County Ground an option to call home
FORMER Bath Chronicle rugby writer MIKE TREMLETT, has been combatting COVID-19 lockdown by delving into his personal scrapbook of memories. Here, he recalls another story from around a decade ago.
IN 2011, the prospect of Bath playing their home games at Swindon Town’s soccer ground reared its ugly head...
BATH Rugby’s administrators are canvassing supporters and season ticket-holders’ views on the prospect of staying at The Rec for the next two seasons if a new 20,000 arena has to be built outside Bath because development plans for one of the most beautiful venues in world rugby are scuppered by legal issues.
The under-pressure European Challenge Cup holders have agreed an in-principle deal to share Swindon Town’s 15,700-capacity County Ground some 30 miles away next season, whether they get the goahead to develop The Rec or not, although both parties insist nothing is signed and sealed.
Chief executive Bob Calleja, who has led a decade-long battle to bring Bath’s arcane facilities at The Rec up to acceptable Premiership standards and increase capacity to go beyond the Premiership’s targeted 12,000 figure by 2010, is concerned about mounting financial pressure on the club.
Now, fears are growing that if the club moves top-flight matches to Swindon, a substantial proportion of Bath Rugby’s 6,200 season ticketholders will not follow them to the County Ground.
That has prompted Calleja to ask supporters’ groups for their views on two courses of action - make the move to Swindon or play on at The Rec with capacity reduced from 10,600 to 8,200 spectators.
Bath’s chief executive has laid his cards on the table, making it clear that he believes the Charity Commission, which holds legal sway over The Rec - charitable land deeded to the people of Bath in 1956 for recreational use - does not want professional rugby played at the Georgian World Heritage Site city centre location which has been Bath Rugby’s home for over 100 years.
“There is an alternative to a temporary move to Swindon and that is to stay at The Rec with a reduced capacity while an alternative site is being prepared,” Calleja has told supporters.
Staying at The Rec would necessitate a substantial increase in ticket prices - at an average of £32 per head already among the highest charges in the Premiership - to keep the club’s head above water financially and Calleja wants to gauge opinion over whether supporters will pay more to watch Bath play at The Rec to avoid the cost and inconvenience of fortnightly 60-mile round trips to Swindon for ‘home’ games.
“The Rec development issue has gone on and on now for years even though the new trustees, appointed by Bath & North East Somerset council to manage The Rec on behalf of the Charity Commission, are more proactive than any of their predecessors,” said Calleja.
“Even so, finding a scheme for the development of The Rec which will be legally acceptable and allow the playing of professional rugby on charitable land is proving problematic.
“As things stand there is still an element of hope about The Rec situation, but if the issues delaying a decision on whether we can build here cannot be resolved, and we have asked the Charity Commission for a decision before the end of the calendar year, we may be forced to take a hard-nosed business decision and play somewhere else next season.
“The vast majority of supporters want us to stay at The Rec and that is, and always has been, our preferred option, but there is an element which is now saying: ‘Forget The Rec, let’s move on.’”
But it is widely believed in the city that stringent conditions which would be imposed by the Charity Commission if Bath Rugby were allowed to build on The Rec may have already made the club’s development plans untenable.
The critical issues surround Bath’s need to take over a larger area of The Rec than they currently occupy to build on three sides of the ground with the playing surface and the temporary, uncovered East Stand moved some 15 metres further away from the riverside.
Negotiations are still ongoing, but the Charity Commission is understood to have already vetoed any expansion of the club’s footprint and that, along with the need to get local authority planning permission to erect and dismantle the East Stand at a cost of £25,000 per season may prove to be the final straw.
The club’s administrators, meanwhile, are predicting operational losses of more than £1.5million over the next two years - a projected shortfall which owner and club chairman Andrew Brownsword has promised to cover, wherever Bath play next season.
Calleja insists the prospect of losing money for the next two years to allow the club to exploit Premier Rugby’s increased salary cap this season is escalating the already intense fiscal pressure on Bath to resolve its stadium issue quickly.
Former greetings card magnate Brownsword bought control of Bath Rugby in 1999, investing £5.6million to ensure the club’s survival when it was under severe financial pressure in the early years of professional rugby.
He is adamant that the 1998 Heineken Cup winners, who won their first trophy in a decade and reached the Guinness Premiership play-offs last season must remain a competitive force in domestic and European rugby.
“The club’s financial position is precarious,” said Calleja. “We’ve managed to balance the books over the last couple of years, but with the salary cap now at £4million, we just can’t afford it.”
“The owner is willing to cover any shortfall this season and next. We’re facing a deficit this season and it will be twice the size – around £750,000 – next season as things currently stand.
“His mood is one of frustration. He got involved to keep Bath in Bath. He doesn’t want to take the club to Swindon, Bristol or Timbuktu but he wants a decision made so we all know where we are.”
Fearing the worst, Bath began looking at other stadium options some time ago and Calleja confirmed the club is in the bidding for one of three parcels of land zoned for development in nearby Keynsham.
Initial talks are understood to have already been held with nearneighbours and Premiership rivals Bristol over the feasibility of sharing construction costs estimated at around £25million and a finished stadium if it were sited in Keynsham, which lies between Bath and Bristol with easy access to the M5 and M4 motorways.
In the short term, playing at the 15,700-capacity County Ground would give Bath Rugby the opportunity to boost gate receipts by some 40 per cent at current ticket prices and reduce the leeway on Premiership’s biggest guns – Northampton, Leicester Tigers and Gloucester – in terms of spectator capacity and gate receipts.
Calleja remains adamant, however, that any move to Swindon would not be strictly temporary.
He has also made it clear that even If Bath are forced to take Guinness Premiership rugby to Swindon and, ultimately, to a new purpose-built stadium outside the city, the club, which has a robust 65-year lease on its current facilities, will still be based at The Rec, playing Guinness A league matches and Bath Rugby Ladies’ fixtures there for the foreseeable future.
That could clear the way for the sale of the club’s Lambridge training ground on London Road - estimated to be worth around £7million - to private developers after the site was recently dropped by the local authority as the preferred location for a proposed park and ride site on the west side of Bath.
Funds generated by the sale of Lambridge would almost certainly be earmarked to meet the cost of acquiring land in Keynsham with any surfeit going towards initial stadium project planning and construction start-up costs.
“Where we will play next season remains to be seen but our focus is still very much on trying to find solutions which will see us stay at The Rec with a 20,000 capacity,” said Calleja.
“We are actively looking at alternatives and we’re leaving the door open to the prospect of sharing any development away from The Rec with a football club or, perhaps, another rugby club. In comparison with Leicester, Gloucester, Northampton, Harlequins and Worcester, who are all actively developing their grounds and increasing capacity, we are standing still and that’s unacceptable.”