Time To Improve As A Club
The recent news that Stoke will be spending £4.5 million on the football pitches, which include synthetic pitches for the first team to train on, and a new underground heating system for the Brit is great news. But the improvements to the club seem to be only on the football side of things.
It’s easy to say that the majority of Stoke fans want the corners of the stadium to be filled in, so that we can allow more fans to watch and to have a greater atmosphere, which as of late has been dropping off. If you take the recent win over Aston Villa, we were 2-0 up and yet the crowd was silent apart from the odd Delilah coming from small parts of the ground.
What about other improvements to the club? The club website which is full of bugs and uses the same template as clubs in League two, needs updating. There are many fans whose sole connection with the club is through online content. It’s strange that we don’t have a smarter website. Bet 365, who obviously owns the club, are the worlds largest online betting website. One would have thought that the guys who built the Bet 365 website could also build a new Stoke website, it is only couple of minutes down the road. Fill it with YouTube videos, stats, and upload match day programme content (which Stoke has won many awards for)
If we were to fill in the corners, improvements around the ground need to be done. The fact that you can only pay cash for food and drink is crazy! You are just limiting the amount people spend. Cash is a dying art form, card payments have now overtaken cash, why aren’t Stoke capitalising on this opportunity? When we loose 3-0 to Everton being able to drown our sorrows when we have spent all our cash would be nice, if not necessary.
Stoke are in the top 30 of the richest clubs in the world. It’s easy to see that on the pitch with the signings of Shaqiri, Bojan and Imbula. But off the pitch we are still lagging behind other clubs around us in the table. Developing a stronger fan base that stretches outside of the Potteries does sound like selling out to the, half and half scarf owning, prawn sandwich eating Gerald Pratts of this world, but it shouldn’t be. If fans want Stoke to be better understood, rather than still being called a long ball team, the club needs to build a stronger fan interface.
Obviously what matters on the pitch is the most important, if you asked me what I wanted more, a 20 goals a season striker or contactless technology whilst buying my Wrights pie, I’m gonna say ‘when can I get his name on my shirt’. But if the club wants to become much more of an international presence they need to spend money on the club at a level fans see every day, not just 90 minutes on a Saturday.
By Dan Morris
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philip john humphris
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You missed a big one the position of the away fans needs to be sorted. I think we are the only ground in the premier league that gives away fans a home like advantage next to the tunnel. Even our own players have said its wrong. We are at home & should not give the away team any advantage at all.
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Dan Morris
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You are right Philip, I suppose the problem would be moving the family area, as I can’t imagine many parents would like to sit near ‘friendly’ away fans. I would also say the police would probably have a problem with moving the away fans, as it would be a logistical night mare, but with all that being said yes moving the away fans or the tunnel is important. But the main point in the blog was that the Club off the pitch is lagging far behind the team on the pitch
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Elliot Hackney
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I agree that the away fans location could be reassessed.
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Gary pardy
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Also make it wheel chair friendly outside the ticket office leading to the turnstiles.wheel chairs user are having to go on the road which I think is dangerous.
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Elliot Hackney
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That is very good point, Gary. Something I’ve never even thought about.
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Trevor Lockett
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Two major complaints Q RAILINGS upper deck the gents toilets has only one entrance and exit.
Price of the drinks !
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shaun
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More bars are needed instead of hundreds of people going to just one in novus stand…
toilets need the entrance wall knocking out its so cramped going in and people coming out…
We need free wifi the amount of bets i’ve missed out on is unreal…
The time after 90 mins should keep going….
And we should have oatcake stands come on its STOKE 😉
That is all haha
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Chris
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Better toilet facilities for kids and parents. Having to take my young daughter into the gents cubicles…we all know the state of these. And if we all pitched in a few quid can we have under feet heating for the stands
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Michael Gajda
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Re. Away fans,
The club could fill in corner, put away fans in that corner, moving family season ticket holders next to tunnel. This would make all area behind goal Stoke fans. Segregation of away fans could be designed into the building work of scoreboard corner.
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Nick
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More tables and chairs in Delilahs bar upstairs would be good. The amount of floor space is unreal. Can’t help but think they have just enough but not too many so customers have to stand near the bar and inevitably buy more drink? Also, Delilahs is like a blank canvas. Nothing on the walls. Lets get some history in there, framed signed shirts, etc on the walls.
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