The New Stadium Thread

[wavydavy]

I'm a bit confused. Tom Hicks said that the new ground would be dearer and the KOP larger. Now short of taking seats away from somewhere else wouldn't that automatically increase the capacity to greater than 61000. I personally don't think that T&G would have asked for additional meetings with planners to ask for a few more bogs or hot dog stands. These meetings must have had something to do with capacity. Didn't Rick Parry himself say it was about "scaling up not down" a fortnight ago?

I reckon they may have used their considerable weight to get the council to allow them to start building at the original 61000 with some kind of assured planning permission to follow later on if required and when the surrounding infrastructure is improved. Much as RS4 has intimated. A couple of of other questions though. Is it legal or ethical to take an existing design for a stadium (albeit a plagiarised one from Lisbon) and get another firm HKS to **** about with it. Can yuo do that? Doesn't that represent some kind of breach of copywrite??

Lastly. Does anybody know or can anyone hazard a guess as to whether the new design is gonna be a rehash of the old one with a different roof to allow future expansion or is it gonna look totally different but remain in the same "footprint" as the original. Have Dallas architacts HKS had enough time (3/4 weeks!) to have designed something completely new???

Any thoughts Anyone???

[rushscored4]

I'm a bit confused.

Ask 'SirBobPaisley' on Koptalk - he's in the know...

[sambirken]

They have changed their tune a bit since announcing that they were going for 70,000 or 80,000.

didnt someone say on previous threads that we where thinking of applying for a bigger cappacity once work had started (or was it a dream). a kind of extra application rather than re-applying and we wouldnt state that now if thats what we are planning. anyway im happy enough in the knowledge that it is expandable.

[Howard_lfc]

There'll be no point expanding the stadium if we don't regularly fill 60,000 - including midweek matches.

[REDSCOUSER]

OMG, can you imagine the emotions on the very last day at Anfield...

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

yeh till me eyes turn as red as our shirt

[Kopite_Colin]

Bollox. 60 f*cking thousand. It's a joke. I really hope we've agreed room for SIGNIFICANT expansion. Should have been 70-80,000 or nothing. If we move, we move. 60,000 is such a KOP out.

[red g]

Ask 'SirBobPaisley' on Koptalk - he's in the know...

someone in the know on koptalk, wow just like the old days....gonna get be paypal account sorted again

[sonsofthedesert]

rushscored4, is it possble their new design would allow for expansion easily and possibly the new design has a bigger capacity, they could start building and apply for new permission for a bigger ground now. During building if they got planning permission they could continue building up?
Or am I being stupid?

[rushscored4]

rushscored4, is it possble their new design would allow for expansion easily and possibly the new design has a bigger capacity, they could start building and apply for new permission for a bigger ground now. During building if they got planning permission they could continue building up? Or am I being stupid?

Sorry, mate, my source worked for the old architects AFL who have been sacked so I haven't seen the new designs from HKS who have replaced them. I was pretty sure they couldn't immediately increase the capacity from 61,000 to 70,000 or (even sillier) 80,000 as was reported elsewhere.

[kurtangle01]

Here's a great aticle from The Times Re the new stadium.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premiership/liverpool/article1604843.ece

Liverpool fans building hopes around new Kop
Our correspondent says that there must be no compromises over the recreation of the iconic terrace in Stanley Park

This is Anfield, the sign says. But what does it mean? After the Champions League tie against Barcelona last month, the two sets of fans stood eyeball to eyeball after the final whistle. Chants of “Barça” went up and were met by a reply of “Liverpool”. After a few minutes of trying to outshout the opposing supporters, people began to throw things at the rival section.

Just another sad tale of football hooliganism? Well, not quite. It was Catalans singing the Liverpool songs and Scousers chanting the name of the visiting side. The “missiles” were scarves. George Gillett Jr and Tom Hicks were amazed and moved by the entire experience that night. When Liverpool move into their new stadium in 2009 (it was confirmed yesterday that work will begin on the Stanley Park site next month after Liverpool City Council gave the project the go-ahead), will the atmosphere still give visiting Americans goose pimples?

The focal point at Anfield is the Spion Kop. Hicks seems to recognise this. “What we’re going to try to do is maintain as much of the tradition and unique history that Liverpool has, particularly the Kop,” he said recently. “The Kop will be a key to the new stadium. The new stadium will be designed around it and it will be like the stage that performs to the rest of the stadium, and the rest of the stadium will participate with the Kop.”

Getting this right will be crucial. Originally, a mound of earth behind the goal that backed on to Walton Breck Road and named after a Boer War battle, the Kop grew into the most iconic of terraces. There, football culture as we know it was born.

In the 1960s, television images of 26,000 swaying, chanting fans changed the way watching the game was perceived. “You got your education from the Kop,” opposition supporters were told, and the songs and mores of Anfield were copied across the world. This was where football fanaticism showed its acceptable face, where Bill Shankly claimed the crowd “sucked the ball into the net”, where the standards to be emulated by ends across the country were set.

The noise thrown down by the Kop has unnerved visiting sides down the years. Even now, it has semi-mythical status. Many people attribute the victory over Chelsea in the Champions League semi-finals two years ago to the intensity of the atmosphere at Anfield. This was Shankly’s “bastion of invincibility” personified. The great worry for Liverpool supporters is that the Kop, and the fervour it generates, will be left behind at Anfield.

What diehard Kopites want is a steep, unbroken stand behind one goal. What they fear the architects will provide is a tiered stand that will be mirror image of the opposite end, with executive boxes and corporate seats to the fore. If this happens, it will be the Kop in name only.

Some would argue that the Kop is a metaphysical idea, merely being a manifestation of the intensity of purpose Liverpool fans bring to their support. To a certain extent this is true and, this year, a group of supporters, disappointed with the way Kopite traditions were being ignored, launched the Reclaim The Kop (RTK) campaign in an attempt to maintain the individual nature of the section.

RTK encourages supporters to learn and sing songs that are unique to Liverpool and discourages inane chants like “Who are yer” and mindless abuse of opposition players and fans. Harry Enfield-style “Scouser wigs” are not on the dress code.

The club have endorsed the campaign and the philosophical side of retaining the Kop’s identity is in good hands. However, the right physical environment is vital to project this sense of history and culture. Gillett and Hicks should visit Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion to see how a football ground should be built and brief their architects accordingly. The new owners have plenty of experience building stadiums in America but football works best in an environment where the passion is amplified and funnelled on to the pitch.

“What we want,” Hicks says, “is the best football stadium in the world and be unique. When people see it, we want them to say: ‘that’s Liverpool’.”

No. It should still be: This is Anfield. And for that to be true, there must be no compromises on the Kop.

—Tony Evans is Deputy Football Editor of The Times and author of Far Foreign Land: Pride and Passion the Liverpool Way

Great article and pretty much sums up how most of us feel.

We need something unique and totally different. The thought of yet another generic modern stadium is nauseating. We need the stadium to show our true identity as one of the most individual and traditional clubs in the world.

[bazza76]

rushscored4, is it possble their new design would allow for expansion easily and possibly the new design has a bigger capacity, they could start building and apply for new permission for a bigger ground now. During building if they got planning permission they could continue building up?
Or am I being stupid?

Its a nice idea, but im not sure about the practicality of it.
First of all, the foundations are going to be one of the firt things to go in, whihc would mean stalling the building work for a long time after to wait on a decision.
Personally, I think a compromise could be reached, the council should be atleast be willing to add a few extra thousand seats, up it to say 65,000 and thats being easy on them, then also allowing the stadium capacity to be increased at a later date as infrastructure inproves. I think that would be a good compromise, but still not one im fully happy with.
We should have being going for bigger from the off, the whole thing smacked of lack of ambition from the start or some would argue funds.
One thing I will take good heart out of will be the centre stage which wil be the kop and also the claims that this will be the top football stadium in the world, if that is so, we are in for a real treat design wise, because we certainly wont have the capacity.

[bazza76]

great article, thanks for pointing it our Scot
what I would like if say we now build a 65,000 seater is, well its ambitious but it would be a 26,000 kop, with the rest of the stadium tiered out in the same manner with lots of space for corporate seating as no doubt Hicks & Gillett will want. That way everybody is happy, I still think the kop could be inerupted by a walkway straight horizontaly through the middle though for safety reasons.
The other stands could still be extendable at a later sate to reach a similar heigh to that of the kop.

[darkknight]

Cheers for that - I feel these guys will do us deserved justice with the new stadium.

Hope I m right.

[friedk]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/spo...cle1604843.ece

Liverpool fans building hopes around new Kop
Our correspondent says that there must be no compromises over the recreation of the iconic terrace in Stanley Park

This is Anfield, the sign says. But what does it mean? After the Champions League tie against Barcelona last month, the two sets of fans stood eyeball to eyeball after the final whistle. Chants of “Barça” went up and were met by a reply of “Liverpool”. After a few minutes of trying to outshout the opposing supporters, people began to throw things at the rival section.

Just another sad tale of football hooliganism? Well, not quite. It was Catalans singing the Liverpool songs and Scousers chanting the name of the visiting side. The “missiles” were scarves. George Gillett Jr and Tom Hicks were amazed and moved by the entire experience that night. When Liverpool move into their new stadium in 2009 (it was confirmed yesterday that work will begin on the Stanley Park site next month after Liverpool City Council gave the project the go-ahead), will the atmosphere still give visiting Americans goose pimples?

The focal point at Anfield is the Spion Kop. Hicks seems to recognise this. “What we’re going to try to do is maintain as much of the tradition and unique history that Liverpool has, particularly the Kop,” he said recently. “The Kop will be a key to the new stadium. The new stadium will be designed around it and it will be like the stage that performs to the rest of the stadium, and the rest of the stadium will participate with the Kop.”

Getting this right will be crucial. Originally, a mound of earth behind the goal that backed on to Walton Breck Road and named after a Boer War battle, the Kop grew into the most iconic of terraces. There, football culture as we know it was born.

In the 1960s, television images of 26,000 swaying, chanting fans changed the way watching the game was perceived. “You got your education from the Kop,” opposition supporters were told, and the songs and mores of Anfield were copied across the world. This was where football fanaticism showed its acceptable face, where Bill Shankly claimed the crowd “sucked the ball into the net”, where the standards to be emulated by ends across the country were set.

The noise thrown down by the Kop has unnerved visiting sides down the years. Even now, it has semi-mythical status. Many people attribute the victory over Chelsea in the Champions League semi-finals two years ago to the intensity of the atmosphere at Anfield. This was Shankly’s “bastion of invincibility” personified. The great worry for Liverpool supporters is that the Kop, and the fervour it generates, will be left behind at Anfield.

What diehard Kopites want is a steep, unbroken stand behind one goal. What they fear the architects will provide is a tiered stand that will be mirror image of the opposite end, with executive boxes and corporate seats to the fore. If this happens, it will be the Kop in name only.

Some would argue that the Kop is a metaphysical idea, merely being a manifestation of the intensity of purpose Liverpool fans bring to their support. To a certain extent this is true and, this year, a group of supporters, disappointed with the way Kopite traditions were being ignored, launched the Reclaim The Kop (RTK) campaign in an attempt to maintain the individual nature of the section.

RTK encourages supporters to learn and sing songs that are unique to Liverpool and discourages inane chants like “Who are yer” and mindless abuse of opposition players and fans. Harry Enfield-style “Scouser wigs” are not on the dress code.

The club have endorsed the campaign and the philosophical side of retaining the Kop’s identity is in good hands. However, the right physical environment is vital to project this sense of history and culture. Gillett and Hicks should visit Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion to see how a football ground should be built and brief their architects accordingly. The new owners have plenty of experience building stadiums in America but football works best in an environment where the passion is amplified and funnelled on to the pitch.

“What we want,” Hicks says, “is the best football stadium in the world and be unique. When people see it, we want them to say: ‘that’s Liverpool’.”

No. It should still be: This is Anfield. And for that to be true, there must be no compromises on the Kop.

—Tony Evans is Deputy Football Editor of The Times and author of Far Foreign Land: Pride and Passion the Liverpool Way

Great article and pretty much sums up how most of us feel.

We need something unique and totally different. The thought of yet another generic modern stadium is nauseating. We need the stadium to show our true identity as one of the most individual and traditional clubs in the world.

I think this was the television report.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7jcB_v5inc

[bazza76]

I think this was the television report.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7jcB_v5inc

I like the piss cloud above the crowd