Redeveloping Home Park

The redevelopment of Home Park has been either needed, talked about, revised and/or thrown out altogether or actually been actioned over regular intervals ever since I have been watching Argyle.

The first "Phase 1" in my spectating years was the demolition of the old Devonport End. The roofing had fallen in to dangerous dereliction and it had to go. This was a huge shame. That old roofing kept the crowd noise in and create an awesome matchday atmosphere. No matter what anybody tells you about how great the atmosphere there has been since, including right up to the current day, it isn't the same anymore and probably never will be again. The old Devonport End was demolished some time around 1978. It stayed shut for a year or two before a new roof was put on the end. It never looked right and always struck me as being akin to an over-sized biscuit tin lid. Capacity remained pretty much unaffected though and Home Park could still accomodate 35000 or people as it did when we played an FA Cup QF v Derby County in 1984.

The next phase came with the introduction of seating to the Lyndhurst. I'm struggling to put a date to this but it was Argyle's response to the Taylor Report's recommendation that football grounds, where possible, go all-seater. In many ways this was a second "Phase 1" and again it didn't lead to a Phase 2. Home Park was never to be the same again in terms of atmosphere. The horrid roof killed the Devonport and seating all but killed the Lyndy. Capacity was now drastically reduced to around 22000.

And so it rumbled on in a typically botched Argyle sort of way until the latter days of the McCauley era. McCauley's vicissitudes have been considered in this blog before so I won't go into detail but in this instance he decided that he had had enough of Argyle and had let it be known that the club was up for sale, that he'd invested all the money he was going to and that once he got his £2m back he'd walk away. That resulted in basic maintenance becoming unaffordable and the ground slowly began to crumble and sections of it closed off. I remember watching us play Brighton with the Lyndurst being closed. That was in September 1999.

McCauley's only consistent trait was his inconsistency. A plan to build a completely new "Tradium" adjacent to Home Park was announced and before long shelved before being abandoned in favour of a partial rebuild. And so a new "Phase 1" was settled upon. The old Grandstand and Mayflower Terrace were to remain untouched but the other 3 sides were to be demolished and replaced by an off-the-shelf design from stadium builders Barr.

It took years for the details about how much this would cost to emerge but McCauley, having long since left the club, spilled the beans in March 2006:

"Phase one of the stadium development cost approximately £4.6m. This was financed by grants from Plymouth City Council (£2.5m) and the Football Trust (£1.5m). The Football Trust also made an interest-free loan to the club of £300,000 and the balance of £300,000 was met from the club's own resources. In addition, also in 2001, the Council agreed to pay £1.5m to the club as compensation to surrender its old lease, which had only ten years left to run. Therefore, in the past five years a total of £4m has been paid by the Council to the club towards the Home Park property."

So Argyle got 3/4 of a brand new stadium for only £300k. McCauley was nothing if not a rather astute businessman! The latest "Phase1" was completed in 2002 with capacity now set at 18500.

And so plans for "Phase 2" and the completion of a stadium "fit for champions" (- Plymouth City Council leader Tudor Evans speaking during the 2002 promotion reception at the Civic Centre) began to be discussed. Eventually these plans led to the sale of the freehold in 2006 so that the club could try to raise the finance needed itself. Obviously it never did despite various plans coming and going and the build itself often being refererred to as happening "imminently".

By now Home Park was something of an anachronism with it still having the Mayflower Terrace, a standing area, in front of the Grandstand. The Mayflower's days were coming to an end due to football ground regulations. By now Argyle was a second tier club and it had 2 years grace before the stadium had to be all-seater. In 2007 temporary seating was installed and other minor improvements lifted the capacity to around 20000.

Argyle's recent financial meltdown will be well known to most reading this and as a cost-cutting measure the temporary seating was removed (saving the club £100k per annum). The terrace that remained was unusable due to the crush barriers having been removed and I think it is against the league regulations, and possibly even the law of the land, to re-introduce standing anyway. As a result a once vibrant section of the ground lies empty and overall capacity has been cut to around 16000.

Which is where we are today and once again we are looking to the future with new owner James Brent proposing that the club replaces the Grandstand...

So the question arises: Just how big does Home Park need to be?

And there lies the rub. Brent has said that he will pay for the grandstand without the club being burdened down by the cost and/or debt involved. As such I'm certain he wants to keep costs down (who wouldn't?) and that means building as small a stand as he can. As a fan I want to see what is probably a one-off chance to revolutionise the club off the field grasped and I want to see an ambitious plan and that does not allow for the, what I believe to be the inadequate, 16000 capacity that e currently have.

Following a recent Q&A session with fans Brent was asked about his stadium plans. This is what he said:

Capacity of the stadium has not been finally agreed but we hope will be circa 20,000 and will be designed to facilitate a further increase in capacity when required.

So I suppose it depends on what "circa 20,000" means. And what "designed to facilitate a further increase in capacity when required" means too.

I also suppose it all hinges on how you see Argyle as a club, where we might hope to be to be competing and who we hope to be competing against. It occurred to me that everything is relative so I have been delving into some actual hard statistical information (courtesy of the mighty greensonscreen.co.uk ), rather than opinion, and have graphed Argyle's mean home attendances as far as records allow:

The obvious conclusion to draw, from the chart, is that something like 15000 seats would be fine. This would be ignoring the fact that this is a mean figure. The highest attendances in each season will be higher and probably considerably so. If the highest attendances can't happen then the season's mean will fall. So does Brent's 20,000 allow enough wiggle room? It's fair to say that right now it probably does but what of the future? How likely is the the "further increase in capacity" likely to be? Do we want to capitalise on success when it comes or be hamstrung by it?

Not very likely is my suggestion given that building extra capacity will, conversely, lead to reduced capacity whilst the building happens.

And what of our competitors? Just who is it that we are trying to compete against? Here is a list of all of the current capacities of English football grounds as supplied by Wikipedia:

Rank	Team	Capacity	Name
1	England	90000	Wembley Stadium
2	Manchester United	75811	Old Trafford
3	Arsenal	60361	Emirates Stadium
4	Newcastle United	52409	St. James' Park
5	Sunderland	49000	Stadium of Light
6	Manchester City	47405	City of Manchester Stadium
7	Liverpool	45276	Anfield
8	Aston Villa	42786	Villa Park
9	Chelsea	42449	Stamford Bridge
10	Everton	40157	Goodison Park
11	Sheffield Wednesday	39812	Hillsborough Stadium
12	Leeds United	37900	Elland Road
13	Tottenham Hotspur	36230	White Hart Lane
14	West Ham United	35303	The Boleyn Ground
15	Middlesbrough	34998	Riverside Stadium
16	Derby County	33502	Pride Park Stadium
17	Southampton	32689	St Mary's Stadium
18	Sheffield United	32609	Bramall Lane
19	Coventry City	32604	Ricoh Arena
20	Leicester City	32312	King Power Stadium
21	Blackburn Rovers	31154	Ewood Park
22	Nottingham Forest	30576	City Ground
23	Ipswich Town	30311	Portman Road
24	Birmingham City	29409	St Andrew's
25	Bolton Wanderers	28100	Reebok Stadium
26	Wolverhampton Wanderers	27828	Molineux
27	Stoke City	27740	Britannia Stadium
28	Charlton Athletic	27111	The Valley
29	Norwich City	27010	Carrow Road
30	Cardiff City	26828	Cardiff City Stadium
31	West Bromwich Albion	26360	The Hawthorns
32	Crystal Palace	26225	Selhurst Park
33	Fulham	25700	Craven Cottage
34	Hull City	25404	KC Stadium
35	Bradford City	25136	Valley Parade
36	Wigan Athletic	25133	DW Stadium
37	Huddersfield Town	24554	Galpharm Stadium
38	Reading	24169	Madejski Stadium
39	Preston North End	23408	Deepdale
40	Barnsley	23287	Oakwell
41	Brighton & Hove Albion	22500	Falmer Stadium
42	Burnley	21940	Turf Moor
43	Bristol City	21804	Ashton Gate
44	Milton Keynes Dons	21189	Stadium mk
45	Portsmouth	21178	Fratton Park
46	Swansea City	20520	Liberty Stadium
47	Notts County	20280	Meadow Lane
48	Millwall	19734	The Den
49	Port Vale	19148	Vale Park
50	Queens Park Rangers	18439	Loftus Road
51	Carlisle United	17902	Brunton Park
52	Watford	17477	Vicarage Road
53	Plymouth Argyle	16388	Home Park
54	Tranmere Rovers	16151	Prenton Park
55	Blackpool	16007	Bloomfield Road
56	Wrexham	15500	Racecourse Ground
57	Doncaster Rovers	15231	Keepmoat Stadium
58	Swindon Town	14983	County Ground
59	Peterborough United	14793	London Road
60	Brentford	12763	Griffin Park
61	Oxford United	12500	Kassam Stadium
62	Southend United	12163	Roots Hall
63	Gateshead	11750	Gateshead International Stadium
64	Bristol Rovers	11626	Memorial Stadium
65	Gillingham	11440	Priestfield Stadium
66	F.C. United of Manchester	11313	Gigg Lane
67	Bury	11313	Gigg Lane
68	Walsall	10989	Bescot Stadium
69	Oldham Athletic	10850	Boundary Park
70	Stockport County	10832	Edgeley Park
71	Chesterfield	10300	B2net Stadium
72	Luton Town	10226	Kenilworth Road
73	Rochdale	10149	Spotland
74	Crewe Alexandra	10109	Alexandra Stadium
75	Colchester United	10105	Colchester Community Stadium
76	Lincoln City	10059	Sincil Bank
77	Rotherham United	10000	Don Valley Stadium
78	Wycombe Wanderers	10000	Adams Park
79	Darlington	10000	The Darlington Arena
80	Shrewsbury Town	9875	New Meadow
81	AFC Bournemouth	9776	Dean Court
82	Yeovil Town	9665	Huish Park
83	Cambridge United	9617	Abbey Stadium
84	Grimsby Town	9546	Blundell Park
85	Leyton Orient	9311	Brisbane Road
86	Mansfield Town	9295	Field Mill
87	Scunthorpe United	9144	Glanford Park
88	Exeter City	8830	St James Park
89	Bath City	8800	Twerton Park
90	York City	7872	Bootham Crescent
91	Silsden	7800	Cougar Park
92	Hartlepool United	7749	Victoria Park
93	Grantham Town	7500	South Kesteven Sports Stadium
94	Northampton Town	7300	Sixfields Stadium
95	Cheltenham Town	7133	Whaddon Road
96	Sutton United	7032	Borough Sports Ground
97	Burton Albion	6912	Pirelli Stadium
98	Aldershot Town	6835	Recreation Ground
99	Stevenage	6722	Broadhall Way
100	Boston United	6643	York Street
101	Weymouth	6600	Bob Lucas Stadium
102	Halifax Town	6561	The Shay
103	Kettering Town	6441	Nene Park
104	Morecambe	6400	Globe Arena
105	AFC Telford United	6300	New Bucks Head
106	None	6264	Rockingham Road
107	Kidderminster Harriers	6238	Aggborough
108	Stalybridge Celtic	6108	Bower Fold
109	Altrincham	6085	Moss Lane
110	Dagenham & Redbridge	6070	Victoria Road
111	Barnet	6023	Underhill Stadium
112	Southport	6008	Haig Avenue
113	Hayes and Yeading	6000	Kingfield Stadium
114	Woking	6000	Kingfield Stadium
115	Basingstoke Town	6000	The Camrose
116	Macclesfield Town	5988	Moss Rose
117	Torquay United	5796	Plainmoor
118	Dover Athletic	5745	Crabble Athletic Ground
119	King's Lynn Town	5733	The Walks
120	Hereford United	5727	Edgar Street
121	Fleetwood Town	5500	Highbury Stadium
122	Chester	5376	Exacta Stadium
123	Kingstonian	5194	Kingsmeadow
124	AFC Wimbledon	5194	Kingsmeadow
125	Forest Green Rovers	5147	The New Lawn
126	Accrington Stanley	5070	Crown Ground
127	Northwich Victoria	5046	Victoria Stadium
128	Ebbsfleet United	5011	Stonebridge Road
129	Dorchester Town	5009	Avenue Stadium
130	Chesham United	5000	The Meadow
131	Redditch United	5000	Valley Stadium
132	Salisbury City	5000	Raymond McEnhill Stadium
133	Halesowen Town	5000	The Grove
134	Crawley Town	4718	Broadfield Stadium
135	Newport County	4700	Newport Stadium
136	Barrow AFC	4256	Holker Street
137	Braintree Town	4151	Cressing Road,
138	Tamworth	4065	The Lamb Ground
139	Alfreton Town	3600	North Street

I see Argyle as being like a Huddersfield, Bradford or Brighton team. Their capacities sit at between 22-25k. That is definitely where I would like to see our capacity placed. I wonder if Brent's "circa" means a little over or a little under the 20,000 figure he quoted?

As already stated I have little faith that any further development will ever happen. This is our moment. This is our chance. If Argyle aspires to be anything other than a poxy little lower division club then the nettle simply has to be grasped and the final stadium capacity has to be set at a 22,000 mininum. Which, of course, is still "circa 20,000"!