Impressed by the plans, very good use of space - thanks for the link Wottie, good man.
My guesswork was right on two elements, quite wrong on another. Right: (a) the pitch is east-west and (b) there is quite a lot of additional infrastructure, with a good concourse around the stadium and a tarmac car park in the coach park, which looks like about 180 parking spaces.
Wrong: The artist's impression LIED
( or my eyesight's failing
), mini-MF is not lined up with the West Stand flying buttresses at all, it is right up at the coach park end, so there will be three pitches, one in mini-MF and two north-south grass training ones. OK, crystal ball misfires occasionally
Can't really see many valid criticisms of the plan. The poor, underpaid players will I'd think manage to jog 150m from the West Stand OK, could usefully be programmed into their S&C
The in-goal area looks a wee bit tight, is it 5m anyone who can read the fuzzy blow-ups? - still better than Myreside's 3.5! The toilet provision looks on the minimalist side, but that will be proven at the first home game and amendments no doubt made if needed.
I think the whole plan is a pretty brilliant initiative quite honestly, if anyone had suggested in the past that the SRU should put £5m into a new home stadium for Embra, they would gave been laughed out of court, quite rightly given the big cash sum. I think we should be very pleased with what's being offered and grab it with both hands.
It would of course be great to have one permanent stand, with corporate boxes, team changing rooms, supporters' bar, club offices etc, as Dolf L touches on, but that would be a seriously big investment which I guess would be well beyond what the SRU could possibly contemplate. Thinking through how it could be financed, the only practical way would be through financial contribution by interested parties - SportScotland, Scottish Executive, Edinburgh Cooncil, SRU (51% share), supporters - plus a public share sale.
Could the supporters/general public raise a significant sum towards it? If I give up my favourite restaurant for lent next year, I could scratch together £100 - otherwise it's a tenner! - get 5,000 people donating at the Lent level of abstinence and we'd have £1/2m quiddles to invest. Would ERSC consider developing such a supporters' initiative?
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