New Everton Stadium - Hill Dickinson Stadium

[If You Know Your History]

Just remember we only won 5 games at Goodison last season, 6 away from home.

The people are the most important part of any stadium, they generate the atmosphere, and the vast majority of people are moving to the new stadium. Hopefully the 1878 will keep the stuff with the flags going

100% agree.

 

[If You Know Your History]

It's because he has the absolute safest job in the entire country. There's no scrutiny and no accountability and he's fully aware of that fact.

Yup.

 

[aglee]

This is why they didn't put the D in, we all know they would have got the K in and then rain/wind would stop play for a month with Hill Dick on our roof.

ill Dick would have been even worse

 

[Exeter_Gently]

ill Dick would have been even worse

Yeah no one wants one of them.

 

[Makis]

From the very first reveal of the stadium capacity to today, it's blatantly obvious that 52,000 was a laughable capacity in every context. It should have been 65,000 all day long.

And how would that have been paid for when club almost went bankrupt with this one? Moshiri had to purchase here, there and everywhere and club paid very high interest rates. Would you have been happy to sell Branthwaite last summer?

 

[Tom Hughes]

On what basis?

The original St Lukes and Buro Hapold was 60,000.

There's a lot of conjecture saying it can't be this it can't be that, ultimately the people at the club decided they weren't going too big capacity wise. Theoretically there's room. There always was.

I think the initial design (and indeed one of the main motives to go to BMD) was for if we'd gotten the Commonwealth games. That would've come with a lot of additional funding. Unfortunately, that got brought forward 4 yrs due to Durban dropping out and Brum (with its more advanced bid in the now shorter window) won the almost £800m local and national government funding.

There was then a few months delay following that decision, and another consultation, after which the 52,888 capacity emerged, almost out of nowhere.

This was questioned at a few shareholders meetings at the time, with a mixture of responses. The club said that it had even been challenging to model people-movement around the site at the lower capacity.... we asked why they had initially designed it bigger then? They couldn't really answer..... I think it was at a later meeting that Colin Chong also mentioned that there had been some concerns about potential post-match congestion immediately outside the dock wall.... this may have been in relation to the Stanley Dock bridge, although I don't remember him naming it directly. There may have also been some stadium capacity consideration due to the transport plan, which no doubt would've been due to benefit from a large cash injection, if the CWG bid had been successful. All talk of a station at Vauxhall vanishing at the same time.

Stadium construction cost can rise exponentially with capacity. A 10-20% capacity increase could mean a 20-40%+ construction cost increase..... and if they got their tkt demand calcs wrong and created an over supply of seats, that scope to really control ticket prices to squeeze their asset, might also have been lost at the higher capacity. So without that additional funding, all the economic forces were probably pointing towards a lower capacity by that point. Let's face it, the financial model was non-existent and entirely based on "Bank of Daddy", with not a single major financial institution attracted throughout the process, and even when contruction was well under way. As it turned out, 52k nearly buckled us completely. It saw off our owner with a massive loss and even bankrupted one potential buyer in the process, leaving the club with various high interest loans keeping us and the stadium project afloat.

 

[brieverton]

I think all things considered we have come out with a fabulous new home.

This could have been started and not finished, or have come with a cost that could not have been sustained and may have resulted in disaster for the club.

I wonder if there is any other modern example of a stadium like this being completed without ever having secured commercial funding from the market. The case to build it at all, according to them, was not there.

Most of us would like a bigger capacity but on its own adding another 10k doesn't seem to be a game changer whilst possibly being prohibitively expensive. It may come in the future, but we should enjoy what we have and hope that it heralds an upturn in our fortunes.

 

[blueblue]

On what basis?

The original St Lukes and Buro Hapold was 60,000.

There's a lot of conjecture saying it can't be this it can't be that, ultimately the people at the club decided they weren't going too big capacity wise. Theoretically there's room. There always was.

What would the extra seats add to the cost?
Hundreds of millions.

If we had gone ahead and built a stadium of that size we would have a huge debt burden around our neck.
In fact we would already have gone burst before TFG ever entered the scene.

 

[James Patrick]

It's not the size of the stadium right NOW that's an issue it's the restrictions we have placed on ourselves growing further. This is EFC for the next 200 years.

 

[mickefc]

None of us have got a clue whether its too big or too small capacity wise. Let's see what its like in a couple of years for games against crap teams on a Tuesday night in the winter at £70 a pop. Or League Cup games. A few other clubs in the league end up giving thousands away for free to kids and the local community.

 

[Toffe3m4n]

Posted on Twitter earlier this week..

 

[tommye]

Posted on Twitter earlier this week..

View attachment 314327

Posted on here by @Noggsy blue yesterday

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[tr_efc]

Wonder if there will be any branding on the exterior of the new stadium with just the tower badge like we saw on the 24/25 away, 23/24 third and 22/23 third kits?

I'd like something of that sort to be on the outside of the ground as well as the actual badge and Hill Dickinson Stadium branding, but it'd have to be far better designed than the awful tower attempt that we have currently.

 

[allen]

I wonder if there is any other modern example of a stadium like this being completed without ever having secured commercial funding from the market. The case to build it at all, according to them, was not there.

I'm not sure Moshiri ever seriously pursued market funding.

I think the funding model was basically just "Usmanov."

Then when that tap ran dry, it was panic borrow to survive.

Like you say, it's a miracle it's been built and we're still a going concern.

 

[brieverton]

I'm not sure Moshiri ever seriously pursued market funding.

I think the funding model was basically just "Usmanov."

Then when that tap ran dry, it was panic borrow to survive.

Like you say, it's a miracle it's been built and we're still a going concern.

You may be right there. He did officially engage JP Morgan and MUFG to obtain funding, but nothing came of it. It was viewed as market rejection of the governance of the club, as in any other circumstances he shouldn't have had any difficulty in getting funding at the prevailing interest rate.

He certainly came up with creative alternatives, I'll say that for him.