New Everton Stadium - Hill Dickinson Stadium

[Frenk]

Let’s cancel the move and knock it down.

 

[WelshBlue92]

I went yesterday, absolutely loved it, a few impressions from my side.

- Plaza - great place to congregate, also a good idea by the club to provide food/drink here for fans pre-game as they did in the test event.
- Hydraulic Tower - I had a look inside, looks like it is just being used for storage at the moments for spare seats, rails, brackets etc - could make a decent pub/bar though.
- Everton Way - looks fantastic can't wait for it to be completed so that I can find my stone.
- Western Terrace - shame we couldn't go round and see the steps etc, something to look forward to next time I guess.
- South Stand Upper escalators - loved it, also very grateful for them, the other stands could do with some also.
- South Stand Concourse - its huge, so much bigger than anywhere at Goodison, was able to walk right up and get a drink. Food only took a few minutes also. That being said it was rammed at half time even with the space being bigger, might be due to people milling about more than usual though. If they ever do expand the South Stand (or the others) I'd hope that they can extend this also by either by making it bigger towards Nelson dock or adding a second story.
- South Stand - I was around the middle of the upper tier and the view was great, I'm 6 foot and the leg room much better than Goodison too as my knees didn't dig into the seat in front. I ventured up to the top row of the Upper South, the view is still good although the screen is obscured by the roof and those that are older or less fit may struggle getting up there due to all the steps.
- East Stand Concourse - felt much quieter than the South, much easier to move about and get food/drinks.
- East Stand - had a quick look at the view from the disabled section and the view is fantastic, reminiscent of the Upper Bullens front rows.
- Food and Drinks - quite expensive and small portion sizes - hopefully that can be improved e.g proper pints not 330ml and more chips/rice with the protein.
- North Stand - Ventured over there at half time and again the views are superb, arguably better than the South in some respects.
- Travel, I got to the ground via coach so had no issues, might be a decent recommendation for those who have that option.

 

[BullensRoad]

I couldn't get to town as early for this game as the first one, but was still on the soccerbus from Liverpool One bus station for just after 1pm. Set off for BMD almost straight away. We were only just past the Liver Buildings after almost half an hour. Driver couldn't let us off to walk because we were in the middle lane. Eventually, we were able to get off nearer the start of Great Howard St and walked. There were far more cars than for the previous event. The junction near Costco was completely gridlocked. Nothing moving. The surrounding streets had lots of cars milling around looking for car parking options. Eventually got to turnstile at North Stand 16mins after KO, in our seats at 20mins. Lots of others running late too.

It was the opposite afterwards. Got Shuttle bus on Great Howard St after about 10mins wait.... it was very quick on to Liverpool One, where on-going bus was waiting. Looked like the vast majority walked into town. In the future I think I'll get train to the game, but bus back afterwards.

Do you think the traffic was bad due to the half marathon finishing an hour or so before?

Still likely to be bad when it's at full capacity mind.

 

[davek]

Commander Steve on the run.

 

[BullensRoad]

Can't wait to see the "blue wall" in full voice on a match day where the result matters.
if we've got the right amount of noisy gits as season ticket holders in there, we'll be the talk of europe.

I think that will be a teething problem. A lot of people have relocated from areas outside of Gwladys st to there, possibly for the upper south view.

They could either be enthusiastic of it being the loud home end or could end up regretting it. I saw a few people not happy with people standing and the leg room in the south stand lower, which has safe standing - what did they expect?

 

[AndyRJ]

There's absolutely ZERO excuse for not consulting fully on this earlier before implementing it and wasting a load of money on signage etc that may need to be amended.

As I see it, the main gripe with this for local business is how draconian the measures are when the parking issue is something that would potentialy impact the area on match days and events only. This is something that they could have consulted on long before now; so why haven't they?

I absolutely understand the need to have a period of monitoring around this and other transport related measures to determine effectiveness and make any adjustments. However, the council would appear to have done next to nothing until the test events were announced. Now they are scrabbling around to implement things and make significant changes to previously announced measures purely because of the sheer number of complaints and bad publicity they are receiving.

 

[NathDogg]

Do you think the traffic was bad due to the half marathon finishing an hour or so before?

Still likely to be bad when it's at full capacity mind.

Nothing to do with the marathon mate, roads were all reopened aside from those by the ground, it was just carnage at the Costco island.

Buses sat on the strand for over half an hour not moving, a few just kicked everyone off just past the liver building and they had to walk from there.

Sandhills is going to be a death trap for some time, it’s a disgrace what they’ve done there.

It’s just a shambles from the council. It’s the only negative thing about the experience of BMD, the parts Everton have been in control of are absolutely world class.

 

[joe5494]

A selection of pictures from yesterday

 

[Noggsy blue]

@Noggsy blue what do you make of Mr Drone having made it to the second game in succession? I was under the impression that people would only be able to go once.

He’s an absolute bell

 

[MikeyMike]

This was as close as I could get to my new ST seat and it's made me even more excited for next season.
View attachment 300421

It's fair to say today showed there is more room for improvement in and outside the ground, but we all know that's the idea of these events. Having all the site open next time will be a huge help. (but that bridge really needs looking at)

I do think we'll need a few 'events' between test event 3 and the first league game though.

But what a stadium and what a future we now have!

That looks pretty close to my seat next season. Great view!

 

[BullensRoad]

Nothing to do with the marathon mate, roads were all reopened aside from those by the ground, it was just carnage at the Costco island.

Buses sat on the strand for over half an hour not moving, a few just kicked everyone off just past the liver building and they had to walk from there.

Sandhills is going to be a death trap for some time, it’s a disgrace what they’ve done there.

It’s just a shambles from the council. It’s the only negative thing about the experience of BMD, the parts Everton have been in control of are absolutely world class.

I mean there was a few thousand who took part and I can imagine a lot of them drove, with road closures too surely it must have had an impact?

I saw people finishing at about half 12.

 

[BullensRoad]

Not for me.

I always thought the most impressive visual of them all was this one;

View attachment 300488

They moved away from that, to allow the divide for safe standing but with fans it, it'll look much more impressive if it looks like a single wall, rather than tiered. Like so;

View attachment 300487

Well for a start the image there replying to is the 60k+ version and the east stand has 3 tiers in it.

 

[kev]

Held my phone high up above the boarding at the back of the South East corner to see if I could get any clue of what's going on with all the scaffolding.
No wiser now

 

[ultra]

The blanket parking ban has caused mayhem.
The council claimed it’s a development area as the reason for the ban. It’s currently mainly a derelict zone, they could quite easily have gradually brought in parking restrictions over say a 12 month period as the area becomes developed.
They have clearly not heard of the law of unintended consequences, hence the backtracking today over parking.

 

[peteblue]

How many bike racks are there and was anyone using them ?…..