Chairman's statement

[Berlinbee]

You’re seriously underestimating how many fans would suddenly come out of the woodwork. As part of the Bring Barnet Back campaign, we’ve had so many fans tell us that if we achieve our goal they’d definitely start coming back and we’ve had Arsenal and Spurs fans living in Barnet, telling us that their clubs have priced them out and they’d love to bring their kids to games

Very interesting. I imagine there’s a few hundred families in Barnet priced out of Premier League football which the club could capitalise on with the move

[beew]

I think to be able to accommodate for bigger away followings in the football league and to grow our own fan base, we need a ground bigger than 6,000. I think 7,500/8,000 would be perfect

The new ground (if built) will be closer to 8000 than it will to 6000 and it will have a quick fit solution to get it to 10000 if and when required. And having a totally enclosed ground means we can put seats into the corners that are currently missing at the Hive The initial proposed stand elevation will be much lower than those at the Hive (less rows) to appease the residents.

This 8000 capacity stadium in Switzerland looks interesting, with solar panels on roofs supplying the local community.

http://stadiumdb.com/news/2020/10/new_s ... haffhausen

[CrawleyBee]

You’re seriously underestimating how many fans would suddenly come out of the woodwork. As part of the Bring Barnet Back campaign, we’ve had so many fans tell us that if we achieve our goal they’d definitely start coming back and we’ve had Arsenal and Spurs fans living in Barnet, telling us that their clubs have priced them out and they’d love to bring their kids to games

I believe this when I see it, really hope you’re right. Our crowds at Underhill were never great, hopefully times have changed.

[rudebwoyben]

To be fair, most of the 2006-13 period wasn’t one to encourage new fans to start supporting Barnet and the archaic state of most of the ground didn’t help either.
Building a ground smaller than 8k capacity would be self-defeating, giving the club no opportunity to grow.

[barnet_pls]

if you look at 1990's crowds & look at L2 & L1 today.....it's chalk & cheese....lowest L2 were often sub 2k .....today only 3 clubs have an average of below 3k .....and the average must be close to 5k .....and that's before you consider L1 where only 5 clubs have an average lower than 6k .....and the div average must be 8k-9k .......these are all averages we've hardly ever achieved......even 91-94 we probably were only about 3,500 .......

[Anthony]

You’re seriously underestimating how many fans would suddenly come out of the woodwork. As part of the Bring Barnet Back campaign, we’ve had so many fans tell us that if we achieve our goal they’d definitely start coming back and we’ve had Arsenal and Spurs fans living in Barnet, telling us that their clubs have priced them out and they’d love to bring their kids to games

Very interesting. I imagine there’s a few hundred families in Barnet priced out of Premier League football which the club could capitalise on with the move

Surely if it’s just the price that is stopping them, then presumably they would be prepared to travel to the Emirates or WHL, why aren’t they willing to travel to the Hive? Or go to Wingate or Hadley instead?

[hoofer2]

You’re seriously underestimating how many fans would suddenly come out of the woodwork. As part of the Bring Barnet Back campaign, we’ve had so many fans tell us that if we achieve our goal they’d definitely start coming back and we’ve had Arsenal and Spurs fans living in Barnet, telling us that their clubs have priced them out and they’d love to bring their kids to games

Very interesting. I imagine there’s a few hundred families in Barnet priced out of Premier League football which the club could capitalise on with the move

Surely if it’s just the price that is stopping them, then presumably they would be prepared to travel to the Emirates or WHL, why aren’t they willing to travel to the Hive? Or go to Wingate or Hadley instead?

Why would Barnet fans want to watch Hadley or Wingate and Finchley - let alone Premier League fans ? There is zero connection for majority and a tenuous link by geography

[Anthony]

You’re seriously underestimating how many fans would suddenly come out of the woodwork. As part of the Bring Barnet Back campaign, we’ve had so many fans tell us that if we achieve our goal they’d definitely start coming back and we’ve had Arsenal and Spurs fans living in Barnet, telling us that their clubs have priced them out and they’d love to bring their kids to games

Very interesting. I imagine there’s a few hundred families in Barnet priced out of Premier League football which the club could capitalise on with the move

Surely if it’s just the price that is stopping them, then presumably they would be prepared to travel to the Emirates or WHL, why aren’t they willing to travel to the Hive? Or go to Wingate or Hadley instead?

Why would Barnet fans want to watch Hadley or Wingate and Finchley - let alone Premier League fans ? There is zero connection for majority and a tenuous link by geography

Well there’s a few Barnet fans who watch Hadley! If there are Barnet fans who can’t or won’t travel to the Hive - then that number is going to be small.

Anyway, I do hope that moving back will increase our attendances, but I just cant see it happening based on location alone.

[EastBarnetFan]

You’re seriously underestimating how many fans would suddenly come out of the woodwork. As part of the Bring Barnet Back campaign, we’ve had so many fans tell us that if we achieve our goal they’d definitely start coming back and we’ve had Arsenal and Spurs fans living in Barnet, telling us that their clubs have priced them out and they’d love to bring their kids to games

I hope you’re right and as I stated previously, I do expect crowds to rise.

We’ve also got to remember how much damage has been done at The Hive the past 10 years, with home crowds dropping below 1,000 for midweek games and barely touching 2k on Sats.

Any gain moving back home will probably put us back to where we were prior to moving. I’ll stick to my 5,000 capacity vision. Small, compact and at least half full for your average game. 8k capacity would be madness to begin with.

[john dockers shorts]

Who would of thought 2 months ago we would be debating the capacity of a new stadium. What a great place to be!

[EastBarnetFan]

Indeed John. It’s all healthy debate!

[thebeekeeper]

Our highest ever average attendance is 3719 when we won Division 4 in 1991/92. So we'd need to increase the fanbase by over 2000 people from that peak for a 6000 capacity stadium to become problematic.

I'd love that to happen, of course, but realistically something around the 6000 mark will be more than sufficient for our needs, even if we see a big boost upon returning to Barnet.

Smaller can often be better - even though it limits your revenue for the odd big game, it'll make the ground feel full and improve the atmosphere, which will hopefully increase demand because people want to attend packed out events.

I also think that it'll help with the planning process if the stadium doesn't appear to be a hugely imposing structure.

[Berlinbee]

You’re seriously underestimating how many fans would suddenly come out of the woodwork. As part of the Bring Barnet Back campaign, we’ve had so many fans tell us that if we achieve our goal they’d definitely start coming back and we’ve had Arsenal and Spurs fans living in Barnet, telling us that their clubs have priced them out and they’d love to bring their kids to games

I think it would be madness to mount a huge campaign and make the effort to move back home to then only build a 5,000 capacity stadium. We do need room for growth. Think also with succession, an investor sees ambition with 8,000 and wouldn’t so with 5,000

I hope you’re right and as I stated previously, I do expect crowds to rise.

We’ve also got to remember how much damage has been done at The Hive the past 10 years, with home crowds dropping below 1,000 for midweek games and barely touching 2k on Sats.

Any gain moving back home will probably put us back to where we were prior to moving. I’ll stick to my 5,000 capacity vision. Small, compact and at least half full for your average game. 8k capacity would be madness to begin with.

[JWTBee]

I think to be able to accommodate for bigger away followings in the football league and to grow our own fan base, we need a ground bigger than 6,000. I think 7,500/8,000 would be perfect

The new ground (if built) will be closer to 8000 than it will to 6000 and it will have a quick fit solution to get it to 10000 if and when required. And having a totally enclosed ground means we can put seats into the corners that are currently missing at the Hive The initial proposed stand elevation will be much lower than those at the Hive (less rows) to appease the residents.

This 8000 capacity stadium in Switzerland looks interesting, with solar panels on roofs supplying the local community.

http://stadiumdb.com/news/2020/10/new_s ... haffhausen

What a fabulous looking stadium! I would be absolutely delighted if we could have something similar.

[Evanstribe]

I think to be able to accommodate for bigger away followings in the football league and to grow our own fan base, we need a ground bigger than 6,000. I think 7,500/8,000 would be perfect

The new ground (if built) will be closer to 8000 than it will to 6000 and it will have a quick fit solution to get it to 10000 if and when required. And having a totally enclosed ground means we can put seats into the corners that are currently missing at the Hive The initial proposed stand elevation will be much lower than those at the Hive (less rows) to appease the residents.

This 8000 capacity stadium in Switzerland looks interesting, with solar panels on roofs supplying the local community.

http://stadiumdb.com/news/2020/10/new_s ... haffhausen

Out of interest, how do you know this re: the capacity, corners being filled in and the elevation? I can't see any info about those things in the public domain.