We're MASSIVE, as they say lol!

it was only just over a year ago we couldnt fill the stadium , so attendance depends on play and results........

Don't think it's entirely results based... even when MM got us to the playoffs there wasn't the demand we have now, the product and its marketing are vitally important and the customer experience is completely transformed!

caution on growing is needed. Bournemouth have survived on crowds of 11000 for many years. Let's build the team and ground facilities for now. What has been achieved in the last 2 years is brilliant. Football is cruel look at Leicester, champions a few years ago to relegation candidates now. The last 20 years can be forgotten but we need to build gradually.

Don't want to put a downer on the positivity at the moment but there was a train of thought like this when we were promoted back in 2000 (obviously the 2 stands were built) but how often in the last 20 years could we have said this? Okay things are looking bright at the moment and we will fill the stadium next season but will this continue when the club struggles when ever that is. I'd rather the owners spend money on players and other training facilities...

How many times did I hear on this board “we're not a big club” in the last few years in seeming justification for Evans sinking us!? The only people spoiling the celebrations on Saturday were the people booing. Some of you are just the weirdest fans ever 😂

Nonetheless - even in recent years gates have historically held up better than 20-30 years ago. Remember the first season of the Premier League in 1992/3 we had a capacity of 22,500 and we only sold it out for four home games. And in 96 in the middle of the Burley era we only got about 7,500 in for a Tuesday game against Swindon. So it would be more sustainable than past.

However, agree there needs to be caution. Both times the rails have completely come off for this club in the last 40 years have come straight after ground investments (Pioneer Stand in the early 80s and then Churchmans/North Stand in 2000s). It's not uncommon to lose form and face financial turmoil for most clubs sorting out a new ground - as Everton may be about to discover most currently...

Ashton is definitely not rushing ahead for the sake of it. I don't how long old stands can be maintained for, but it's about time to replace the Cobbold stand, and we might as well increase the capacity at the same time. Revenue will hit a ceiling, especially corporate revenue, so it makes sense to have plans drawn up for the new stand and work on the obstacles in the way. There has been quite a lot of population growth in the Suffolk/Essex area in the last 20 years, and female fans are much more likely to go to the football these days. We can sell more shirts by making more, but you can only fill the demand for seats in the stadium by rebuilding a stand.
I trust Ashton to lead the project on a sensible time frame. The North Stand being redeveloped was a big factor in our relegation from the Premier League and our relegation was the catalyst for our financial troubles and subsequent lost decades in the footballing wilderness, so I understand the caution.
The bottom line is that if you are selling out tickets in League One, demand is only going to get greater in the Championship or the Premier League.

But....the Cobbold Stand is coming to the end of its life and surely any increase in capacity will tie-in with its replacement?

The one thing I will insist on is the retention of the letting along the stand's fascia. it's iconic.

People need to understand the differences between our regeneration now, which is being built entirely on capitalisation and investors with bottomless resources and a willingness to spend wisely, and the 80s and 2000s when it was all done through accumulated and long dated debt.
WE HAVE NO DEBT!
Our transfer fees thus far have been funded by sales and sell ons, and our TV revenue alone next season will increase revenue by over £7m. If we assume that will be required to pay for fees this summer at the most, yes the investors will need to put another £15m this summer, as they did last, to cover the costs of the season we have just had.
But assuming they paid £30m up front for the club, two lots of £15m summer capialitisation means their investment so far is £60m tops.
Debt free with a shot at the PL, where TV revenues alone are £80m.
Im guessing we will need to spend another £40m on the ground to get capacity to 37500 plus, thats still only £100m. Evans wrote off more than that!
Trust the process everyone, trust the people, they know what they are doing and this club will be worth £250m plus in the PL, thats potentially a return of 2 1/2 times investment.
As long as we keep debt free and building the club in a sustainable steady manner, with capital introduced to avoid debt, we will continue to go from strength to strength.
In Ashton i trust.

chopra777, I don't know much about Bournemouth's potential attendances if they increased their capacity, but considering how well they have done in the last decade or so, you would have to imagine that it would have been a sensible investment to at least build a 25,000 stadium. They must have lost out on so much revenue, but on the flip side it's not possible to predict long-term success, except with us the mere financial backing behind our club means that we could very well get into the Premier League and get relegated, but our trajectory is upward, so you'd expect us to be pushing to get up again. In business, you have to back yourselves. It's basically trusting the process on the macro level.

Agreed VanDusen. Higher gates should be expected now. East Anglia is the fastest growing area of the UK after London. Grown 15.4% since 2002: https://www.plumplot.co.uk/East-of-England-population-changes.html

Plus we have a huge catchment area. Just under 1m people live within 40km of FPR. That's more than live near Norwich. Check for yourself: https://www.freemaptools.com/find-population.htm
Only Colchester are within it.

But yes should learn from mistakes. 2000s strife was caused by the fact we had no offload clause in the contracts of expensive players, so that in the event of relegation from the Prem and then failure to immediately bounce back, we were financially screwed. Wasn't specifically building the end-stands, which were on long-term repayment plans.

When is the best time? Any increase will mean a decrease whilst any work takes place.

VanDusen, there is an argument to be made that if we hadn't have redeveloped the North Stand we wouldn't have been relegated that year and we wouldn't have been victims of the collapse of ITV digital, etc., but the circumstances are different for us now. With the backing of our owners, we won't be wiped out by one relegation, so even if redevelopment of a stand has a marginal effect that is decisive in our relegation, we will be fighting for promotion the next season rather than having a fire sale and hiring MM again.

Nomore4, not necessarily, you can build one stand behind the other especially if it's an extension. Look at the Anfield Road stand at Liverpool

I've especially noticed this season how packed the town centre is.
Walking through feels like you could be in any country in the world…..the very odd occasional British voice can be heard…..if you listen carefully.

Bazza8564, you are totally spot on. There are a lot of business fundamentals behind why investment in our club has a potentially big return.

Bazza. After spending millions on the new pitch… that's not in question.
Unfortunately HSE will decide what needs closing, beside a huge construction project with little room.

It's taken an incredible run of results backed up by very astute managing of the entire club to secure the recent capacity crowds. However, next season we will see several ‘off peak' kick off times due to increased Sky coverage which is not helpful to our many outlying supporters. It is also unlikely, although I hope I am proved wrong, that there will be a similar run of form at any time next season so I think that the current c30000 capacity is just about right for a club based in a small town in a largely rural county and compares favourably with several clubs in the PL.
Our current stadium provides a superb atmosphere. It is now considered an old fashioned traditional ground but with the crowd right on top of the pitch it gives us an edge over teams used to playing in the vast, soulless stadiums that are now being seen in the PL

There is a much bigger potential fanbase now. Pop of Suffolk in 2000: 657,814. Pop of Suffolk in 2021: 761,250. With Ed's involvement, we clearly have greater potential to attract new and younger fans from elsewhere too. It really makes sense to future proof for the increase in support as we go up the leagues.

I agree with others on how we redevelop the Cobbold sensitively. The biggest drawback when we redeveloped the North Stand wasn't the decrease in attendance IMO. It was that the atmosphere was sucked out of the empty end. But Bazza8564 is right, it can be done without demolishing the current stand now. And I completely agree on the lettering Gilesy. I've said that on here before.

He was outside the ground at Barnsley and I have to say how he connects with the fans is commendable. Obviously, we're in a good place just now but those kind of actions tells you all you need to know about a club and how it values it's fan base.

Imagine how big the ground would need to be if we did this!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65417291

It's maintenance as much as anything else, the Cobbold stand will need a higher level of repair and maintenance to remain safe, compliant and a nice place to be than a brand new stand will, add the increase in revenue that more executive boxes would bring in, corporate function rooms, increased ticket sales and it becomes a bit of a no brainer. Build a new stand and increase the capacity by say five thousand, should be about right. If things continue to go well and are sustainable, rebuild the Pioneer (sorry, Magnus) stand to take capacity to over 40K. That should really be enough. At the end of the day, better to have a packed, buzzing ground than one half empty.

Bazza, whilst I agree with your positivity and general points, I don't know where you get your figures from. YOu've guessed £40M to rebuild the Cobbold Stand, but that sounds very low to me. I would be interested to know whetehr a new stand could be build as a modular construction, so that teh Cobbold could be demolished after the final match next season, and it could be put in place for the star of the new. IIRC the existing Cobbold was build during the close season in about 1972, and although later extension were made, the basic stand was built with minimal disruption to the capacity, and that wasn't a modular build. Maybe a replacement is more than 2 years away, it sounds as though Ashton is looking at building more capacity in the corners as a first step. If any management group can break the taboo that a new stadium is the harbinger of relegation, it's this one.

Be cautious Mr Ashton, history proves that the plastics disappear as quickly as they come back.