to be done around the RL club paying a higher fixed annual payment and/or a contribution to a better drainage system in return for a better position on fixtures and the ability to keep more of the cash generated if we get bigger crowds or put on events at the DW.