Looking for info

[LiOC]

Where do you need to get to?

Of all the matchbuses that could do with a coat of looking at, the Bury one is dreadful

Only in Deane, probably my own stupid fault for going home through town on a Sunday. Never caught the actual bwfc bus, have a bus pass for work so caught the normal one so I don't pay more as I presume these can't be used on them.

[CAPSLOCK]

Yeah, your fault

[LiOC]

Yeah, your fault

Sorry for my rant blocking up the thread!

[William the White]

See, I can live with the traffic...it's 30 minutes each way in the car and I live in one of the bits of Bolton furthest from the ground

I can park for free 10 minutes walk from the ground

My issue with the location is it's distance from the delights of the town centre

Be nice to be able to stroll into town for a post match pint

Speaking of which, I know a pre match pint is part of the day out, but has it always been so?

William?

For me, for most seasons, essential... At age ten getting the froth off my dad's Crown Ale in Burnden Paddock, before and after - he and his mates had one after every game and let the crowds go away... In the Church in my 20s... Sweet Green much of the time after... though never more than a couple for me, wanted to watch the match with my brain in gear... Then daughter at age 11 put a stop to it, football pubs not for kids... Then, when she moved away, my dad got too frail for it... and you're right, there's nowhere decent to go and I can't stand the piss at the ground... I've had about four halves there in the last ten years, and absolutely none this season...

Still essential on away trips though - and still two pints...

[Lord Kangana]

I'm with you William.

Why oh why can't they just get in a few barrels of Flat Cap or Port O' Call?

[William the White]

I'm with you William.

Why oh why can't they just get in a few barrels of Flat Cap or Port O' Call?

Can't keep it in shape with such irregular custom, I reckon... Takes a little skill in the cellar and they don't want to pay for that... People are happy with weak lager piss or pretend beer anyway so why should they bother?

[Lord Kangana]

It was a slightly glib point, as I'm sure their contracts prevent them from selling it.

Still, I dream of a Carrs pasty with a pint of Flat Cap just before putting myself through the ringer once more....

[William the White]

It was a slightly glib point, as I'm sure their contracts prevent them from selling it.

Still, I dream of a Carrs pasty with a pint of Flat Cap just before putting myself through the ringer once more....

I'm with you... though TT's Landlord would be my pint of choice... And a Coleman's Meat and Potato (from Chorley Old Road) my pie...

[Lord Kangana]

Well if its all comers then its Black Sheep and a pie from opposite Burnden.

But we have to draw the line at Yorkshire brew in our ground don't we?

[William the White]

Well if its all comers then its Black Sheep and a pie from opposite Burnden.

But we have to draw the line at Yorkshire brew in our ground don't we?

Naaah... Too good for yorkies...

[sidewaysmove]

Short term pain for long term gain. on balance, the Reebok has been a major catalyst to our recent relative success.

Can't see Burnden ever allowing us to tap "alternative revenue streams" in the same way.

We had success at Burnden too; in fact, our recent, relative successes started there.
We would've had extra revenue if we'd stayed, and redeveloped Burnden, because in my opinion we would be getting bigger crowds and we would be regarded as a much bigger club!
No doubt the whole area around Manny Road would've been redeveloped (maybe a hotel!) and I doubt the town centre would be in the state it's now in either!
At the time of the move, there was feasible option to redevelop Burnden, including claiming back the unused Normid. But, as someone else has pointed out, the move to Middlebrook was a done deal.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

We would've had extra revenue if we'd stayed, and redeveloped Burnden, because in my opinion we would be getting bigger crowds and we would be regarded as a much bigger club!
No doubt the whole area around Manny Road would've been redeveloped (maybe a hotel!) and I doubt the town centre would be in the state it's now in either!

Hello there,

Nice thought but it seems to me that you're piling supposition upon supposition there. Our crowds top out at not much more than we get now, we certainly wouldn't get 30,000+ as some folk seem to believe; as has been said before, check the crowd figures from the 50s even and you'll see that apart from the odd 50,000 spike we trundled long in the low 30s (and this at a time of much less competition for spare-time entertainment).

You also assume that this once-a-fortnight influx would regenerate the Manny Road area, which anyone who's studied human geography will know is simply not true. Yes, we used to walk down from the town centre, so we could have a drink. You seem to think that families and shoppers would do likewise - abandon their cherished cars and take to their hooves. They wouldn't. People don't shop at Middlebrook because there's a stadium there; it's much more like the other way round, that the stadium is there because the infrastructure was built for the impending shopping centre. (Yes it gets more severely tested on matchday, too severely tested for most folks; what does that tell you?)

What you're saying, in short, is that if we'd have stayed in a delapidated 19th-century stadium on a typically hemmed-in site which needed complete rebuilding, then it would have somehow overturned the ever-increasing tendency over much of the western world during the last half-century to abandon public transport and drive our cars to centralised out-of-town shopping malls. It's a nice idea. It's also, to say the least, highly unlikely.

I don't mean to offend you, or to besmirch our old ground. We loved Burnden much more than we love the Reebok. Nobody is denying that it's a compromise. But here's a final thought: any redevelopment of Burnden would have cost much more than building the Reebok. And where would our club be then?

[sidewaysmove]

Hi mate! You didn't offend me - we're all Bolton fans offering thoughts and opinions.
We could argue all day about the crowds but from a personal point of view, I find it hard to believe that the home sections of Burnden wouldn't have sold out for games against Man City, Man Utd etc! That's before I think of the vast numbers of empty seats when we've reduced ticket prices as low as possibly allowed for other games.
Also, in my opinion, a redeveloped football ground would naturally rejuvenate any area. Who knows how the area would look now if we'd have stayed? Twelve years is a long time.

On your final point, I distinctly remember, at the time of the move, that the cost of revamping Burnden would've amounted to HALF the cost of moving to a brand new stadium. (maybe someone could clarify this).

Regards

[Lord Kangana]

Theres a whole host of logistics problems with that though...

Where would we have played whilst the work was ongoing? If they closed areas of the ground, then we would have suffered from a drop in income.

What would have happened had we gone through those late nineties financial troubles whilst work was ongoing? By loading it up front, we had both a debt and an asset in place. I dread to think what could have happened had we been halfway through rebuilding the Burnden Stand for example. Work would have had to have stopped.

And how long would the entire thing have taken? As it is, we took the least painful option, by having a ground purpose built ready and waiting to go whilst we continued as normal at Burnden.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of aspects of the move that were not perfect, and the actions of many of the board members lining their own pockets is certainly one of them, but in the end, surely the Reebok was the least worst option?

[sidewaysmove]

Sorry but I don't get your point: Why would we have had to have had a temporary move?
Have other clubs not managed it?
Just look at our neighbours Blackburn or Man Utd for prime examples of totally rebuilt grounds. Where did they move to?

Surely the risk of having hit financial problems halfway through rebuilding the Burnden Stand would've been the same, as encountering them halfway through building a second stadium.

As I have suggested, it would've been cheaper to have stayed than move, so I also don't get your point on the financial implications.
I am not arguing, I'm merely fighting the Burnden Park corner!

[Lord Kangana]

Balckburn and United had the kind of funds we could only dream of. Ones the biggest club in British football who have won everything in the last 20 years, and Uncle Jack paid for theirs. They could afford it. I'm not sure we could have.

We only encountered the problems when building the hotel, meaning the ground itself was pretyy much fully functional and not affecting match day revenues. Had we have had to postpone the work, it wouldn't have affected that income, stands themselves would have. As I recall, the clubs potential plans for redeveloping Burnden involved switching the pitch through 90 degrees, which in itself probably would have precipitated a ground share for a season, with its associated costs.

[TANGODANCER]

As your genuine all-time Burnden lover, and not getting involved in the why's and wherefores, it has to be faced it had to end. It just wore out. The Reebok's a fine modern stadium anybody can be proud of. All said, keep your pies and pasties; fish and chips on Halliwell, a couple of pints of Magees best in The Lamb and then jump on a bus where all roads led to Trinity Street still leaves a deep sense of longing for what was.

[CAPSLOCK]

Sorry but I don't get your point: Why would we have had to have had a temporary move?
Have other clubs not managed it?
Just look at our neighbours Blackburn or Man Utd for prime examples of totally rebuilt grounds. Where did they move to?

Surely the risk of having hit financial problems halfway through rebuilding the Burnden Stand would've been the same, as encountering them halfway through building a second stadium.

As I have suggested, it would've been cheaper to have stayed than move, so I also don't get your point on the financial implications.
I am not arguing, I'm merely fighting the Burnden Park corner!

The case for Burnden is certainly stronger with hindsight

When it was presented as costing nothing cos Burnden was going to go for 30 million, the Reebok made much more sense that it did when things panned out

Never understood why we couldn't have built on the greyhound track, but its ancient history, now

[BWFC_Insane]

Whatever redevelopment they could have done at Burnden would still have left us with nothing compared to the Reebok, its facilities and quality. Of course plonking the Reebok in the middle of Bolton would be in some ways "ideal" but I guess traffic considerations and crowd management would say otherwise.

The Reebok is to me a fantastic ground, I don't believe the lower "attendances" are down to its locations it has been full, so for me thats not the problem. Its bigger than Burnden was when we left, considerably so, therefore its obvious that its going to have more spaces. The cost of football has also rocketed since then. The overall matchday experience is not as good but on the other hand when I've lived away from Bolton getting to the Bok was much easier than it would have been to get into the town centre and Burnden!

[Lord Kangana]

Attendances have been consistently higher at the Bok than Burnden.

I think the argument is that they could have been higher with a more central location. I see the merit of the argument, but then you could equally argue that the Reebok has attracted a larger crowd from the West of Bolton and perhaps parts of Wigan, Chorley etc etc.

Its completely unprovable.

Traffic is a bitch though.