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John Atyeo statue
Outside of the ground 80% of respondents support the idea of having a statue of a former player or manager and 57% think this should be of John Atyeo. There was also strong support from the survey for the inclusion of a club shop, club musuem and an arena as integrated components of the stadium structure.
In terms of surrounding infrastructure, 55% of respondents indicated they would be likely to switch from going to games by car to travelling by train if the stadium site included a dedicated railway station.
Trust recommendation
The Trust submitted a full 54-page analysis of the survey findings, plus an appendix of fans' supplementary comments, to the football club on May 19th. A few days ago we then circulated the two documents to our own members. These are now available in full to all fans as PDF downloads (see links below). The Trust included in the survey report the following recommendation to the football club:
We urge the club and the architects to take to heart the findings of this survey. The success of the new stadium will no doubt depend in part on the extent to which the fans feel it is ‘their’ stadium and on the degree that they feel their wishes and concerns have been taken into account. This survey can be the first part of that process and we thank the club both for asking us to coordinate fans’ views and for facilitating the e-mail mailshot to 14,000+ fans.
Clearly a stadium cannot be designed by committee. Nor has that ever been the intention of this survey. We hope, however, that the findings of this survey will help to inform the thoughts and plans of the club’s management team and external advisors during the stadium design process.
We would urge, in particular, that huge attention is paid to the general character of the stadium and that every effort is made to ensure that both visually and acoustically it is something very special. It is clear from this survey that fans in general want a stadium that will help them to produce a cauldron of noise in support of the team, give them a good view from steeply raked stands close to the pitch and have an external appearance unique to the area that makes them prouder than ever to be fans of Bristol City.
If the political mood changes sufficiently in the interim, it is clear that a majority would also like the inclusion of an area of safe standing. If the will is there, Bristol City is now in an ideal position to pioneer the first safe-standing stadium in the UK. Failing this, we would urge that thought is at least given to this at the design stage, so that an area of the ground could be retrospectively adapted for this purpose were such areas to be given the green light at a later date.
Outside of the stadium, we would urge the club and site developers to investigate fully the possibility of an on-site railway station, as it is clear that this would be well used.
Appended to this report is a document containing all of the additional comments made by fans at the end of the survey. While the facts and figures of this report provide some very useful information, we would also urge the club’s managers and external advisors to read through every one of these additional comments to get a true flavour of the fans’ wishes and – more importantly – their concerns. The word that crops up perhaps more than any other in that document when it comes to concerns is ‘soulless’. We would urge the club and the architects to avoid at all costs producing a stadium of this nature for City and instead to create a new home for the team and the fans that is bursting with character, atmosphere and soul.
PDF downloads - Read the reports in full
Download the survey report and appendix of fans' comments
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