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So, the European football we fought so hard for last season has finally arrived. We're maybe not in the best shape for the game, but surely we still have enough about us to sneak through?

The glaring answer for a club our size is to employ the same advantage that other clubs of similar or smaller standing use in countries like Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Faroe Islands, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan and others. Summer football. Start our league between late February and early April, then finish between late September and early November. It's actually pretty interesting when you look at the teams from those summer leagues who have essentially turned that advantage they have into part of their business model. There's about 3 million Euros to be made by qualifying for the group stage of the competition we're in just now, I believe. Add on TV rights, higher attendances and prize money for performances, and you're talking about a decent chunk of change. The much-discussed Bodø/Glimt have gotten it down to a fine art. Even before they were well-known as the club they are now, they were able to regularly make a decent fist of it in Europe because in qualifiers they would catch the August/September to May teams cold. Those wins resulted in financial windfalls that they then used intelligently, of course. Rinse and repeat. It's why we see teams like them, Molde, Malmö, Djurgårdens, and even the likes of Shamrock Rovers do reasonably well in Europe. Clubs our size are never ready for these games, and we have to try to find a way through with a patched together team that involves players who might be eyeballing a move away from the club, who've just signed for the club, and a bunch of kids. Throw in the new manager effect and it can go wrong really quickly. But we'll never go down that route. Because it makes too much sense.

Or a squad player at a club like ours. Not every player in our squad can be first-team regular quality, we'd end up with players not being happy that they're not playing. There's absolutely a role for a fairly versatile home grown player like him if he's happy to accept that he's not going to be a regular starter. It takes a squad, after all.

Maintenance costs on a new build could be very expensive as well . Anyone who thinks all the modern building methods and sustainable energy sources and systems are flawless are kidding themselves on and may not even last any length of time without problems. I would quote the new hospitals , office buildings and colleges throughout the land which need money thrown at them after only 10 odd years. But that would be the balancing act between choosing new build or old.

Roof and lower tier seats in McLean probably a more pressing issue but your point is on the money … literally.

I think there is a good player in there. I’ve always thought he had good foot skills on the ball and I didnt realise how young he was. He might surprise a few people if he adopts the right attitude amd applies himself to get as physically fit as he can.

Out of interest what would the maintenance costs over 30 years be, if we remain at Fir Park? We'll start with demolition and replacement of the POD then the Hunter Stand.

I thought Ewan had a decent start with us a couple of seasons ago but then had a few errors and regressed which I put down to his age. Hopefully he can get back to the form he showed to start with.

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. 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 or if he just doesn't fit our style, 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 🥸