What occurs to me about the improvements is how quickly and cheaply they can go up. In our last franchise application, we were criticised for having no Plan B. It looks like we didn't have another one this time either, because it was Newmarket or bust. These improvements could have been made last year, when Newmarket was still heading towards a possible public inquiry.

I know that half a million is a lot of money to a club with not much, but as I understand it, Ted and his cohorts had no problem in raising more than double that by obtaining a mortgage against Belle Vue's land value when the eventual profit was expected to land in their own pockets.

Forecast rain today, can we get em up in 4 hours?

Stand in the shadow of Marsdens head, it'll give enough cover to keep you dry.

From my recollection, you lot always stand in that part of the ground that will be left uncovered in the new plans. Wonder if that's accidental?

excuse me for sounding young, (i am) but what i cant understand is when i look at the old pictures of belle view,(which looked great) with intact stands and the like it reminds me of what the east stand of headingley is today, my father said that a fire happened at wakefield or something along those lines and its never retained its full potential, why did belle vue suffer such a regression as the state of the ground today is in

As I remember, the West Stand had to go following the Bradford City fire, as it was wooden (and no one sat in it anyway). The South Stand was pulled down to make way for something fancy, but the money wasn't there, and so we played to a view of St Catherine's Street for a few years.

The fire was at Bradfords football ground where people died. Following this there was a Taylor report that said wooden stands in stadia had to be removed, hence the pulling down of the West stand.

yeah i saw that fire on a tape at school, something like a few minutes and the full stand was up, i was staggard by how fast it went up and the intensity,bloody tragic. thanks for the info guys. but getting back to the new development one of those types of meccano type statiums ala dewsbury rams surely wouldnt dent the purse to much perhaps, always like that little stadium and the grass verge for nice summer rugby

The stupidity of the club was evident even then, as the "wooden" stand was actually an iron construction, clad in wood, and did not need to be removed.

That said, it wouldn't really be fitting of a modern stadium (though Cas seem to like theirs).

Now that time has moved on, it is in fact a beautiful looking stand, a real piece of history.

That's the BV I was born into.

TBH I'd totally forgotten about it. I'm really wrecking my brain to remember what that end looked like before the hospitality boxes were built.

If someone could post a picture that would be ace!

The roofs can go up in no time, it's digging the terrace out that will take more than a month IMO, easily doable during the off-season though.

I think the problem is that we had already borrowed to the hilt and, without the stadium being given the go-ahead, or our SL future secured, no-one would lend the club any more money and Ted had no more to provide either (if ever he did). The mortgage Ted obtained to buy the ground was granted in a different economic climate than we are in now.

Business men and banks are not easily fooled (most of the time) and the same reasons resulted in Parking getting cold feet. As those conditions (no ground yet and no SL guarantee), I could not understand why people suddenly thought that Parkin would have had a change of heart. Now if we get a licence..... who knows?

On a side note:

I know it's none of our chosen fortes but does anyone have any general knowledge of the ground requirements to enter the Blue Square Premier League in football?

Would these temporary improvements to BV meet them?