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The final World Cup game at Hampden?


Toepoke

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Hopefully not, but an interesting article from Michael Grant all the same...

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/344b83a0-a87f-11e7-93f3-16e2d16612a0

Hampden might stage its last ever World Cup match tomorrow night. When the qualifiers come round for Qatar 2022 Scotland might be traipsing around Celtic Park and Ibrox, or hitting the road to Murrayfield, the new Tynecastle or the even newer Kingsford Stadium in Aberdeen. By then Hampden could be crumbling and unfit for purpose. Now, now, stop sniggering at the back: genuinely crumbling and literally unfit for purpose. It could be on its way to being an unused white elephant. It could be waiting for the wrecking ball.

Eyes will turn to this sacred football venue for the Slovakia game. The old place will be full, or as near as damn it. The atmosphere? Well that will be down to what’s happening on the pitch. It’s not fashionable to say so but a major game at a full Hampden is as noisy, electric and exciting as it gets.

Think Scotland-England in June and Hibs-Rangers last year for recent confirmation of that. Poor public transport, scant parking, inadequate food provision, bad sight lines, the shallow banking, being too far from the pitch: none of that goes away but it is all forgotten and overcome when there is high octane stuff down on the pitch. When they’re packed and bouncing those vast, sweeping ends, inviting goalscorers to leap the advertising boards and race towards them like ants across a sandpit, offer a visual backdrop second to none.

Every big ground loses something when it is well short of capacity but the Hampden experience falls off a cliff. The more empty seats you see the more it sucks the life out of everything. Hampden is about the worst ground in Britain when it’s anything less than half full. Cup semi-finals are killed. Friendlies die.

One of Hampden’s problems is that it’s often on public display when it is a million miles from its best. Celtic Park and Ibrox are usually pretty full; we rarely see them with the sub-20,000 attendances so often used to damn Hampden. But the stuff that’s wrong with it is genuine and exasperating, and it seems like the majority of fans want better.

The Scottish Football Association’s 20-year, £800,000 per annum lease on Hampden was due to end in March 2020. It was renegotiated, but only until the July to cover the Euro 2020 finals (Hampden will be one of 13 host venues for that). Over the coming ten weeks we’ll start to find out what happens next.

The SFA employed consultants and are sounding out member clubs and other stakeholders to find out what they want to do. They can stay at Hampden on the current terms by sign a new long-term lease with owners and landlords Queen’s Park.

They can seek to buy out the lease and take control of the stadium and its operation (maybe for a token £1 given they would need to take on a £5.5 million dilapidations liability and £6 million debentures liability).

Or they can thank Queen’s Park, walk away in 2020 and take Scotland games and cup semis and finals on a tour of the country while finding new venues for their staff, museum and sports medicine facilities. Those who run and operate Celtic Park, Ibrox, Murrayfield and Hampden have been asked to submit tenders in a mini-procurement exercise: what can their stadium offer, how much would that cost, what is its availability, what are its restraints?

The SFA will make a recommendation to its board members ahead of their meeting in December. At the very least the ruling body feels it should be a tenant on better terms. It believes it has an awful lot of the responsibilities — maintenance, running and operational costs — but little control and no ownership. The SFA is a tenant doing a lot of the “landlord” stuff for which Queen’s Park has neither the infrastructure nor the expertise. And Queen’s Park collects the rent. Without Hampden the amateurs are screwed.

The SFA want to change things but it’s an almighty psychological leap to then consider leaving Hampden altogether and start paying Celtic or Rangers occasional rentals to use their grounds instead. The biggest and currently the best football stadium in the country is Celtic Park: would every other club happily accept it hosting every cup final, season after season? Alternating between Celtic Park and Ibrox would look craven and expedient, and alienate many other fans.

Murrayfield is the biggest sports stadium in the country and is in the capital, but symbolically Scottish football’s home always has been in the west (besides, Murrayfield shares some of Hampden’s problems). None of this is straightforward. Incidentally, neither the SFA nor the Scottish government have the dough to raze Hampden to the ground and replace it with a modern stadium.

Count me in the minority who recognises and has endured all of Hampden’s flaws but still wants it to survive. Even into a fourth decade of going there it still delivers a wee kick to go through the turnstiles and see the pitch and that vast bowl of seats spreading out below. It’s where cup finals and the big Scotland games should be. The importance and symbolism of a neutral venue will be more obvious than ever if Hampden is done away with. But that’s not a popular view.

What will the SFA do? Probably try to negotiate something relatively short term to buy a bit more thinking time. Maybe Slovakia tomorrow and hopefully the home leg of the play-off next month won’t be the end of Hampden and the World Cup. But it’s possible. After 114 years some in the SFA want to cut the umbilical cord.

 

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Sell Murrayfield for Hooses, 

Sell Hampden for Hooses

build a brand new Stadium near the main train lines/Motorways outside Stirling/Falkirk...

It will never happen tho.

 

It will be Hampden for evermore.....

 

Anyhoo  there will be a play off next month .. so no it willnae be the last game...

Edited by stocky
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32 minutes ago, er yir macaroon said:

Hampden is not perfect but i agree with the article, it's still amazing when full. Buy it for £1, sink the pitch and put some more seats at either end. LEDs can take care of the grass.

Was about to say something about that.   Hampden probably has good grass growth with the stands the way they are.

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1 hour ago, Parklife said:

Yeah. A very high proportion of Edinburgers don't think Scotland is and don't want it to be a real country. 

Edinburgers are very proud of their city.   Britain will always be a real country so not sure what you are talking bout.

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3 minutes ago, bonny78 said:

Edinburgers are very proud of their city.   Britain will always be a real country so not sure what you are talking bout.

Edinburgers are very proud of their city.(and rightly so)

Britain will always be a real country so not sure what you are talking bout. (He wasn't talking about Britain he mentioned Scotland - don't you think that we are / should be a real country) ??

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16 minutes ago, bonny78 said:

Britain will always be a real country so not sure what you are talking bout.

I could correct you on that but as i am not sure if your UKIP stuff is trolling or you really are thick as pig shit i wont bother

However it is something you should have learnt at primary school 

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1 hour ago, stocky said:

Sell Murrayfield for Hooses, 

Sell Hampden for Hooses

build a brand new Stadium near the main train lines/Motorways outside Stirling/Falkirk...

It will never happen tho.

 

It will be Hampden for evermore.....

 

Anyhoo  there will be a play off next month .. so no it willnae be the last game...

The national stadium should always be in a city. Not some soulless thing on the outskirts of a small town.

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28 minutes ago, Scotland Ever More said:

The national stadium should always be in a city. Not some soulless thing on the outskirts of a small town.

Agreed. I don't want an American stadium. Middle of nowhere but has 20,000 car parking spaces. Feck that. 

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1 hour ago, Ally Bongo said:

I could correct you on that but as i am not sure if your UKIP stuff is trolling or you really are thick as pig shit i wont bother

However it is something you should have learnt at primary school 

Voting ukip is not anti-scottish. Its standing up against the EU and a vote for nationalism, so you ought to welcome it if your proud of your country.

 

Im proud of both countries (Scotland and Britain) 

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1 hour ago, Scotland Ever More said:

The national stadium should always be in a city. Not some soulless thing on the outskirts of a small town.

Agreed. Never understood the clamour for such a stadium (apart from folk who live near Stirling). 

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30 minutes ago, bonny78 said:

Voting ukip is not anti-scottish. Its standing up against the EU and a vote for nationalism, so you ought to welcome it if your proud of your country.

 

Im proud of both countries (Scotland and Britain) 

There is no such "country" as Britain 

Great Britain is a land mass consisting of 3 ancient countries - Scotland, England & Wales 

Of the main parties there is no bigger anti Scottish party than UKIP - who would do away with Barnett meaning Scotland gets even less of it's own money back from the Westminster sponge

They even used this as bait to garner more votes in England increasing division through ignorance 

Any Scot that votes UKIP is a cvnt - pure and simple  

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2 minutes ago, Ally Bongo said:

There is no such "country" as Britain 

Great Britain is a land mass consisting of 3 ancient countries - Scotland, England & Wales 

Of the main parties there is no bigger anti Scottish party than UKIP - who would do away with Barnett meaning Scotland gets even less of it's own money back from the Westminster sponge

They even used this as bait to garner more votes in England increasing division through ignorance 

Any Scot that votes UKIP is a cvnt - pure and simple  

There are bigger issues than the barent formula which is just a regiggingly tool.   Its about creating national democracy and governing our own country.   (That country being uk btw) .

long term we must strive to keep away from the corrupt EU and its failed currency experiment.   Thank fk we didnt join it im sure you ll agree.

Brexit is coming

EU is dying

UK is recovering 

Brighter days ahead for Britain.

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Thought a thread might pop about this.

My preference would be to knock down the east and west stands and build kop style 1 tier stands close behind the goals. It's a start anyway, then work on improving transport links.

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1 hour ago, JECK said:

Thought a thread might pop about this.

My preference would be to knock down the east and west stands and build kop style 1 tier stands close behind the goals. It's a start anyway, then work on improving transport links.

Keep the bowl (that's what makes it special),and lower the pitch to allow more seating closer to the pitch.

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4 hours ago, Scotland Ever More said:

The national stadium should always be in a city. Not some soulless thing on the outskirts of a small town.

 

4 hours ago, Parklife said:

Agreed. I don't want an American stadium. Middle of nowhere but has 20,000 car parking spaces. Feck that. 

Have it in/near Stirling....   Inspirational and not a wee town. 

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