The anti-Stratford protests begin!

[roosh]

No, I favour staying in Tottenham at all costs.

Even if that cost were bankruptcy?

I'm not saying it could or will happen, I just want to know if you mean "at all costs"?

 

[sloth]

Even if that cost were bankruptcy?

I'm not saying it could or will happen, I just want to know if you mean "at all costs"?

I can answer that for BT, his answer is yes. A phoenix club would rise from the ashes of THFC and as long as that were in Tottenham he could live with it. More than moving to Stratford anyway (or more accurately the Lea Valley).

Also, can I say to all you WeAreN17 campaigners please can we do away with the Just Say No slogan? It was shit in the 80s when the cast of Grange Hill used it and it's shit now. At least come up with something interesting to shout at people.

 

[tRiKS]

I had a quick look and there are a lot of unverified signings on there, along with posts from Harry, Keane, Defoe and VDV. Im sure i saw Garry Glitters name on there as well.

The 6509 signatures they have will be reduced a lot when these get taken out.

I'm apposed to moving. I'm as appose to gathering signatures against it. it basically does 2 things 1) shows that a support that we boast at being near 1million is laughable when only 6500 people sign 2) gives the harrigay borough council further excuses to get away with neglence towards it residents, if we stop this becasue of our protests then waht is there to make them do anything proactive themselves to make us staY.

They really do have the power to quell our interest in the stratford development. They are chosing not to.

Like i said i'd rather stay. i'd rather stay at 36k capacity than move but i'm really really pissed of with Harrigay.

 

[spursphil]

Arsenal built the Emirates at a cost of £350m and that included plenty of flats etc in their development.

Prior to any stratford bid all the talk was of how much we would save compared to Arsenal on Labour and materials when we build our stadium.
I would hazard a quess that buying land in Tottenham was cheaper than what arsenal paid for their plot.

The upper limit for me would have to be that same figure £350m. And i am staggered that the NDP costs £100m more than the Emirates, and for me it represents extremly poor value for money.

I don't know what the initial trade off was with Haringey to try and get planning permission, a certain number of flats for social housing maybe?

The revised plans have certainly put an extra burden on the affordability of the project, what did we lose 200 flats from the initial plans.

I think the club are being taken for a ride, no way should we be paying £450m for a stadium with transport links that quite frankly will never improve.

It dosn't make economic sense to burden the club with such debt, IMO thats why the Stratford option has to be looked at.

 

[bigturnip]

I can answer that for BT, his answer is yes. A phoenix club would rise from the ashes of THFC and as long as that were in Tottenham he could live with it. More than moving to Stratford anyway (or more accurately the Lea Valley).

Also, can I say to all you WeAreN17 campaigners please can we do away with the Just Say No slogan? It was shit in the 80s when the cast of Grange Hill used it and it's shit now. At least come up with something interesting to shout at people.

You know my views too well, however the more likely scenario after the highly unlikely financial ruin would be administration and somebody would come in and pick up the pieces.

 

[chavkev]

I think this guy may have speared our chances of being allowed near the Olympic Stadium.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympic_games/london_2012/9367733.stm

 

[3Dnata]

I think this guy may have speared our chances of being allowed near the Olympic Stadium.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympic_games/london_2012/9367733.stm

Well i suppose if he gets his way we could keep the OS as an athletics stadium and have about 6 events a year with lesser gates than dagenham and Redbridge.

 

[roosh]

The cost id be willing to pay is the cost of the NDP, which was set out and agreed upon by Levy and the board. A cost that was deemed to be reasonable enough to proceed with the development and all the subsequent benefits that it would bring to the club.

The cost of the NDP would not just measured in the cost of the development itself, but also the opportunity cost of not going with Stratford. It would be measured in potentially higher interest repayments and lower revenues.

That would then translate into an opportunity cost on the field, with less money available for players and wages. Which could impact on success.

That cost has not suddenly become unreasonable, or financially unsustainable now there is a cheaper option in place. People need to be reminded of this, presenting the NDP as not a viable option is deliberately skewing the terms of the debate. And is wrong.

It's not that the cost of the NDP has beome unsustainable, it's that there is a potentially more sustainable option available at the site of the Olympic Stadium, that could make a lot more financial sense for the long-term future of the club.

If it makes a lot more financial sense for the club, then that will have the trickle down effect of increasing the chances of success on the field, because of more money available to buy players and to pay higher wages.

Just a side point re bankruptcy; at the extreme end of saving money is a free stadium, but we all know thats not going to happen, so following things to their illogical extreme has nothing to do with anything.

It allow us to break this idea of staying put at all costs, by setting an upper limit on the cost people are willing to incur. We can then try and figure out, exactly how much of a cost people think is woth it just to stay where we are.

NDP was going to go ahead. We can afford it. Somehow people seem to have forgotten this. Added to the fact we don't even know where the extra money potentially saved by Stratford is even going to go. This potential saving is not worth what it would mean to me if the club left Tottenham.

We don't even know what the potential saving is, or if there will be one. What if the potential saving was the difference between the club going bankrupt or not? Would it not be worth it then?

This is the best time in my living memory to be a Spurs fan. Winning, and not only winning, playing in the rich tradition for which our club is famous. Beating a fake club like Man City to the 4th spot, in the way that football should be played is something that will stay with me forever. Just as it seems that we are on the cusp of doing great things, and doing it in the right way, not buying our way to success with some mercenaries playing for some billionaire playboy who doesnt know or care about the club, moving to Stratford would undermine all of that. It really would be a tragedy and people will realise it when it's too late.

JUST SAY NO!!

Unfortunately that fake Club are now sitting second in the league, level on points with the league leaders (with 2 more games played), at least 5 points ahead of us, and they are only at the beginning of their period under a sugar Daddy. While we are currently fifth, and at present, in a battle for fourth with the defending champions, who we are relying on to continue their poor run of form.

Our main rivals for fourth, from last year, have leaped ahead of us, and I'm not sure it is a safe bet to hope things won't work out for them. That means we are in competition with 3 teams that hardly know what it is like to be outside the top 3, not to mind the top 4 for the past 10yrs. Now, Arsenal are only going to grow in financial strength, and Chelsea have a similar sugar daddy to City - granted they are slipping at present, but is it a safe bet to assume they won't have all the money they need to buy players and pay wages?

That leaves united, who would probably be in a similar position to us should we take on the debt of the NDP, except that their owners paid off a large chunk of that debt, thereby reducing their debts and their interest repayments, which were credited with being a stifling force on them. This coupled with the fact that they have one of the biggest global brands in world football.

I'm not sure we are in a position to sneeze at, what could effectively be, the price of a second, state-of-the-art football stadium.


This notion of not "selling out" and competing for honours, apart from being a complete over-exaggeration of the situation, is a lovely, romantic notion, but there is a possibility that we won't be able to compete with the big boys if we are saddled with too much debt.

If the NDP was the difference betwee challenging for the title and the CL, or challenging for fourth and an the occasioanl foray into the CL, would it still be worth it?


Don't JUST say no, think about what it could mean to say No, and then say it.

 

[roosh]

@the anti-stratford massive

If the NDP was the difference betwee challenging for the title and the CL, or challenging for fourth and an occasioanl foray into the CL, would it still be worth it?

 

[chavkev]

Well i suppose if he gets his way we could keep the OS as an athletics stadium and have about 6 events a year with lesser gates than dagenham and Redbridge.

I think that is what will happen. I would imagine they will try and make it into the equivalent of the Australian Institute for Sports. Make it a big training base. We have no chance of it now. When the bigwigs speak, the UK listens.

 

[roosh]

I think this guy may have speared our chances of being allowed near the Olympic Stadium.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympic_games/london_2012/9367733.stm

Lamine Diack (born 7 June 1933) - Age: 77½

"[There would be] no way to comeback as far as my generation is concerned," he stated.

....we may get an athletics world championships or European championships say once every 15 -20 years."

 

[sloth]

I think this guy may have speared our chances of being allowed near the Olympic Stadium.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympic_games/london_2012/9367733.stm

Mate, he's just another athletics man being wheeled out in an orchestrated campaign from the Athletics community to try and save athletics in the Olympic Park. They're really all one voice, just speaking through many heads.

We know what athletics thinks about our proposal, they could have had one man saying the same thing lots of times, but that would lose impact fast, so they've correctly decided that to maximise impact in the run-up to the decision next week they'll drip feed dozens of important athletics type people to all say the same thing.

Anyway, it's all a load of bollocks what they say. London included many things in their Olympic bid proposal, dozens of which have since changed or been reneged upon, some facilities for some sports weren't even built in the end because of cost.

For some reason Athletics, despite its unpopularity, thinks it's a uniquely important Olympic sport deserving of a 60k seat stadium so it can fill it once a decade or so. That for the rest of the time the total nationwide attendance for athletics stadium meets in this country is less than that of Leyton Orient is beside the point as far as they're concerned.

But that's their view and they're entitled to it.

As for the actual promises made they can be found in the Government's "Olympic Legacy Promises" Document preci'd here: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/...ey Issues 2012 Olympics a sporting legacy.pdf

The five promises being:

1. To make the UK a world-leading sporting nation
2. To transform the heart of East London
3. To inspire a generation of young people
4. To make the Olympic Park a blueprint for sustainable living
5. To demonstrate that the UK is a creative, inclusive and welcoming place to live in, to visit and for business.

Note, there's nothing about an athletics stadium in the Olympic Park.

What is more, since the coalition took over they've taken a closer look at some of the claims of Lord Coe and his athletic cronies about the long-term legacy of sporting participation a major event like the Olympics brings to the country. Here's an extract from a longer piece summing up some of their findings:


"An analysis of sports participation in Australia between 1985 and 2002 revealed that in the year following the Sydney Games in 2000, seven Olympic sports experienced a small increase in participation while nine declined. There was a similar pattern for non-Olympic sports, with the largest increase in non-competitive walking.

In a 2008 paper Kristine Toohey wrote that it was “impossible to conclude that the 2000 Games left a legacy of active sport-for-all in Australia” and that “the most substantial sport participation-related impact of the [2000 Games] was an increase in passive involvement, such as live and television spectating”.

Coalter claims that the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games made no measurable impact on immediate post-Games participation rates and also cites research that other major sporting events had a limited “trickle-down effect” on sports club membership, even for Olympic sports.

Other studies have questioned the “role model” thesis, according to which people are inspired to take up sport after watching their heroes. It has been argued, for example, that much of the thinking “about the relationship between sporting role models and wider sports participation fails to understand the complexity of processes of learning and behavioural change”.

Coalter concludes:

Existing evidence suggests that the presumed ‘trickle-down effects’ of general increases in sports participation and a general improvement in fitness and health are unlikely direct outcomes of a successful Olympic Games Bid...in terms of broader strategic outcomes the Olympic Games can only be regarded as only one element in a much broader, long-term, developmental programme.

If large-scale changes in sports participation are to occur, this will be the result of complex (and not well understood) interactions between such factors as changing public attitudes and values, changing distributions of work time, sustained government investment in schools and improved infrastructure of quality local facilities."

http://www.parliament.uk/briefingpapers/commons/lib/research/briefings/snha-04868.pdf

In other words their claims are pie in the sky.

What is really interesting though, is the insight we may have got the other day from David Kierle into Spurs' bid and the way we seem to be addressing these legacy goals. Basically he indicated that our bid wasn't just about a refurbished Crystal Palace but about putting funding in place for schemes across London to get people involved in sport. This sits squarely with the promised legacy outcomes in a way that squandering a fortune on an athletics stadium to benefit a single sport simply doesn't.

 

[jimmyn16]

This has been posted before but some people may have missed it.

This is what Tessa Jowell, then the Olympics Minister, said during the official presentation to the IOC in Singapore in July 2005:

"There are only two permanent venues left to develop, an indoor sports arena and the Olympic Stadium. The stadium will be a purpose-built home for athletics for generations to come. Set in the biggest new urban park in Europe for 200 years."

And later in her speech:

"The Olympic Stadium will become the home of the London Olympic Institute a new world centre of sporting excellence. It will house national governing bodies, medical experts and educators. And it will be an international resource for NOCs. Offering young athletes from around the world the opportunity to learn and train."

This is why Lamine Diack referred specifically to "a big lie during their presentation" during his BBC interview.

 

[michaelden]

Athletics is overrated. Everyone only watchs 100m

 

[PaxtonMuttley]

I've read both sides of the arguement but here's the main question...5 years from now will we 'Tottenham Hotspur' fill a 60k seater stadium in Stratford. Short answer as i see it...no.

We all know and acknowledge that the 25k+ people on the 'waiting list' is a fallacy and now, alledgedly, they say 10k of existing fans won't travel to east London. Are thousands of east Londoners suddenly gonna support Tottenham/Stratford cos they are local...unlikely... So financially how does THAT makes sense?

Another question is wot the hell are we gonna do with all this land in Tottenham should we up sticks? Now or any time soon is hardly the time to be flogging land to developers etc and I doubt many 'executive flats' will sell well on the High Road anyway!! (apologies if this has been mentioned but I skipped a few pages!!)

My thoughts are we have no chance as the legacy committee would be mad to hand it to us as the backlash would be imense. £500m of taxpayers money to build the stadium and then we roll up and say ''Thanks... we're gonna knock it down''...we've got two hopes...and one of them's Bob...

 

[Mr-T]

I've read both sides of the arguement but here's the main question...5 years from now will we 'Tottenham Hotspur' fill a 60k seater stadium in Stratford. Short answer as i see it...no.

We all know and acknowledge that the 25k+ people on the 'waiting list' is a fallacy and now, alledgedly, they say 10k of existing fans won't travel to east London. Are thousands of east Londoners suddenly gonna support Tottenham/Stratford cos they are local...unlikely... So financially how does THAT makes sense?

Another question is wot the hell are we gonna do with all this land in Tottenham should we up sticks? Now or any time soon is hardly the time to be flogging land to developers etc and I doubt many 'executive flats' will sell well on the High Road anyway!! (apologies if this has been mentioned but I skipped a few pages!!)

My thoughts are we have no chance as the legacy committee would be mad to hand it to us as the backlash would be imense. £500m of taxpayers money to build the stadium and then we roll up and say ''Thanks... we're gonna knock it down''...we've got two hopes...and one of them's Bob...

Really? Why do we need a new stadium then?

 

[MattyP]

I can answer that for BT, his answer is yes. A phoenix club would rise from the ashes of THFC and as long as that were in Tottenham he could live with it. More than moving to Stratford anyway (or more accurately the Lea Valley).

Also, can I say to all you WeAreN17 campaigners please can we do away with the Just Say No slogan? It was shit in the 80s when the cast of Grange Hill used it and it's shit now. At least come up with something interesting to shout at people.

You do realise the slogan is "Say no to Stratford", as opposed to "Just say no"?

You do also realise there's an alternative slogan "Say yes to Tottenham", in support of the NDP:shrug:

Arsenal built the Emirates at a cost of £350m and that included plenty of flats etc in their development.

Prior to any stratford bid all the talk was of how much we would save compared to Arsenal on Labour and materials when we build our stadium.
I would hazard a quess that buying land in Tottenham was cheaper than what arsenal paid for their plot.

The upper limit for me would have to be that same figure £350m. And i am staggered that the NDP costs £100m more than the Emirates, and for me it represents extremly poor value for money.

I don't know what the initial trade off was with Haringey to try and get planning permission, a certain number of flats for social housing maybe?

The revised plans have certainly put an extra burden on the affordability of the project, what did we lose 200 flats from the initial plans.

I think the club are being taken for a ride, no way should we be paying £450m for a stadium with transport links that quite frankly will never improve.

It dosn't make economic sense to burden the club with such debt, IMO thats why the Stratford option has to be looked at.

We are paying £450m not just for a stadium, but the whole development, including a supermarket, a hotel, accomodation, a museum, a shop, renovating the pub, the red house, somewhere for the Tottenham Hotspur foundation to call home.

@the anti-stratford massive

If the NDP was the difference betwee challenging for the title and the CL, or challenging for fourth and an occasioanl foray into the CL, would it still be worth it?

Anyone who thinks the alleged differential between the two options will be ploughed into the team I think is sadly mistaken.

Some of it might, but not the whole wedge.

I'll take staying in N17 all the time thanks.

 

[PaxtonMuttley]

Really? Why do we need a new stadium then?

i'm beginning to wonder that myself...

Friend of mine has been on the waiting list for 3 years and has gone from number 5,000+ to under 1,000 in that time. Where did 4,000 people go cos it sure wasn't into the stand as the club only grants about 300 new season tickets per season?

Don't get me wrong i think we need a bigger stadium and i'm sure we'd fill it in WHL but in Stratford...i think we'd struggle...

 

[MattyP]

i'm beginning to wonder that myself...

Friend of mine has been on the waiting list for 3 years and has gone from number 5,000+ to under 1,000 in that time. Where did 4,000 people go cos it sure wasn't into the stand as the club only grants about 300 new season tickets per season?

Don't get me wrong i think we need a bigger stadium and i'm sure we'd fill it in WHL but in Stratford...i think we'd struggle...

Two years ago the club increased the number of season tickets available in the ground by 1,500.

Last year, there was a fair number of non-renewals, I presume due to financial reasons.

So entirely feasible that your mate could move 4,000 places in two seasons.

But you are correct when you say the waiting list is not 25,000 - the last figure quoted was closer to 34,000.

 

[striebs]

i'm beginning to wonder that myself...

Friend of mine has been on the waiting list for 3 years and has gone from number 5,000+ to under 1,000 in that time. Where did 4,000 people go cos it sure wasn't into the stand as the club only grants about 300 new season tickets per season?

Don't get me wrong i think we need a bigger stadium and i'm sure we'd fill it in WHL but in Stratford...i think we'd struggle...

For me , there are only 2 reasons for buying a season ticket :-
- only way to have decent chance of tickets to big home games
- * almost * the only way to get tickets to away games

If Spurs raise the capacity to a point where they fail to sell out against bigger sides , then the first reason disappears and a lot of people would relinquish their season tickets imo .

Agree with you that we'd stand a better chance of filling a stadium in Tottenham .