One thing you can say about WFC under the reins of CK, we don’t half use some decent companies in pushing ourselves forward. Our PR is handled by Brunswick, who are responsible for such companies as Railtrack, British Airways, DeBeers etc, and the mob he’s employed to look at WGS is HOK and Lobb. Who? Well, they’ve been responsible for the vast majority of NFL stadia refurbs/relocations within the last 10 years, as well as many new baseball grounds in the 50 states. If you go to http://www.hoksport.com/projects/proj_list_alpha_1.htm you’ll see exactly what they’ve done recently. And believe me, they ain’t bumbling amateurs. Go on, just go there (remember to return here of course 🙂 ) and marvel at what they’ve done. Even if the WGS is a no-go, then providing it’s within sensible distance, we’ll end up with a quality stadium that people everywhere will wank over. Well, I’ll be there bashing it you can bet. And guess what? Their UK branch is based in Putney….
One thing I’ve noticed about the stadia, certainly in the US and the Air Canada Centre in Toronto (which I’ve been in, it’s seriously pukka, supposed to have the best sight lines in the entire NHL) is their locations. More and more of them are in a what we would describe as urban areas. The Skydome I’ve written a whole article on (see “Articles”), but look at somewhere like Coors Field in Denver, CO (been there as well, well Denver. Well, Denver International…..) and it’s basically in the middle of a built up industrial estate. And this ain’t exactly unusual either : both the mighty Boston Red Sox and the Philadelphia Eagles are moving stadia soon. But are they moving to an out of town complex? No. In both their cases (and in the case of BoSox the movement is literally a matter of blocks) they’re remaining in predominantly downtown areas. Why? Transport links, basically.
Certainly in the US, they want you to go to the game, have some refreshments, watch the game etc etc, and maybe have some alcohol (and at $7.25 for beer at Oakland As, you can certainly see why). However, if you drive to a game, you can’t drink. So that’s why more and more complexes are now downtown. Also, more people are likely to go if it’s on their doorstep, if you don’t – or can’t – or won’t – drive to a game, then you can just as easily hop on the local subway or bus route and basically enjoy yourself. And that may well work in WFC’s favour. Think about it, WGS is urbanised, I went past it today and the whole place (not just the stadium) needs regeneration. It’s not that badly situated for transport, nothing overly major round there required. A dedicated bus route or two, maybe a cut through to Wimbledon Park tube or Haydons Road BR. Oh, and did you know that HOK and Lobb are involved in transport as well?
Anyway, try to temper your excitement, things will undoubtedly go wrong. This is Wimbledon Football Club after all.
Moving on – Mick Harford left WFC because he was given the assistant managers job or something and didn’t want it. In other words, TB wanted him away from the players as much as possible. Me, I’m saying nothing…..
Also, REMBE is now in that rather curious position of “ambassadorial” role at WFC. Basically, this means he is not reserve team boss any more, and I doubt if he’s on the first team coaching staff either. In other words, this is the equivalent of TB being moved sideways when OGEM got fed up with him. What this will mean for him I don’t know, but it’s more likely now that he’ll go into the meeja side of it, which is what he really wants anyway.
I’m not too sure his heart was really in WFC anyway within the last couple of years, certainly snubbing a book signing session last season caused a lot of comments, and the less said about the ALLEGEDLY turbulent period during our last season in the top flight when he ALLEGEDLY went round meeja gatherings ALLEGEDLY saying to newspaper editors “I can ALLEGEDLY give you loads of shit from WFC” ALLEGEDLY furthering his own ALLEGEDLY newly set up meeja company to ALLEGEDLY get tres muchos muzolos in return the better. I’ll stop shouting now shall I? Anyway, WFC know they can’t publically dump him – though quite frankly I wish they would, given his links with the ESS, which should be a hanging offense in itself – so they’ve given him this title, keep his good name alive whilst getting him out of the way. And you thought TB’s riddance of the WFC Clique was finished?