Quote: Standee "Imagine that, what with them having comparable sides within..... hang on, only football team in Hull, only just beat combined attendances of both RL sides?'"
You mean second division team gets more for visits of second division teams than 2 top flight clubs get for visit of 2 other top flight teams?
Get City back in the Premier League with an extended stadium and then see as on occasion they had 20,000 more applications for tickets than were available.
Quote:
Standee "Quote: Standee "Sport England didn't put a penny in to the KC. After refusing to back a 35,000 stadium they threatened to withhold funding for all of East Yorkshire if a stadium was built over 25,000. This was all down to Trevor Brooking, who said a 15,000 stadium would have been enough ( a figure the likes of Jim Gardner and Vince Groak wanted and what a short-sighted idea that would have been). After it was built sport England reneged saying the money wasn't required. Bob Murray of Sunderland took up the case with the Football Trust who paid the money (which is why Adam Pearson asked Sunderland to play in the opening match). The RFL contributed nothing. And we are only talking £1.5million which is what Sport England were going to contribute, which is a tiny part of the cost. They should have told sport England to get stuffed and built a 35,000 one then which would have hardly cost much more compared to what extending it would cost now. but obviously sport England's threats made them think twice as they would have been facing "Building KC stops grants for kids swimming pool" and similar headlines.'"
Interesting, i didnt know all of that , is there any links anywhere to more info on this mate??'"
There was a good article by Trevor Larson, a councillor at the time and involved in the project called "The Green, Green Grass" or something similar. There was a link on Hull City Online at one time but the site has changed since then so I don't know if it is still available.
He had some interesting things to say. Was scathing about the HDM and their negativity.
Apparently Brooking, when asked why 15,000 was enough for Hull but Middlesbrough and Sunderland had just built larger stadiums, was completely unaware that Middlesbrough is half the size of Hull and Sunderland is smaller. Another example of lack of awareness of this city by outsiders. Funniest bit was when a councillor asked Brooking if he didn't remember the last time he had played in Hull? "There was 32,000 there. You lost". There were some very interesting figures about what funding had gone to Sheffield and Leeds and other West Riding based organisations compared to the lack of the same to the East Riding.