WITHOUT ATMOSPHERE, FOOTBALL GROUNDS ARE DESOLATE
Ilike the banners you occasionally see dotted around football grounds, mostly at clubs where supporters have been marginalised by issues over their much-loved or increased ticket prices – “Football without fans is nothing”. How true that is, for a stadium can be a desolate place without supporters. A ground lacking fans does little for the players on the field, often reducing the game to a non-event. Thankfully, a lot of people recognise this and after many years when fans were taken for granted, some clubs have identified the need to make fans stakeholders and an essential part of the pursuit of future success. I’ve seen the other side of football, however, and the great “green-eyed monster” of envy whenever a local club’s rival gets a new ground. “There’s no atmosphere,” is a common complaint about some new football stadiums. A half-empty ground struggles to generate atmosphere no matter how good the design is. This is a problem at all levels of the game. A stadium is no longer just a place to play football, it is also a revenue stream, and with the installation of artificial surfaces, Non-League football clubs have discovered they can turn their facilities into a 24/7 experience. Stadiums have also become more important to the growth of top-level club football, with the popularity of the game and the creation of a “bulge bracket” of clubs making increased capacity a necessity. Hence, clubs like Arsenal, Tottenham and, until recently Chelsea, have embarked on projects to move, rebuild or relocate their homes.
Philosophy
Nevertheless, today the creation of a new stadium is no longer the “build it high, build it big” philosophy that characterised many past projects. Stadium developers and architects are starting to appreciate the value of the aesthetic as well as the influence of human behaviour, environmental issues and the commercial value of creating something that makes people feel good. From the top level to Non-League, people complain about the lack of “noise” from crowds. At the summit, this is partly due to the all-seater regime that now exists, although moves to bring back so-called “safe standing” have genuine momentum. “It’s proven that people who stand-up make more noise, because sitting down puts more pressure on the diaphragm,” said Matthew Birchall of stadium architects BuroHappold at a recent football forum I attended. There’s no doubt that the general feeling for football grounds has often been overlooked by many people, from local authorities to some club owners. Given the influence of football on social history, it was perhaps surprising that, for many years, only one ground appeared in Pevsner’s Buildings of England, Arsenal’s Highbury Stadium. This is a reflection of a lack of understanding of the community value of a football club as well as the dismissal of football as a pastime that belonged to the masses. This has undoubtedly changed in recent years, the demographic is no longer white, working-class males, and some of the new venues being built to replace old inner-city, hemmed-in stadiums, will surely be recognised as valuable places where people gather. It would be nice to think that grounds such as Dartford’s eco-friendly stadium and the new construction at Slough will become identifiable as just that.
Development
But do the new stadiums facilitate home advantage? In the past, places like Anfield, Goodison Park and Old Trafford were seen as fortresses where away teams would turn up for “a cup of tea and a good hiding”. With the British football experience no longer as ferocious as it once was, and crowds becoming more sanitised, the concept of an intimidating home crowd is less achievable. Home advantage was based on familiarity with facilities (away dressing rooms were invariably less plush and away ends for spectators more spartan), familiarity with the playing surface (mud at the Baseball Ground and Upton Park etc), partisan supporters and tactical prowess. With many stadiums looking very similar and playing surfaces so highly engineered, perhaps home advantage is gradually being eroded? As Mr. Birchall said, however, stadium development has taken on a more scientific angle, largely due to greater awareness of the benefit of atmosphere, which underlines why they were built in the first place, to provide spectator comfort while people enjoyed the beautiful game. Today, we no longer want to stand on crumbling terraces, will not tolerate lavatories overflowing with urine and refuse to consume food that would struggle to pass health and safety regulations. We are at a better place than we were in the 1980s and 1990s. The football ground should be more than an underused building that is inconveniently pushed to the less desirable part of town, it is the public face of the world’s favourite pastime and, as such, should be something people are proud to be associated with.