New stadium

[ant london]

Never mind expanding Eastlands.....let's build ourselves one of these badboys (the new Dallas Cowboys stadium)

Like Wembley, Cowboys Stadium was over budget (it ended up costing nearly double the projected $650m , and was partially funded by a half cent rise in Arlington sales tax), and is aesthetically defined by a doublearch design that towers 300 feet over the pitch. Unlike Wembley, however, the roof is fully retractable, and the world’s largest glass doors at either end zone can be opened up on particularly stuffy days. It currently holds 80,000 (10,000 less than Wembley), but will be expanded to a capacity of 100,000 in due course.

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

Hire me to lead that site and I PROMISE to build it for 650m.

[Crossie]

Oh good lord, what a beauty yes please!!!

We would move from Council house to Mansion

[Slim]

That's brilliant, looks like it could lift off into orbit.

Any idea how the hanging screens work when the roof is retracted?

[Goaters 103]

Granted it's lovely on the eye Ant but just a couple of problems with it. Firstly it also costs a prize packet to sit in the damn thing as it now has to pay for itself when the Cowboys have only 10 home games a year, and the huge lovely scoreboard you can see now needs to be moved about 30 feet higher up and likely reduced in size as well. Unfortunately when it was built no-one thought it would interfere with actual play down below but it does - during the first game there last week The Tennessee punter hit the bloody screen twice when Punting the ball during play.

The result is that there is an argument going on between the Cowboys and the NFL as to who should pay the multi-million dollar bill for doing this so all is not quite rosy in the garden.

The retractable roof was installed to keep up an old Dallas Cowboy fable that there is a window to the sky so "God can watch over his team" just as they had at their old home, Texas Stadium - nice to believe if your a Cowboy fan but a complete load of hogwash. The truth apparently was that Texas Stadium was meant to be a dome but the construction costs ran so high they had to scrap the plans for a domed roof, thus leaving a smaller open roof in the structure as a testament for going over budget.

[bobby brows]

Granted it's lovely on the eye Ant but just a couple of problems with it. Firstly it also costs a prize packet to sit in the damn thing as it now has to pay for itself when the Cowboys have only 10 home games a year, and the huge lovely scoreboard you can see now needs to be moved about 30 feet higher up and likely reduced in size as well. Unfortunately when it was built no-one thought it would interfere with actual play down below but it does - during the first game there last week The Tennessee punter hit the bloody screen twice when Punting the ball during play.

The result is that there is an argument going on between the Cowboys and the NFL as to who should pay the multi-million dollar bill for doing this so all is not quite rosy in the garden.

The retractable roof was installed to keep up an old Dallas Cowboy fable that there is a window to the sky so "God can watch over his team" just as they had at their old home, Texas Stadium - nice to believe if your a Cowboy fan but a complete load of hogwash. The truth apparently was that Texas Stadium was meant to be a dome but the construction costs ran so high they had to scrap the plans for a domed roof, thus leaving a smaller open roof in the structure as a testament for going over budget.

The funny thing is that was the first thing i thought of when i saw the original photo at the top, that scoreboard looks a bit low! you look at the photo from behind the goal and the distance is huge! it must have been some punt!

[Scatman]

Granted it's lovely on the eye Ant but just a couple of problems with it. Firstly it also costs a prize packet to sit in the damn thing as it now has to pay for itself when the Cowboys have only 10 home games a year, and the huge lovely scoreboard you can see now needs to be moved about 30 feet higher up and likely reduced in size as well. Unfortunately when it was built no-one thought it would interfere with actual play down below but it does - during the first game there last week The Tennessee punter hit the bloody screen twice when Punting the ball during play.

The result is that there is an argument going on between the Cowboys and the NFL as to who should pay the multi-million dollar bill for doing this so all is not quite rosy in the garden.

The retractable roof was installed to keep up an old Dallas Cowboy fable that there is a window to the sky so "God can watch over his team" just as they had at their old home, Texas Stadium - nice to believe if your a Cowboy fan but a complete load of hogwash. The truth apparently was that Texas Stadium was meant to be a dome but the construction costs ran so high they had to scrap the plans for a domed roof, thus leaving a smaller open roof in the structure as a testament for going over budget.

So no good for American football, but we have more than 10 home games a year, it may not have to pay for itself anyway, and footballs aren't really kicked as high as punts. That looks like it's on a level with the 3rd or 4th tier, and I don't recall even Dunnie's hoofs going that high.

[Vhero]

Retractable roof would be good too while were at it I mean we have the technology :p

[Biamp]

Looks great!!

[Fidel Castro]

Am I the only person who thinks it looks shite?

[lets all have a disco]

Am I the only person who thinks it looks shite?

No im with you,it looks gash.

I want a Estadio Dragao with a roof and a much higher attendence.

[avoidconfusion]

The funny thing is that was the first thing i thought of when i saw the original photo at the top, that scoreboard looks a bit low! you look at the photo from behind the goal and the distance is huge! it must have been some punt!

That's the first thing that crossed my mind as well haha.

[john68]

Nah! Fidel, you're not on your own mate. It didn't flick any of my switches either. From the outside it had the look of some giant overgrown local swimming pool.
I want the LAHAD version of Eastlands. Three tiers all round with a City standing area at one end to add to the atmosphere.
I would however like to see our stadium with even more blue on the outside... all that grey looks a bit naval dockyard to me.

[Goaters 103]

The funny thing is that was the first thing i thought of when i saw the original photo at the top, that scoreboard looks a bit low! you look at the photo from behind the goal and the distance is huge! it must have been some punt!

That's the first thing that crossed my mind as well haha.

The scoreboard is 90 feet up from the field, as per the NFL Rules - however the rules were drafted in the 30's when punters were kicking with hobnail boots I think. The Cowboys complaint is that they complied with NFL rules, though quite why no-one thought to actually test it out just shows you can spend billions of dollars and still miss the obvious.

Apparently other teams when building new stadiums also tried to hang a big screen in the middle of the field, but they found it did interfere with play so scrapped the idea - pity they didn't tell Dallas owner Jerry Jones really! Would have saved them a lot of embarrassment - for anybody interested you can read about it the problem below, apologies for being a trainspotter on the subject!

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/w ... index.html

[irblinx]

The funny thing is that was the first thing i thought of when i saw the original photo at the top, that scoreboard looks a bit low! you look at the photo from behind the goal and the distance is huge! it must have been some punt!

That's the first thing that crossed my mind as well haha.

yep, same here. Too low and possibly too big, it does look a little better in the second pic from the stands.

Bloody ugly from the outside though.

I would much rather any development was made to the existing stadium rather than move again, COMS is in a good location (for me at least!) and feels like home to me now.

[Dazzacity]

I still think ours looks alot better than that. Its impressive but nothin really eye catching imo.

[Piccsnumberoneblue]

On the night of the Robinho transfer I was chatting outside the ground with a couple of other Blues about increasing capacity of Eastlands. We all remembered that at the time it was built we were told it wasn't really designed with expansion in mind, and whilst it could be done the cost would be very large.
One of these guys suggested that with the money available, the best and quite possibly most feasible plan might be just to build another from scratch instead, with facilities on a par with the very best, rather than a piecemeal bodge job. It's a thought.

[Fidel Castro]

On the first pic it looks like an oversized version of Bolton's stadium to me

[irblinx]

On the night of the Robinho transfer I was chatting outside the ground with a couple of other Blues about increasing capacity of Eastlands. We all remembered that at the time it was built we were told it wasn't really designed with expansion in mind, and whilst it could be done the cost would be very large.
One of these guys suggested that with the money available, the best and quite possibly most feasible plan might be just to build another from scratch instead, with facilities on a par with the very best, rather than a piecemeal bodge job. It's a thought.

And yet the Emirates was built from the same basic design! Where there's a will there's a way, didn't someone mention that we'd bought the freehold for the store so that that north stand could be expanded, don't know how true that is but just about as official as the "can't be expanded" rumours IMHO?

The only issue I can see with expanding the stadium is when it would be done to cause the least disruption, we will have so many SC holders from this season on that moving people around whilst work is completed will be interesting.

[Ted Hughes]

I'd rather have a stadium where they get as many fans as possible, as close to the pitch as possible instead of having tiers full of tw@s in between.

Put all the hangers on & prawn eating gits at the top, as they can watch it on screens anyway. Just have one side where the press, officials, Sheikh, Queen etc can sit in the middle, like in the Colin Bell stand now & put the corporate people further up. The other 3 sides should be bult for fans/atmosphere.