A club's stadium or ground evokes powerful emotions among fans. It is a special case of topophilia, the love of place. I know about that as a Charlton fan where fans formed a political party to secure their return to the ground. Many West Ham fans still miss the Boleyn Ground.
Moving stadiums is expensive, but so is rebuilding them. Arsenal had to move to the Emirates but it hit spending on the team for some years. The new Tottenham Hostpur stadium is probably the best club sports venue we have, but it hasn't done much for performances on the pitch.
Yet Chelsea are constrained by their stadium which is difficult to redevelop. Brentford have succeeded in creating an intimate atmosphere in their new stadium but match day revenue is limited. Southampton have hardly flourished at St. Mary's, but along the coast Brighton have clearly been boosted by having a proper stadium. Yet Bournemouth have done well at the most constrained stadium in the top flight.
Newcastle are uncertain whether to move to a new site or redevelop St. James's Park. It will be interesting to see what the superb stadium at Bramley Dock does for Everton.
All this has been brought into sharp focus by Manchester United's plans for a new stadium, although how it is going to be funded without hitting the team remains unclear.
The Financial Times have taken a novel angle on United's plans, calling in their architecture and design critic. What he has to say is not entirely flattering and also quite profound.
Edwin Heathcote says: 'Historically, the English football ground was an intensely urban form, a building intimately embedded in the industrial and residential infrastructure of its working-class fans. Much of the life of match day was drawn from the city around it — the streets, pubs and caffs that filled up with fans for a few hours each Saturday. Foster’s design attempts to swallow the whole experience under one roof, creating an environment that looks a little retro-sci-fi, like something from a planet with no atmosphere.
The biggest question perhaps is, who is it for? Minority
shareholder Sir Jim Ratcliffe might be a billionaire but the club is £1bn in
debt and there is little information about how the new stadium will be
funded. Alongside the almost sacred importance of location in British
football is a long-standing uneasiness about the monetisation of the game. Unlike
in Spain or Germany, where some clubs are run on a not-for-profit basis and
with fans voting on big decisions, the Premier League is run on an oligarch
model. Loyalty is taken for granted and fans are screwed from ticket
prices to shirts and drinks. Football has become more about ownership than
a sense of belonging.'
As someone said to Engels in the 1840s when he was criticising exploitation in Manchester, ‘yet a great deal of money is made here.’ But now is it the consumers who are screwed, not the workers?
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