I note a comment small ground for population of Newport
So hypothetically if we had e new ground what would be a sensible capacity?
Taking into consideration we won't play Spurs often?
6,000?
Thoughts

Rodney Parade is probably about 35-50% full for most league fixtures, so while it may be small for the population of Newport compared to say somewhere like Swindon (15,000 seater ground?), I would say for our support we certainly wouldn't want anything bigger just for the one game in 200 where demand exceeds supply.

If we were building a new ground from scratch I would have thought something like Burton's ground would be ideal.

10k

Our current average home gate is 3,300 which I believe is around 2.25% of the population of Newport.
Taking Cardiff City as an example, their capacity is around 10% of the population or thereabouts.
Stan reckons our wider fan base is around 7,500.
The research I did once, suggested that capacity permitting, a team would approximately double its average gate, for every division it climbs.
So taking all of those into account, in terms of a new ground, purpose built, we probably need 12,000 all-seater....something like Rotherham's ground: http://www.footballgroundguide.com/leag ... nited.html

South London Exile wrote:Rodney Parade is probably about 35-50% full for most league fixtures, so while it may be small for the population of Newport compared to say somewhere like Swindon (15,000 seater ground?), I would say for our support we certainly wouldn't want anything bigger just for the one game in 200 where demand exceeds supply.

If we were building a new ground from scratch I would have thought something like Burton's ground would be ideal.

I disagree , Newport easily has the potential to be a Bournemouth or a Swansea, you can see that by the demand for tickets for this game. What is embarrassing though is a City like ours has one of the most embarrassing, ill equipped, antiquated stadiums in the Football League. I just hope that when the council witness (once again ) the impact large football crowds has on the Pubs, coffee bars and restaurants of the City they remember the promise they made back in the 1980s

12k with safe standing the length of the smaller side stand and behind one goal, seated in the main stand (changing room and box side) and behind the other goal.

All-seater capacity something like 9k, about 12k with the safe standing activated on two sides. That makes it scalable and not too much space to fill for the bog standard league games. Tifo-style banners to cover the unused seats. That Amber Army flag is a superb illustration of what I mean - not corporate but professional-looking.

I'd usually want the corners filled in, but County have always played in something with separate stands with a bit of an adhoc look to it so maybe stick with the open corners and 4 individual stands. Maybe build one roof that only covers half of a terrace for old times' sake too. :D

SJG99 wrote:12k with safe standing the length of the smaller side stand and behind one goal, seated in the main stand (changing room and box side) and behind the other goal.

All-seater capacity something like 9k, about 12k with the safe standing activated on two sides. That makes it scalable and not too much space to fill for the bog standard league games. Tifo-style banners to cover the unused seats. That Amber Army flag is a superb illustration of what I mean - not corporate but professional-looking.

I'd usually want the corners filled in, but County have always played in something with separate stands with a bit of an adhoc look to it so maybe stick with the open corners and 4 individual stands. Maybe build one roof that only covers half of a terrace for old times' sake too. :D

I'd say you pretty much gotta close the corners in, even if it's not seated, just boarded...trap in the atmosphere. That's the only mistake the likes of Shrewsbury & Chesterfield made with theirs I reckon.

http://www.footballgroundguide.com/leag ... -town.html


http://www.footballgroundguide.com/leag ... field.html

10k tops. Something like the sadly demolished Nene Park which I think was 6.5k but expandable would be great for starters.

newgroundrodney wrote:

SJG99 wrote:12k with safe standing the length of the smaller side stand and behind one goal, seated in the main stand (changing room and box side) and behind the other goal.

All-seater capacity something like 9k, about 12k with the safe standing activated on two sides. That makes it scalable and not too much space to fill for the bog standard league games. Tifo-style banners to cover the unused seats. That Amber Army flag is a superb illustration of what I mean - not corporate but professional-looking.

I'd usually want the corners filled in, but County have always played in something with separate stands with a bit of an adhoc look to it so maybe stick with the open corners and 4 individual stands. Maybe build one roof that only covers half of a terrace for old times' sake too. :D

I'd say you pretty much gotta close the corners in, even if it's not seated, just boarded...trap in the atmosphere. That's the only mistake the likes of Shrewsbury & Chesterfield made with theirs I reckon.l

Solid sides of stands achieve that pretty well, the problem then is that you have to reconsider the architecture of the stand if you subsequently want to fill the corners in or there's a big metal wall in the way of the corners.

I prefer a "bowl" but I think separate stands have a bit more character.

7000 with the option to expand in future

10 to 12k

Anything smaller than we currently have would be stupid, Spurs will be the third time in 8 months we've exceeded 6000 and the away end is far too small, even in the league this season we're likely to see it filled four times.

I think we need to look beyond where we are now and consider where we want to be and are capable of being. For an all too brief period we were in what is now known as the championship and drawing regular 5 figure crowds to Somerton Park. It is only in recent times that we have come to regard ourselves as so diminished that we are the Accrington Stanley of the south. I think we should take our cue from the Championship and go for 12k all seated so that we could survive at that level. This fits in with the long term plan for RP as it happens. Drawings exist of a 12,500 seat RP. The Bisley Stand was just a first instalment in a much more complete redevelopment. It's all a pipe dream just now though.

Marky wrote:Anything smaller than we currently have would be stupid, Spurs will be the third time in 8 months we've exceeded 6000 and the away end is far too small, even in the league this season we're likely to see it filled four times.

Or the fourth maybe if Crawley turns out to be a sell-out.

G Guest wrote:I think we need to look beyond where we are now and consider where we want to be and are capable of being. For an all too brief period we were in what is now known as the championship and drawing regular 5 figure crowds to Somerton Park. It is only in recent times that we have come to regard ourselves as so diminished that we are the Accrington Stanley of the south. I think we should take our cue from the Championship and go for 12k all seated so that we could survive at that level. This fits in with the long term plan for RP as it happens. Drawings exist of a 12,500 seat RP. The Bisley Stand was just a first instalment in a much more complete redevelopment. It's all a pipe dream just now though.

Tbf the one season (plus 3 matches) that County spent in the 2nd tier came at a very different time and has little to do with crowds of today.

Even the 1980s third tier attendances don't really reflect current potential - consider what's different:
Hooliganism, mainly walk-up crowds, 4 channels on tv (ok 8 if you happened to speak Welsh and face the Mendip transmitter) and a couple of cinemas, with VHS tapes extortionately expensive to buy, barely any live football on tv, people still actually played the game on Saturday and on grass, computer games were in their infancy, kick-off times still reflected local employers' knocking-off times and to get from Pill to Spytty took somewhere between 10 minutes and 40 minutes depending on which way the Transporter Bridge was moving.

FWIW County attendances in the 1940s were under 12,000 apart from one season (ave. 12505) in 1947, mostly for Div 3 (S) matches. They were down to 5,000ish by the time the club dropped into the 4th Division for the first time in the 1960s. By the time we were back at the 3rd tier in the 1980s attendances were between 3500 and 5700 for the 6 seasons back at that level. The two best average attendance figures of the past 55 years were the Welsh Cup/Promotion season and the first season after that. Once that was over, even the near-promotion season only pulled in 4714 on average. http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn.htm

Let's not think there are 12000 potential County fans who are going to be interested in anything less than Championship football - which is not a reason not to build for that potential if we have the opportunity.

I can't see County being able to achieve their potential at Rodney Parade though - it's a shame the site wasn't stadium and Athletic Club side by side instead of end to end though, that would have been big enough to develop.