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Is it the most cost effective though? The ongoing maintenance costs on a ageing stadium only ever go up. The POD is creaking at present and will ultimately be followed by the other stands in the near future. The current site also limits drastically our ability to monetise the stadium on a daily basis and grow our business in a way that would remove any annual shortfall without selling players. Its not as simple as just not putting the club into debt. We could play it safe and it would probably see us good in the medium term (beyond my lifetime for sure) but it would be nice to aspire to something more. Regardless, isnt it a great debate to be having?

One did who lived a street away from those who were contacted as they backed onto the road that takes people into the complex (and importantly) into the hotel. Ultimate NIMBY with pretty wild claims and tenuous links. I think supermarket chains buying up ground for town centre access was a very 90's phenomenon. In reality the cost to demolish and dispose of the FP site, I'm not sure there would be multiple millions left in the pot, looking at the housing estate(s) on the old college site, you're looking at 70 to 100 homes if following the same density. I also think the astro would have to be gifted to Knowetop to grease the council wheels. Certainly would get massive majority of local support from current residents. Anything we do at Fir Park would be bound up in the weeds for years with planning and residents groups. Remember they kicked off about a 5G add on to the floodlights. Let's not overlook the proposed training facility in Muirhouse was shelved because some residents Trojan Horsed the Bullfrog pub team as a reason not to build two pitches and a academy base. Talk about not getting it would raise up the neighbourhood. In the 90's Chapman and Dickie rightly exploited the OF, by doing so they gave us a lopsided stadium. I've seen people advocating that the top tier should be removed to bring it in line with the rest of FP without realising that in the 30 years we've had the South/McLean that 2nd tier has earned the club well in excess of an extra £8m over a single tier (2,400) stand even when adjusted for inflation and VAT taken off. For me the best solution to to continue to exploit the green and blue pound and get their glory hunters to unwittingly finance any new stadium. Take a current OF game as the datum. Match it and we go along with same income as we already achieve. Everything above it is for want of a better word, 'gravy'. All final values in brackets are a conservative amount we could realise over th 20 year lifespan of a mortgage: £5m down from player sales in summer 2025 and summer 2026. A rule of thumb is 1,000 seats x 3.5 games a season x 20 years x £24 (£30 average seat price for cat A - 20% VAT) = £1.7m. It's safe to say a £33 adult ticket in 2026 will be closer to £50 in 2046 so over the borrowing lifespan it's £2m. So 10,000 away capacity (£10m) Assume we maintain our standard 5.5k home fans and look to grow that by 2k (some of that is already happening due to Jens bounce) there's £2-4m from home fans alone but I'd argue beyond 5.5k we're a more fickle bunch and anti-football like Alexander would greatly affect our home gate. (£3m) Hearts certainly for the next few years look as if they will exceed the current 4,800 of the South/McLean allocation and of course early round cup ties against any of those three. (£3m) Increased uptake of matchday and hospitality spaces, more hires during weekdays could see easily £500k to £1m a year, multiply up x20, it's £8-16m (with VAT taken off). (£10m) Ensure the building takes advantage of what it needs for matchdays and sweat those assets the other 340 days a year such as the main restaurant, coffee shop, kitchens. (£3m) Co-locate with the proposed training facility, £2-3m put funds into the wider stadium project/pitches we own. (£2m) Naming rights, reduction in maintenance costs, renting stadium to SPFL/SFA for cup ties, womens and U21/U18 games all add up over 20 years. £250k per year seem fair? (£4m) There would be servicing the debt of £35m of course. And any relegation upsets the apple cart for hopefully a season. Ambitious but all achievable, all that has things at £40m before you consider dropping in a million or two into the pot over the next 20 years when we make hay during a period of lucrative player sales as we are currently experiencing. Then you start looking at the costs for other things and see if you can justify them at the initial design phase, everything should be on the table, not limited by fears until the numbers are ran. All these are multi-million pound investments and considerations but if you can make a business case for it and project that the income generated exceeds the cost, then you introduce it to the design phase. Roof - Depends on material and complexity, acoustic baffling, mounted grow lights, maintenance costs of pitch. Roof benefits - no games postponed, 24-7/365 space, banquets, concerts, exhibitions, other sports, ceremonies, beer festivals, novelty/uniqueness. Removable Pitch - Either full or broken down and moved outside. Bring in a astroturf pitch, exhibition hall carpet

I think that's just about right why we should stay ,improve and not lumber the club with massive costs for a new site and stadium. We own the stadium ,a new stadium would be rented ,mortgaged or some daft lease back scheme where we would never actually own it. We would probably hve to call it, sponsors name,stadium as well .Putting us in a vurnable position in bad times. Stay and upgrade for me. The most cost effective and keep the legacy going.

Personally, I feel Fir Park has outlived its usefulness as a stadium, fit not only for now, but more importantly, for the future and I would prefer we had a brand new stadium to fit that remit, however as others have said, this is not as simple to achieve as it sounds. A number of clubs have fully financed a new stadium by selling their existing stadium to large supermarket chains. I don’t think that would be possible for us. Fir Park sits in one of the most desirable residential areas of the town and its likely any sale of the land it sits on, may be limited to builders for a residential development. This could be highly problematical (look at the furore that surrounded the siting of a Tim Hortons in Knowetop Avenue) and it’s doubtful such a sale would gain approval from the local council and even if it did, it would not generate the level of income required to fully finance a new-build stadium.

Given the way that our squad is at present, I'd be happy to keep him in the squad. He's not that bad, so if he's fit and lean, he can fill in at left back and in midfield - a useful squad player who won't be costing us much. If we make a few more signings, he can go out on loan late in the window or in January.

Dundee FC submit documents for Camperdown Stadium Project - Dundee Football Club - Official Website it is indeed. This must mean they have sorted out their traffic issue as Transport Scotland blocked it previously. This would also have to be considered where we move to as well as the stadium, so we don't get hold ups with them. I love FP but the one thing I do hate is the amount of time it takes to get out after a game, even a Non OF game these days. by car. It was okay when the Police had traffic control in place at the roundabouts but not now. On the office space, I am still working from home and the company have a contract with Spaces where they pay x a month for a meeting room holding 12 around 12 people with use of single desks as and when required. It means that if we need to take a call with a customer or a manager hosts a face to face team meeting we have that space. If you are just looking for somewhere to sit and work, you can. For a seat we only need to let the Company contact know 24hrs before and they book the desk for you. They can also book a seat if for example your Broadband goes down. They have a cafe in the place as well. I am not saying we go down that route ourselves but maybe Spaces or some other company may rent it for use.. I think whichever way we go there will be folk against it fans, locals etc. Did I not see the residents in Dalziel complain about the training complex?

We all know the issues with the POD and the need to install temporary seating. However, unless I've missed something, we haven't been told the timescale. What does temporary mean? Is it 9 months, a year or even 2 or 3? Not an issue in theory, but if the seats are uncomfortable and causing injuries and disruption then yes, it is an issue. The answer is obviously linked to bigger matters.

Im hoping that even if we have to play one or two of the academy boys, then there should still be enough experience within the squad to see us over the line. Its not like we havent had an entire season on Jensball to fall back on and the academy boys have now had en entire pre-season including games against 3 pretty tough opponents to bed them in. I dont think it will be easy. Hanvar will be well organised and they are half way through their season, so likely to have more match sharpness, but we shouldnt be using any of that as an excuse. Big home crowd for the first real game of the season. Lets make sure we help the boys get it over the line.

It’s not the first time the club has got a stadium “upgrade” badly wrong in recent years.

The overwhelming concensus so far re the "seat upgrades" in the POD seems to be that it has been a shambles and resulted in the pod now having the worst seats in the stadium. For me i hope the club are taking note and acknowloging an error has been made. The only decent response would be to admit the error and try to resolve the issue asap, if that means ripping the new seats out and replacing them with a proper fit for purpose seat then so be it. I know the ST prices were partially standardised over the 3 home stands,but now those fans in the pod are paying a premium price for the worst seats in the stadium, which is a disgrace.

Think that was a brand new stadium in Camperdown?

I think what has happened with the seats being replaced shows two competing issues. One that the stadium isn’t fit for purpose in that folk can’t get up and down the row without folk cutting their legs and two has the decision and renovation of the seats led to a lack of confidence in any new stadium design? Dundee just released images of a face lift to their stadium and it looks good I’m starting to come round to a new stadium with new facilities Could even put in it fan zones kids stuff even conference facilities which the team can use or other stuff not fitted into the training ground facilities I will make up my mind though after I see how the training facility worked out As a side note what happened to the standing sections at the football?

Can have doubts but zero expectation is overblowing it...we should be taking care of them.

Grizzly's jokes starting to spread like a virus here.

No Garrion Bridges

How did you guess ... let me have a go back .... Kevin Bridges?

Are you Ed Milliband in disguise 🥸

Ba dum tssssssss

Naw mate, he's at Swansea no.😂

Sounds fantastic. But much like last season, we are programmed to believe we cant have nice shiny things. And even if we do, we dont get to keep them long. Id love this to be the exception.....

I appreciate your reticence and there's a host of horror stories of a chairman's ego making a club homeless and a shiny new stadium hosting zero events and quickly turning into the set from the Last of Us (Darlington, Kassam Oxford). I think we are unique in our league that two teams suck up so much support from the glory hunting/perpetuating the religious bullshit among our population. That also takes competitiveness and money from communities around the country which they go on to complain about. To put it as simply as possible, for every 1,000 seats we make available to the OF multiplied how often we play them at home over two seasons being seven (six guaranteed and one normally post split, plus an odd cup tie) and an average ticket price £24 (£30 minus 20% VAT) over a 20 year mortgage is £1.7m before you factor inflation which would take it closer to £2m. Give the OF an extra 5,000 seats to add to the 4,800 they get already we've realised £10m in revenue. Not only that the stadium would benefit from an uplift in home support due to the novelty factor of it being new. McDiarmid Park makes something like £1.2m from non match day hospitality and function hire. It seems every funeral in Perth goes back there for their sausage rolls and cakes. Even if we realise half of that on top of what we currently pull in, that's massive. Matchday hospitality would go up two or threefold with a modern offering. You mention the office space, covid allowed for a lot more home working and while there's still a need for it, it's not as essential as it was before. However, you then have to make the office space you do have and what if offers unique and a reason to seek it out. Having an incubator space where small startups can feed off each other and cross pollinate seems to me to be something that would give you an edge over an empty box at the foot of Airbles Road. You tap into every resource and grant going, local and national and pan UK. You sell the NLC the residents around FP moaning less, you offer a solution to their concert hall conundrum and you offer an anchor project to stimulate the Ravenscraig site. For me to be truly unique you need to push the boat out yet always have doing it cost effectively at the heart of it. I'd have it only the second covered grass football pitch in the UK (Millenium Stadium), I'd have that pitch removable so the space can be used for all sorts of events. I'd specify agricultural/industrial design and materials but do it in a way that's it's celebrated. I'd make the site one large power generator, ground source bored hot water to solar and have it export energy. Of course each one of the makes the price increase due to their perceived complexity but if done right and properly researched it can be done for much less than some think.

Except I outlined how we can. Granted back of a fag pack maths but it points to how it is achievable in theory and we maintain our income and costs similar to what as they are at present. I posted a link to the 42 page presentation I made on P&B earlier. I don't know if you reviewed it then but here it is: Our Future Home Presentation

I'm entirely largely in agreement with you on our options G & F. My preferred solution is a new stadium and it always has been. Whichever direction we choose, and I hope the directors don't simply kick the can down the road, there are no easy options. If we do move, the significant challenge we face is of course finance, there's no hiding from that. However, we are in a healthy position. Yes there are challenges in dealing with the various agencies involved in the Ravenscraig redevelopment, but I would have thought that given that progress has stalled, the lead body would be keen to help us move there to kickstart development and demonstrate progress. Retailing proposals have largely had their day and are no longer an option there. . There are significant problems if we choose to remain at Fir Park. As G & F rightly points out, the current site is very limited and we'd have to shoehorn in any new POD replacement. I'd assume that the Chapman building would also be demolished to provide more flexibility. The internal space within the current POD is a real constraint. If we wanted to expand and improve facilities such as hospitality suites internally then that would necessitate very creative thinking and design. Expansion of these facilities is essential in my book and I'm not sure how that would be done. Fir Park is a money pit and there will always be ongoing maintenance and development issues. If the POD is rebuilt what then? Will the Hunter Stand then need a new roof or replacement? Substantial amounts of cash will need to be spent on infrastructure every year. Nimbyism? You can be sure local residents would pore over new nut and bolt and parking space and object to every dumper truck movement and every decibel of sound generated by demolition. As G & F suggests maybe Dalziel Park training ground proposals could be halted and subsumed into a new site. Our new Board has conducted transfer negotiations and managerial appointments very professionally and in secrecy which is to be commended but they need to lift their veil of secrecy over issues like this. No, we don't need to know every detail just their general direction of travel. We are a fan owned club after all.

I'm not against a new stadium but to think we'd finance it by naming rights and office space is wide of the mark. Rotherham rent out office space in their new stadium and get £36,000 a year from one large office suite. Out with transfer fees we still run at a small operating loss so saddling ourselves with £500,000 to £1 million a year in additional financing costs is not realistic. If it was we'd have done it by now. Wed need numerous commercial partners to get it off the ground and they aren't easy to come by in the current economic climate.t https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/754397792160593

It wouldnt be every penny we have. If Just goes thru at £5m and Maswanhise similar, we are sitting on nearly £13m. With large a chunk of the Miller money still to be banked (albeit some of it ringfenced for the training facility) this is probably as good a time as any to bite the bullet. Im not saying Im 100% in on a new stadium, but it would be the best way to look to the future. We can stay at Fir Park and build a new POD and that will tide us over for a while. But it limits our options footprint wise and doesnt take into account the need to improve the rest of the stadium at some point in the future. That might be the safer way to proceed, and Im not against it either, but I think we need to think very carefully about this. Its a hugely significant moment in time for the club.