Commiserations on an athletics stadium, from a Rotherham fan

[UpTheMillers]

Hi Hammers.

I'm a lifelong Miller and in 2008 we lost Millmoor, our spiritual home in Rotherham since 1907.

Since then we've been playing at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield. Don Valley was built in 1989 for the world student games, a white elephant, 25,000 seat Athletics stadium.

I was one of the few fans excited by the move, I'd suffered terribly with cramped legroom at Millmoor, poor facilities, and in large was just plain relieved that Rotherham would survive despite the best efforts of our prior owners who now own Millmoor (but that's another story).

Two and a half seasons later, excuse me... two and a half games later, no make that two and a half minutes into our first game I realised what a truly, exceptionally dire venue an athletics stadium is for football. It's not just the running track, there's also the triple jump which means you really are MILES further away from the pitch than you imagine.

For us, we only use the main stand, however the curvature of the running track behind the goals means those seats are 10x worse, a million miles from the pitch.

Now, we joke about Don Valley being a morgue because it is so hard to create an atmosphere, hopefully [for the sake of West Ham] that is a consequence of DV's poor acoustics and the massive gulf between DV's capacity and our attendances which should be less of a problem for yourselves, however I fear that it's impossible that even with a full house every week, atmosphere would not suffer substantially simply because of the nature of an athletics stadium.

On paper to mindless bureaucrats, West Ham was the obvious choice to occupy the Olympic Stadium, you tick all their boxes and I can see that. Sadly, I fear that the real Olympic legacy will be decades of disgruntlement for West Ham fans who loathe that they are stuck in a soulless bowl not designed with the beautiful game in mind.

It's almost certainly too late, but I truly wish there was some way you could mount some opposition, and screw the Olympic committee or whichever pen pushers thought this was a good idea, I don't care what the world thinks about building a stadium for a few weeks and the knocking it down, I fear that a football club is going to have it's beating heart ripped from its chest.

I hope I've not come along as a raincloud of doom, I truly wish you all the best, and I truly hope I am wrong.

Peace

[sanchoz]

I was talking about Rotherham to a friend the other day. How advanced is the plan/building of a new stadium in Rotherham itself?

[Johnny Byrne's Boots]

But surely the athletics legacy makes it all worthwhile? What would all the hop skip and jumpers do without football to make their sport viable?

[[HH]]

Only Richard Reid in a pair of Z-coils can save us now.

[Essex 'Ammer12]

Don't worry, we're moving in in 2014 and the world is ending in 2012 so there's nothing to worry about.

[the pink palermo]

Hello Rotherham fan , and WelKumb to this board .

Are you at home this weekend - I may just pop up with a camera if you are ?

Is the Don Valley stadium similar to Hertha Berlins ?

[GideaParkHammer]

Cheers mate. I had a laugh with a lot of Rotherham fans at the play off final, (sorry I was there with the Daggers).

I know a lot of people will dismiss your opinion, preferring to compare the OS with Berlin OS rather than the Don Valley, but a track is a track...so it is good to get the view from someone that has to watch a game behind one each and every home game.

How are the plans progressing with getting your own ground, I know you have some League imposed time limit. It seems ironic that the league placed conditions on your move to Sheffield out of necessity, yet ignored Spurs' planned move.

[Muddy]

Good post mate, it's a real shame that a lot of people here still seem to think that moving to an atheltics stadium is a fantastic idea. Personally i'm dreading it.

[Johnny Byrne's Boots]

It seems ironic that the league placed conditions on your move to Sh*ffield out of necessity, yet ignored Sp*rs' planned move.

That's 'cos Levy can probably afford more expensive lawyers than Rotherham.

[barlimanrob]

Welcome mate,

Don't you know that our stadium will be 'iconic.' lol

[Mike420]

How do you account for the fact that Hertha Berlin at the Berlin Olympic stadium actually produce a good atmosphere and also have good views from the sides.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_Kb4CxYwPJdc/RoQqy ... otball.jpg

You don't even a roof over a lot of the stadium.

We also have the very real possibility of retractable seatin behind the goals to solve the problem.

60k compared to 25k will make a substantially better atmosphere and i'm sure the acoustics will be better than the Don Valley...

[UpTheMillers]

I was talking about Rotherham to a friend the other day. How advanced is the plan/building of a new stadium in Rotherham itself?

We'll find out soon. Our chairman has said he wants us to move in at the start of 2012/2013... we've not even seen architects plans yet, though news is due imminently.

The most worrying part is that our fans know that Don Valley stadium was our ONLY way to survive as a football club, returning to Millmoor was impossible due to the disastrous relationship with the family of the previous owner, and we'd been in administration twice... this really was the saving of Rotherham United from going out of existence.

Despite it's importance, and the VAST superiority of the facilities, and the fact it's really not that far from Rotherham [ < 4 miles] our fans are completely restless and can't wait to get out. We truly hate the place, despite knowing that we're only going to be there for a maximum of 4 years (the football league require us to be back in Rotherham in 4 seasons, or we get kicked out, although we're sure they'll be lenient if we've started construction) and a new stadium is on the horizon. I can't even begin to imagine how we would react if we knew we were stuck there indefinitely!!!!

I fear there's going to be riots when it sinks in amongst your fans that you've signed up to this of your own free will and that you're stuck!

I truly hope it works out.

[evomutant]

It'll echo more I'm sure, all those empty hard plastic seats to reverberate noise back off of.

[barlimanrob]

Hello Rotherham fan , and WelKumb to this board .

Are you at home this weekend - I may just pop up with a camera if you are ?

Is the Don Valley stadium similar to Hertha Berlins ?

Pinky, if you do mate, what camera will you be using? If you have a film SLR or a full frame DSLR, please shoot as much as you can at 50mm. If you have an APS-C sensor, please try to shoot at 35mm.

These are acknowleged as the best representative focal lengths for a 'human eye view.'

[Hammer110]

Don Valley is like the O/S would have been if it had been reduced down to the 25,000, it only has a partial roof on one side and is not comparable to the O/S in terms of being able to create an atmosphere, distance is obviously quite similar..

[UpTheMillers]

How do you account for the fact that Hertha Berlin at the Berlin Olympic stadium actually produce a good atmosphere and also have good views from the sides.

On atmosphere, I really hope so and on the positive, I think it will be much better for you than it is at Rotherham, however I don't think you'll ever be able to achieve anything like what you could[can] at Upton Park, and it is the notable difference that will upset fans. You don't know what you've got until it's gone [I truly truly hated Millmoor].

On the photo... photos always look great. Though do you see those ants on the pitch in the photo? Wait until you're sitting in it for real! I tried to convince myself of all this before we moved to DV.

Sorry, I feel terrible for being so negative. I try to be eternally optimistic!

[mywhufc]

Don't look too busy in the pic. As for their fans, they are the biggest club in Berlin, so bound to have more fans to make more noise. Haven't they gone down as well

[barlimanrob]

Mate, I think it's quite different.

The sides are straight, they will be a lot closer to the pitch at the halfway line than we will.

[the pink palermo]

Pinky, if you do mate, what camera will you be using? .'

The same one I used with the blonde at the Baggies yesterday .I've promised I'll be careful on which pics I upload .

A small Canon - never let me down .

[GideaParkHammer]

How do you account for the fact that Hertha Berlin at the Berlin Olympic stadium actually produce a good atmosphere and also have good views from the sides.

I am not a sensitive man, but I think I am going to cry. No, you have broken me. I am now going to phone the Russians and ask them why they did not obliterate the Berlin Olympic Stadium with the rest of Berlin.

Truthfully I have never seen so much bandwagon jumping since someone first posted a You Tube video of ****ing Hertha Berlin's fans. Now everyone thinks that we will become ****ing flagwaving, chanting Kruats when we move to the OS. The Germans love a good show of flags, and ritual singing. Perhaps I should dig out some old pathe films of Nuremburg.