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Kingsway or AV it matters little, both have good motorway access and the surrounding area is away from housing so no real parking problems especially if we could get a bit of cooperation from places that dont work nights and Saturdays, Kingsway of course also benefits from the tram stop......who knows there might also be room for a helicopter pad!.. another benefit for the Borough! As some have pointed out a new stadium would also permit a number of peripheral businesses to piggy back around and inside it providing additional revenue. A new ground, a new start... just the small matter of £10m +....but then you imagine the Ogdens know plenty of potential investors.
I dont think the sort of people they need for their "AdvancedMaterials" centre would have come to Kingsway but engineers, manufacturing companies etc were the original target audience for Kingsway ... Advanced materials involves a whole other level of expertise, Phd level people as a minimum. Bio stuff like artificial skin, and Retinas , semi conductors, alloys, nanomaterials etc etc. And the current timing could hardly be worse, Rochdale has been in the news for all the wrong reasons worldwide recently, and it was already difficult to recruit teachers, doctors and dentists and the like to the town , much less the best of the best. Even if they do come to Rochdale to work, they will live somewhere else and commute , just like the BBC staff in Manchester who moved up from London do, many of whom commute from the Peak District
Going back to the EFL right now could prove to be disasterous... the extra money is really a mirage because the players wages would swallow it up and more besides... We simply do not have the momentum within the club to carry it off. If crowds were growing rapidly, sponsorhip was booming and there was a sense of things going our way, maybe we could ride an upwards wave, but not yet.. stabilise first, improve the infrastucture and financials and then start the charge up the divisions. Lets wait and see what the plan really amounts to first....how we emerge from this period of little football will be a critical factor.
The annoying thing about Kingsway is that we were promised it would not become a collection of big sheds employing relatively few people... but thats exactly what happened...Politicians eh? Can't trust them any further than you can throw them... If you search the council website there are dozens of expensive reports comparing Rochdale with other towns in Greater Manchester, the Northwest and England, and on just about every measure we are the poor man, literally and metaphorically. Politicians have sold off one of the biggest ( and therefore valuable) sites in Europe, per the initial blurb, for pennies and attracted exactly what they said they didnt want. Imagine what a big conference centre, a major entertainment venue and a football stadium, attendant hotels, a truck stop, etc. all on the edge of town and situated on one of the country's busiest motorways, within an hour of a bigger population than London, might have done for employment in Rochdale ! But no what we got were warehouses needing forklift drivers, pickers and not much else. And guess what.. they will end up with exactly the same at Atom Valley despite their grandiose plans because at the end of the day highly mobile, talented people will choose to live and work somewhere else... imagine working in London or Edinburgh, Oxford , Cambridge or even Paris or Rome and announcing that you are moving to Rochdale especially given the press coverage we are currently getting.....its just not going to happen.....
Therein lies a major problem, whilst there are lots of poorly used spaces that might be developed, there is really only one option currently (perhaps) and that would be along what is becoming known as Atom Valley running alongside the M62 between Rochdale Bury and Oldham https://www.atom-valley.co.uk/ It involves some 7000 new houses and an "Advanced Materials" centre intended to be an incubation unit for start up High Tech businesses. There is little information about schools, doctors and other infrastructure that you might expect 15-20,000 people or so might need, Whether there is room for a new stadium at the moment is a moot point but it would be an ideal greenfield site, just off the Motorway. Then you run into issue 2, the financing for a new stadium and associated training ground / community hub. You could make the argument that such a facility amidst 7000 new houses is needed and not currently in the plan, which might be an argument to put to RMBC and Gtr. Manchester Council. Offering the current stadium for housing development would be welcome to RMBC ..you would think, as it would solve the perennial parking disputes but the income from selling it might be enough to attract further financing given the current owners Equally, with sufficient financial backing the club could potentially redevelop the Spotland site itself. If there is a plan to rebuild / redevelop the main stand somewhat though I would assume a new stadium is not on the agenda... we await news, which seems like a default setting these days.
That doesn't mean it will not freeze if it gets wet and frosty weather within a short period..and once frozen, like grass, it becomes unplayable.
"Moisture retention: Artificial pitches, like 4G pitches, retain moisture in the winter, which can freeze and make the surface hard and unsafe to play on. Insulating effect: The infill and carpet of an artificial pitch can insulate it, causing it to remain frozen even when natural grass around it has thawed. Snowfall: Snow can quickly settle on a frozen pitch."
I'm not sure its a subject that warrants criticism of the Co-Chairman just because he isnt a native Rochdalian..but it would be interesting to hear what the ground staff suggested might be needed. The current problems being worse than last season might suggest that perhaps the work done on the pitch pre-season has created a problem or aggravated an existing one. The difficulty is that noone really knows that there is a problem until the weather creates one and lets be honest, the last few weeks / months of weather have been fairly poor even by Rochdale standards. So, is it the pitch, is it the drains, is it just the weather? Or a combination of all of them? No one seems to know but its going to be difficult and expensive to fix if the work this week doesnt do the job...
The truth is that the fans are not really paying for football, its being paid for by TV companies, sponsors , and Rich men and women, certainly at the highest level, but even at this level, the TV money that siphons down via the Premiership , EFL and even the Natiina League allows many footballers to be paid eye watering wages compared to the average wage in the towns they purport to represent. 45 years ago it was unthinkable that division 4 clubs would be collecting millions or pounds from the Football League each season, the pity is that the money has not been spent on the matchday experience, very few new grounds have been re-built, very few clubs have built resilient, non football, income streams despite their captive audiences. Perhaps with our new owners we can buck the trend and become the club others look to when discussing how to thrive in the lower reaches of the game, we can only hope...but there will need to be some new attitudes required from employees and fans alike, less blame and more can-do is required. "Build it and people will come"....
We have indeed spent plenty on the pitch, whether this can be regarded as an investment is, at this moment, doubtful. Maintaining the surface is one thing, building a drainage system that prevents the pitch from becoming waterlogged is a different issue and without suitable drains, the surface, on very wet days becomes irrelevant. If memory serves, there was a period when we were amazed that the pitch stood up to heavy rainfall easily. Didnt one of the several pitch renovations build some new drains alongside the main stand and out behind the Sandy Lane goal to the main drains on Sandy Lane? Is it blocked? Has it been disrupted by recent pitch work? Getting a drains company in would seem to be an obvious first step, maybe its been done but given the quantity of water involved, the drains have to be in tip top condition, until we know they are, any further work is potentially pointless.
I posted this to try and give some perspective to the size of the problem,. I have no doubt it is possible to overcome our current pitch problems but it has to be recognised that as it stands we are almost back to square one in terms of its suitability for professional football to where we were at the turn of the millenium before any real pitch resurfacing had been considered.
Like so much around the COA , the lack of investment is manifesting itself in the pitch, the dire decor in the main stand, and the general state of dilapidation around the place that repainting cannot disguise..
The scale of what is needed is huge, presumably this is why there are talks of a major renovation to the main stand but its also the case that many aspects of the ground are simply wearing out and finances do not allow the renovation required.
A millimetre of rain falling on a square metre of pitch = 1 litre of water At 105 m x 68m, the pitch = 7140 sq metres x 75mm of rain = 535,550 litres of water that fell on the pitch yesterday and today (or for us oldies 117,805 gallons).
The average monthly rainfall in Rochdale for January is 110 mm...over 75 mm of rain fell on the pitch in the last 24 hours.
The AGM on Monday was a total non-event which, taking into consideration the events of the last few AGMs, was probably a good thing. Items were voted on by poll, making whatever the meeting concluded to be entirely subject to the whims of the major shareholders. A couple of technical questions about the accounts were answered to the apparent satisfaction of the questioners after which the meeting was closed without any further discussion. Not even a coffee and biscuits! The sun broke through as a groundsman walked a machine up and down the pitch, a few shareholders stayed for a few minutes engaged in conversations about the probability of a game on Wednesday and suddenly we were all on our way home ....
I did wonder if the lack of discussion beyond the agenda was because NDAs or similar are in place concerning Main Stand refurbishments and or training facilities / hub but they clearly didnt want to indulge in spurious conversation so we are none the wiser.... Disappointed there was no coffee or biscuits but still ...maybe next year!
Barlow is the epitome of a " broken toy" , following his departure from MUFC after 14 years he has bounced around a few clubs, latterly on 1 season contracts. He perhaps needs a period of consolidation to re-build some confidence and get his career onto an upwards trajectory. He is 25 in January so its time for him to show what he can do. Yesterday could be a turning point for him. Lets hope he is enjoying his football at Rochdale and fulfills some of his early promise...
There is a big dilemma at the centre of the Trust in that the elected Chairman is not the person representing the Trust on the club's BoD, and even then the position is one of an invitee rather than a fully paid-up board member. Questions will inevitably be asked about the reports received from the Trust's representative but is seems he is not responsible for directly answering and defers to other members of the Trust to do so, and like Chinese whispers, each re-telling could alter the story somewhat, and may then become influenced by opinions rather than actualities.
Whilst this is a weakness the Trust may or may not have to live with , it undoubtedly strains relationships.
Fans also place too big a burden on the Trust in that they want to know the inner machinations of the BoD and expect to be kept informed at a level of detail to which they are not entitled to know even if they are shareholders, particularly in respect of forward looking or sensitive matters perhaps under negotiation with other parties.
For its part, the BoD should accept that its affairs are of great interest to the fan-base and try to be more forthcoming in those matters that can be widely disclosed bearing in mind, that much will depend on the frequency of their meetings.
I can't imagine that there are many limited companies that have invited board members selected by a trust set up by their customers. Generally you would assume that they try to keep their customers onside by delivering a top quality buying experience and a high quality product which then begs the question "does the presence of the trust provide the BoD with an excuse to be less communicative with its customers than might otherwise be the case"?
Clearly, events over the last 4 or 5 years have been a breeding ground for mis-trust and anger and memories are long, but the club is now effectively owned by a single entity which we assume is benevolent and as such, my belief is that we have to place our faith in what they are attempting to do until such time as that faith is proven to be mis-placed. We shall see if the proof of the pudding is in the eating, personally I am fed up with thin gruel.
The water has to go somewhere, if the surrounding drains will not take it then the covers will make little difference Ultimately we may have to take a couple of yards off the pitch on all 4 sides to get drains in with the capacity to take the water away. Its kind of the equivalent of building the pitch up a couple of feet to get more drainage, as at Gigg Lane if memory serves me correctly and probably at many other clubs...
The problem then might be how to get rid of the water from off the covers.. I have always suspected that the water simply does not get to the drains and that the pitch surround needs digging up and big French drains put in on all 4 sides sloping towards Sandy Lane and out to the main drains.
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