| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished 19:43 - Apr 28 with 2431 views | SitfcB |
I can barely remember the old stand, it was before I started going, I remember getting glimpses of it when I used to go the Portman Road car boot on a Sunday with my grandad, you used to be able to see the pitch from the corner where Planet Blue now is.
I kind of wish we’d have kept it just so I Could’ve experienced it. |  |
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| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 20:08 - Apr 28 with 2333 views | Ftnfwest |
In that picture the upper tier of sir Alf is still being extended forward as well |  | | |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 20:13 - Apr 28 with 2331 views | sparks |
THAT was what did for us. Financially. Atmosphere wise. And importantly, the support during the relegation season.
Unecessary too. |  |
| The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.
(Sir Terry Pratchett) | | Poll: | Is Fred drunk this morning? |
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| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 20:34 - Apr 28 with 2257 views | ericclacton |
I thought Brigadier Evans was just going to clean the roof.
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| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 20:36 - Apr 28 with 2261 views | itfcjoe |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 20:13 - Apr 28 by sparks |
THAT was what did for us. Financially. Atmosphere wise. And importantly, the support during the relegation season.
Unecessary too. |
Don't know the exact split, but the North Stand was so much more expensive than South as was so much more difficulty with the engineering due to the steepness of the back of the stand due to the road/housing
Even more unnecessary than it seems with that knowledge |  |
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| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 20:40 - Apr 28 with 2239 views | Rocky |
The noise from the old North Stand was tremendous when we had a corner or dangerous free kick. I used to stand at the back and - along with hundreds of others - kick the corrugated iron stand behind - it made one hell of a row. |  | | |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 20:40 - Apr 28 with 2238 views | sparks |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 20:36 - Apr 28 by itfcjoe |
Don't know the exact split, but the North Stand was so much more expensive than South as was so much more difficulty with the engineering due to the steepness of the back of the stand due to the road/housing
Even more unnecessary than it seems with that knowledge |
Not so much that. I am convinced that the impact on the stadium that season was absolutely fundamental to the end result.
We had been riding a powerful wave of support and belief. Suddenly that support was 60m up at the back of the South Stand, separated, scattered- and singing to an open building site. Changed the whole feel of the stadium and the atmosphere. Must have been far easier to play as opposition and far less supportive for the home team. | |
| The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.
(Sir Terry Pratchett) | | Poll: | Is Fred drunk this morning? |
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| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 20:53 - Apr 28 with 2185 views | itfcjoe |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 20:40 - Apr 28 by sparks |
Not so much that. I am convinced that the impact on the stadium that season was absolutely fundamental to the end result.
We had been riding a powerful wave of support and belief. Suddenly that support was 60m up at the back of the South Stand, separated, scattered- and singing to an open building site. Changed the whole feel of the stadium and the atmosphere. Must have been far easier to play as opposition and far less supportive for the home team. |
And we paid through the nose for it as a club.
Plus all the Sunday games after European ties never felt the same either, atmosphere always a bit flatter for those as it is. | |
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| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 21:15 - Apr 28 with 2122 views | Illinoisblue |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 20:13 - Apr 28 by sparks |
THAT was what did for us. Financially. Atmosphere wise. And importantly, the support during the relegation season.
Unecessary too. |
Agreed. Should have just upgraded Churchmans and left the North alone. Or at least made the North a one-tier stand. |  |
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| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 21:18 - Apr 28 with 2113 views | eastangliaisblue |
Is it just me or does that photo look like it should be from the early 90's and the 00's. |  | | |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 21:51 - Apr 28 with 2046 views | Plums |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 20:13 - Apr 28 by sparks |
THAT was what did for us. Financially. Atmosphere wise. And importantly, the support during the relegation season.
Unecessary too. |
Totally agree. Just listen to the Magilton interview where he described the cauldron of noise against Bolton and Statman asks him about the change of stand. The only time I’ve experienced anything like that with the new stand was the Norwich play off game and even then different sides of the North were singing different songs.
It’s incredible that such sums can be spent on designing a football stand with no thought given to the acoustics that are so important to the game in the arena. |  |
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| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 22:01 - Apr 28 with 2020 views | Rocky |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 21:51 - Apr 28 by Plums |
Totally agree. Just listen to the Magilton interview where he described the cauldron of noise against Bolton and Statman asks him about the change of stand. The only time I’ve experienced anything like that with the new stand was the Norwich play off game and even then different sides of the North were singing different songs.
It’s incredible that such sums can be spent on designing a football stand with no thought given to the acoustics that are so important to the game in the arena. |
Seating rather than standing was the huge difference between those days and now. | | | |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 22:26 - Apr 28 with 1954 views | gainsboroughblue |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 22:01 - Apr 28 by Rocky |
Seating rather than standing was the huge difference between those days and now. |
PR was already all-seater at that point. |  |
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| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 22:39 - Apr 28 with 1923 views | Rocky |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 22:26 - Apr 28 by gainsboroughblue |
PR was already all-seater at that point. |
Sure. I was talking about the atmosphere in the days before all-seating - as opposed to the difference that new stands made to the atmosphere. | | | |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 23:02 - Apr 28 with 1882 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 20:13 - Apr 28 by sparks |
THAT was what did for us. Financially. Atmosphere wise. And importantly, the support during the relegation season.
Unecessary too. |
It’s not as if we hadn’t gone through similar issues with old west/new Pioneer stand either. More around finances with that one, but equally disastrous for the team. |  |
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| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 23:07 - Apr 28 with 1869 views | Plums |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 22:39 - Apr 28 by Rocky |
Sure. I was talking about the atmosphere in the days before all-seating - as opposed to the difference that new stands made to the atmosphere. |
The sound escapes the new stand rather than be contained as the old low roof used to do. The seats had an effect and I remember the ‘You’ll never seat the North Stand songs” but lifting the roof fundamentally changed the atmosphere in the ground. | |
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| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 07:52 - Apr 29 with 1641 views | Libero |
I remember it well from 95 - demolishment but never sat in the old North unfortunately.
The noise it generated for big games was incredible and if I close my eyes I can still see Herman Hriedarsson swan diving into the front of it like he’s stage jumping at a punk rock show or the floods of people leaving it to spill onto the pitch the moment the whistle blew against Bolton in the playoffs. |  | | |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 08:40 - Apr 29 with 1587 views | Radlett_blue |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 20:36 - Apr 28 by itfcjoe |
Don't know the exact split, but the North Stand was so much more expensive than South as was so much more difficulty with the engineering due to the steepness of the back of the stand due to the road/housing
Even more unnecessary than it seems with that knowledge |
Developing the North, as well as the South, was far & away Sheepy's biggest mistake. Caught up in the hubris of our success on the field & a packed out Portman Road, coupled with the financial wizards who told him we could pay for it all simply by securitising season ticket income. |  |
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| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 08:48 - Apr 29 with 1574 views | Bluespeed225 |
if we ever got in a position to do so financially, id say demolish and start again! Modern structural advances mean we could have the one big bank of seats with better acoustics. Of course, we could say things reached a peak with one small tier wrapped in corrugated iron! TWTD! |  | | |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 08:49 - Apr 29 with 1573 views | Ace_High1 |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 08:40 - Apr 29 by Radlett_blue |
Developing the North, as well as the South, was far & away Sheepy's biggest mistake. Caught up in the hubris of our success on the field & a packed out Portman Road, coupled with the financial wizards who told him we could pay for it all simply by securitising season ticket income. |
Yes to be honest were we ever going to regularly attract 30k fans?
The 22k capacity, all be it meaning some fans missed out kept demand up and actually was about right for a club such as us?
Maybe a small extension up to 25k would have done us? |  | | |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 09:14 - Apr 29 with 1521 views | Steve_M |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 08:49 - Apr 29 by Ace_High1 |
Yes to be honest were we ever going to regularly attract 30k fans?
The 22k capacity, all be it meaning some fans missed out kept demand up and actually was about right for a club such as us?
Maybe a small extension up to 25k would have done us? |
You forget how big the bandwagon was in Summer 2000, there was a definite need to expand above 22.5k. The failing was not to pause for breath having done the South stand extension and settle on that for a while.
The other failing of course was the Summer signings made by Burley, even then a little bit of luck at the right time (no last minute equaliser at Leicester, Stewart's late winner against Blackburn the next week counting) and it might all have been different. |  |
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| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 09:21 - Apr 29 with 1508 views | Churchman |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 08:49 - Apr 29 by Ace_High1 |
Yes to be honest were we ever going to regularly attract 30k fans?
The 22k capacity, all be it meaning some fans missed out kept demand up and actually was about right for a club such as us?
Maybe a small extension up to 25k would have done us? |
I actually think a capacity of 30,000 was about right at the time the decision was made. And our season ticket numbers the first season it was open confirms that. However, the gift of hindsight says that a years gap between the North and South stands would have been sensible particularly financially.
The really sensible decision would have been to build a new ground, either on the existing site or the old Ipswich Airport. PR was old by then with a lot of restricted views. The conversion to all seater for the first Premier League season in 1992 was little more than bolting seats to the existing terraces. The Ipswich Airport site was a suggestion at some point if memory serves me right. I’m not a fan of new grounds, atmosphere wise though, but financially they make sense if done right. I know that Sunderland’s ground, built about 1998 cost the same after subsidies as the redevelopment of of PR. This is just by memory so please correct me if I’m wrong on any of this.
In terms of atmosphere, the old North Stand was great. My season ticket was there for its last year - lucky me. The ‘new’ stand looks nice (before the mould anyway) but it’d have been so much better as one terrace and if acoustics had been taken into account. |  | | |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 09:52 - Apr 29 with 1452 views | solemio |
| Old picture of the North Stand being demolished on 20:34 - Apr 28 by ericclacton |
I thought Brigadier Evans was just going to clean the roof.
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There's only ever been one Brigadier at ITFC and that was Brigadier Maitland-Niles. | | | |
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