Is ground sharing really so bad?

[johncrossley]

Wimbledon, of course, are no angels. They would never have been elected to D4 in 1976 if the voting clubs had known that they would decamp to Selhurst Park 27 years later and become Palace's warm up act.

Is ground sharing really so bad? Some of the biggest teams in the world do it.

 

[wireforever]

Inter and AC Milan do it and there are more examples of rugby clubs and football clubs sharing a ground Wigan RLFC and Wigan FC to name a local one and I'm sure Oldham FC used to share Boundary Park with Oldham rugby league club

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I'm sure Oldham FC used to share Boundary Park with Oldham rugby league club

Not any more, Oldham RLFC now ground share at the Vestacare stadium in Oldham with non league football club Avro FC who play in the North West Counties League.

A few other examples of ground sharing include Hull FC (rugby league) and Hull City (football) at the MKM Stadium in Hull; Huddersfield Giants (rugby league) and Huddersfield Town (football) at the Kirklees Stadium in Huddersfield and Swansea City (football) and Ospreys (rugby union) at the Swansea.com Stadium, in Swansea).

Perhaps ground sharing can work best in England / Wales when the two clubs have adopted different codes.

 

[SJL2020]

Yankee Stadium is shared by New York Yankees + New York City FC.

I suppose the ultimate in ground sharing has to be the Melbourne Cricket ground: 6 AFL teams, the Victorian state cricket team and the Australian test team.

 

[Grecian 1998]

Perhaps ground sharing can work best in England / Wales when the two clubs have adopted different codes.

Stockport County and Sale or Coventry City and Wasps might beg to differ on that one - certainly the football fans aren't fond of their cohabitants (former in the case of Stockport). Bristol Rovers and Bristol RFC also, although the animosity there comes more from the rugby club.

It has amused me that since the re-named Bristol Bears moved to Ashton Gate, their kit has started to incorporate increasing amounts of red into the traditional navy and white. I suspect the owner might baulk at trying to introduce navy blue into Bristol City's palette though.


Having been on a stadium tour of the Allianz Arena when 1860 Munich shared it with the other lot, one thing that struck me was how drab it looked due to the grey seating and complete lack of any internal colour. Not a problem for a full house when the glory hunters turn up to watch Borussia Moenchengladbach hand out a lesson, but when 1860 played there in front of crowds of 20,000 it looked pretty dismal. I don't know if it's developed more of a red tint since 1860 left.

Ground sharing can work but it helps if a) both teams can fill the ground and b) both can feel at home. Some Italian grounds do this by having one end as the 'home end' for each club, so away fans would be in a different end depending on who they're playing. That does require the stadium to have effective segregation measures at both ends however.

 

[Hadders]

Ground sharing doesn't really work in my view.

When rugby clubs have shared with football clubs it is football fixtures that have 'primacy', with rugby getting the poorer kick off times. Commercially many rugby clubs were offered very poor commercial deals on catering, hospitality sales etc.

The other thing, that you can only really understand if you regularly attend matches, is that there is a difference between a football stadium and rugby ground:

At football:
Crowd is segregated
You cannot drink alcohol in view of the pitch
As soon as the match finishes the stewards want you out of the ground

At rugby:
Crowd is mixed
You can drink alcohol to your seat
You're encouraged to hand around and socialise after the match
Stewarding is more relaxed


I'm not saying that rugby is better than football. What I am saying is that they are different, and that playing rugby in a football stadium often doesn't work.

 

[DarloRich]

Ground sharing works but it does rely on there being a well defined, fair commercial agreement and a good, open relationship between all parties.

and that playing rugby in a football stadium often doesn't work.

it messes up the pitch allowing all those clod hoppers to roll around cuddling each other while chasing thier eggs.

 

[Bantamzen]

Bradford Bulls spent a small amount of time at Valley Parade sharing with City quite a few years ago. It didn't work out too well as our pitch is far from the biggest, meaning the try zones were very narrow leading to many players ending up in the stands. And of course City previously shared with Bradford Northern (as the Bulls were previously known) at Odsal, leading to a very claggy pitch.

There were proposals a good few years ago for a local logistics firm owner to buy both clubs, then start to share some facilities and eventually build a new shared stadium but this never came to pass.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Bradford Bulls spent a small amount of time at Valley Parade sharing with City quite a few years ago. It didn't work out too well as our pitch is far from the biggest, meaning the try zones were very narrow leading to many players ending up in the stands.

Flip side is that Odsal, until recently, was possibly one of the narrowest Rugby League pitches on the pro/semi-pro circuit having been narrowed to allow stock car racing. Remedial work has now been undertaken, and the pitch width is now some 55 metres. Was previously 51 metres.

The recommended pitch width for pro/semi pro rugby league is something like 68 metres.

 

[Statto]

Think it's that, it's not you're own stadium, that ground share tends to be frowned upon in the UK, & when ground sharing does happen it tends to be different sports, or different codes of the sport, & i see Salford RL team are thinking of leaving the AJ Bell stadium when there lease is up in a couple of years.

Like, myself being a St Helens RL fan, we poke fun at Wigan Warriors as Wigan Warriors don't own the DW stadium, they lease it from the owner

 

[Cloud Strife]

Nothing wrong with it. It makes much more sense to have one stadium used as much as possible, rather than two stadiums lying empty most of the time.

Inter and AC Milan do it

Lazio/Roma too. I think the difference is when it's actually planned this way, as opposed to a team playing in another ground through no choice of their own.

Is ground sharing really so bad? Some of the biggest teams in the world do it.

In the case of Wimbledon, it was all Merton Council's fault. They were kicking up a fuss about everything, and it was very obvious that they didn't want a football team there. Groundsharing with Palace was a disaster for them, but they had no real choice at the time.

Mind you, it has given us one of the best derbies in football - AFC Wimbledon vs MK Dons.

 

[Old Yard Dog]

Clubs with plastic pitches need to rent out their facilities to pay for their investment. Thus West Bowling ARLFC now ground share at Bradford (Park Avenue) - and various junior and ladies football and rugby teams also play matches there.

Bradford paid for the new pitch, helped by various grants, but do not own the ground. They have a 35-year lease from Bradford council.

So the finances are very, very complicated. Plastic pitches only last about 6-8 years so funds need to be accrued for their eventual replacement.

Thus Bradford are still operating on one of the lowest budgets in National League North.

 

[adrock1976]

Nothing wrong with it. It makes much more sense to have one stadium used as much as possible, rather than two stadiums lying empty most of the time.



SNIP

The two closest stadiums to each other in the UK are Tannadice and Dens Park (Dundee United and Dundee respectively), where the distance between the main entrances are a mere 300 yards.

I do recall within the last ten years or so that it was planned for both Liverpool and Everton to share a new stadium, with the stadium being designed for when one match finishes, the spectators simply turn around to watch the other team. I think this idea got scrapped.

 

[McRhu]

I can't see any objection to Rangers and Celtic ground sharing in the near future. It would be a nice gesture and I'm sure the fans would be right behind it.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I can't see any objection to Rangers and Celtic ground sharing in the near future. It would be a nice gesture and I'm sure the fans would be right behind it.

As John McEnroe once said...

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Ground sharing doesn't really work in my view.

When rugby clubs have shared with football clubs it is football fixtures that have 'primacy', with rugby getting the poorer kick off times. Commercially many rugby clubs were offered very poor commercial deals on catering, hospitality sales etc.

The other thing, that you can only really undertand if you regularly attend matches, is that there is a difference between a football stadium and rugby ground:

At football:
Crowd is segregated
You cannot drink alcohol in view of the pitch
As soon as the match finishes the stewards want you out of the ground

At rugby:
Crowd is mixed
You can drink alcohol to your seat
You're encouraged to hand around and sociaise after the match
Stewarding os more relaxed


I'm not saying that rugby is better than football. What I am saying is that they are different, and that playing rugby in a football stadium often doesn't work.

The point on alcohol isn't really anything to do with either sport though- just attitudes towards followers of said sports. Rugby of either code is seen as more "gentlemanly" (see the old joke about Aussie Rules) largely because Union was traditionally the preserve of the upper middle classes. Not because one sport is inherently more likely to create trouble than the other.

Even the reasoning doesn't make sense though: football crowds are told we can't take a beer to our seat to prevent trouble, but if you've queued for 13 minutes to get a very expensive basic beer you now have two minutes to drink it before the game restarts. That's not promoting a healthy relationship with alcohol at all.

 

[Hadders]

The point on alcohol isn't really anything to do with either sport though- just attitudes towards followers of said sports. Rugby of either code is seen as more "gentlemanly" (see the old joke about Aussie Rules) largely because Union was traditionally the preserve of the upper middle classes. Not because one sport is inherently more likely to create trouble than the other.

Even the reasoning doesn't make sense though: football crowds are told we can't take a beer to our seat to prevent trouble, but if you've queued for 13 minutes to get a very expensive basic beer you now have two minutes to drink it before the game restarts. That's not promoting a healthy relationship with alcohol at all.

The problem for rugby supporters in a football ground is that the bars aren't set up to provide alcohol on the scale required. Also, the stewarding at a football ground when rugby is being played tends to be more officious than it needs to be. This is all down to staff training but as someone who's attended hundreds of rugby matches at all different types of venues, across Europe, it's very noticable.

 

[THC]

I can't see any objection to Rangers and Celtic ground sharing in the near future. It would be a nice gesture and I'm sure the fans would be right behind it.

We share Hampden Park on occasion and that's quite enough!

THC