Topic: Anfield Road Extension - Construction work resumed on 12th September 2023.

[mikeb58]

Love those latest pics, just passed the Anny Rd before, horrible stand at the moment, tiny, cheap and nasty looking. This development makes Anfield amazing, not too fussed about future developments as I just don't think they would be feasible or cost effective, so not worth building my hopes up,

61k capacity in a ground we where once  told was not possible to expand is a great outcome, especially as it will look brilliant both on the outside and inside. Love how we have the park behind us, and with the green areas around the MS too they make a fantastic combination of stands.

The Anfield footprint from the air now is a million miles away from the hemmed in ground I grew up with, never thought this scale of development was possible, fair play to the owners and everyone involved, they've played a blinder?

[paulrazor]

They're also charging £5 for a pint and £10 for fish and chips.  They're in London so can get away with it. However nothing is free; they have to pay the interest on the debt etc and this will hamper them in the transfer market.  I dont care what they say publicly about being able to compete. Levy will have to run a tight ship for years while we can invest in players should we need to.

yep. Arsenal were similar for years after moving

Too many hospitality seats. That's more guaranteed cup final tickets gone.

regrettably yes but unfortunately they are needed

[rebel23]

yep. Arsenal were similar for years after moving regrettably yes but unfortunately they are needed

Arsenal  have the highest ticket prices in Europe!

And they've only really now been able to spend... 15 years later. 

[calvin]

All looks amazing. Well done to FSG. Might be the end of expansion for a while. Not bothered about expanding the SKD stand. It's not too bad. I'd love if they could do something with the Kop. It looks outdated and is now dwarfed by the new stands. The outside looks tacky and cheap. I know they're hamstrung by the road. Maybe they could square the corners and extended sideways. Add in safe standing and that would be perfect. Kop should get some attention in the future.

[paulrazor]

yep, was referring more to you saying spurs need to  run a tight ship.

not sure they had to wait 15 years to spend but it was a long time

[rebel23]

If Spurs fail to qualify for the UCL for a couple of seasons they could become unstuck financially. This season is really important for them. City, United and Chelsea can weather such storms, the rest will fall behind - FSG have done the right thing in not overspending.

I'm not sure if they're stupid enough to bank on CL revenue to help with the stadium. I haven't seen how they plan to pay for the stadium in the media etc. but it aint free; they will pay for it some how through exorbitant ticket prices like Arsenal and their activity in the transfer market will be restricted.

 Like I said before its taken Arsernal 15 years before they could spend (they paid £70 million for Pepe) and their out of the CL so unable to attract the best players.  Imagine the uproar on here if we were in tenth place !!

[rebel23]

yep, was referring more to you saying spurs need to  run a tight ship.

not sure they had to wait 15 years to spend but it was a long time

I think they will end up doing what Arsenal did... charging £90 a ticket and fleecing the support. Arsenal have been going backwards for a while despite having the world class stadium.

[Danny Boy]

I think they will end up doing what Arsenal did... charging £90 a ticket and fleecing the support. Arsenal have been going backwards for a while despite having the world class stadium.

They already do charge that more or less for individual tickets.

I was given work tickets to our game there in January in the home end - great seats but £1,500 each for the season - and apparently there are some seats which cost 2 or 3 times that!

[kopite321]

Is this the ticket moan thread?😉😂

[davidsteventon]

Can I loan about MORE hospitality?
How many is that in the entire stadium now?


Also. Rail seating. Just do it.

[Garlicbread]

According to Wikipedia the record capacity at Anfield is 61,905 in 1952. Would be cool if we had enough seats to beat that record.

[Rafas3leggedtable]

https://i.imgur.com/m33aPBm.jpg

Particularly like this image if that is the away section in left lower tier looking like 2-3000 max fans in there. If its good enough for Old Trafford....

[Jonny-B]

According to Wikipedia the record capacity at Anfield is 61,905 in 1952. Would be cool if we had enough seats to beat that record.

Won't be possible with this expansion as we're going to 61k which will be 60k ish with segregation.

[EnfieldRed]

I'm not sure if they're stupid enough to bank on CL revenue to help with the stadium. I haven't seen how they plan to pay for the stadium in the media etc. but it aint free; they will pay for it some how through exorbitant ticket prices like Arsenal and their activity in the transfer market will be restricted.

 Like I said before its taken Arsernal 15 years before they could spend (they paid £70 million for Pepe) and their out of the CL so unable to attract the best players.  Imagine the uproar on here if we were in tenth place !!

Not sure of the minutiae myself, but Arsenal did get to the KO stages of the UCL for something like 15 seasons continuously under Wenger which would have helped with the bills. I read a Swiss Ramble thread about how damaging being out of the UCL is for them.

With teams like Leicester, Wolves etc knocking at the door this season might be costly for them.

I’m sure they can pay for it but lack of UCL money will hurt for sure.

[Son of Spion]

https://i.imgur.com/m33aPBm.jpg

Particularly like this image if that is the away section in left lower tier looking like 2-3000 max fans in there. If its good enough for Old Trafford....

Going by that, the away section is both in the upper and the lower corner.

[Son of Spion]

Won't be possible with this expansion as we're going to 61k which will be 60k ish with segregation.

Yep, I think to hit that figure we'd need around 62,500 seats before segregation.

[rojo para la vida]

Don't know how others feel but I'm looking forward to the thread that documents the construction of the new Annie.

I was living and working 2,000 miles away while the Main Stand was being built and those daily posts and photos from people living local, commenting on and showing the progress, brought me closer to what was happening than what was reality. That thread is easily my favourite since I've been on here.

It's unfashionable in some circles to say anything good about wealthy Americans but we seem to have got some good ones as our custodians.

[Sir Capon of Debaser]

HQ pics

Look at that tit on his phone

[CraigDS]

Look at that tit on his phone

Leave Alisson alone. Not his fault he’s got fuck all to do.

[Son of Spion]

Look at that tit on his phone

The big question on this expansion is will the Wi-Fi be any good?

[Rafas3leggedtable]

Going by that, the away section is both in the upper and the lower corner.

Didnt notice that. Even so it looks like only perhaps a 4K allocation max which is still not bad on a £61K stadium. We need to look after our own and give a modest max allocation to away fans

[Welshred]

We won't be giving more than the required 3k for Premier League games. Not a chance.

[Red Beret]

I think FSG will be vindicated in their approach to expanding Anfield rather than build a £1 billion stadium like Spurs did. That debt would severely limit us in the transfer market and put at risk future success.  61k is pretty good (third highest in the league).  Don't forget they do initiatives now so locals with an L post code can get tickets at reduced prices.

Tried that a couple of times. If you enjoy getting up at 6am to get onto a load up screen ready for 8.15 to watch it go "Availability Good.... Availability Good.... Availability Good.... Sold Out" then yeah it's ok.

[stoopid yank]

It's unfashionable in some circles to say anything good about wealthy Americans but we seem to have got some good ones as our custodians.

We are not all bad, just some. And most of us are not at all wealthy either

[Red Beret]

If Spurs fail to qualify for the UCL for a couple of seasons they could become unstuck financially. This season is really important for them. City, United and Chelsea can weather such storms, the rest will fall behind - FSG have done the right thing in not overspending.

Not to go off topic but I have some sympathy for Spurs.  They overtook us in the dark years near the start of the last decade as we struggled to get our house in order.  But then they hit a glass ceiling.  You can argue their stadium move was a bit of a vanity project, but they've now seen Liverpool leapfrog them and leave them for dust - storming to a title they never even got their fingers close to. 

They can't put it down to a fluke like Leicester either.  We are simply a far better run club.

[rebel23]

I'm really impressed with FSG and its no fluke either. They have a 20 year track record when the took over and reinvigorated the Red Sox who went on to win the World Series.  They have stuck to a similar model with LFC and now we're winning titles. Tom Werner and John Henry are geniuses,

We dont have an oligarch. We dont have oil money.  They have managed to get us to be self-reliant and they have found an elite manager who buys into the philosophy.  If they ever want to sell their shares they will now probably get back 10x their investment. 

[Yosser0_0]

I don't think there is any doubt whatsoever that expanding Anfield was the 100% correct decision, and that's even based on (IMO) the capacity being capped at 61k for the long-term. The only hope for any further capacity increases is going to be safe-standing on the Kop, which in theory might bring it to 65k someday. I see no chance at all of the Kenny or Kop ever being expanded or rebuilt. Rebuilding the Kenny would cost at least as much as the Main but for how many extra seats? Barely 5k. Likewise for the Kop. And to say nothing of the residential or infrastructure issues behind both.

But all that we have got, for £180m, is fantastic. That's less than a Neymar. And we get to stay at Anfield, which while maybe not as fancy a stadium as Spurs', will still IMO have the best atmosphere on the really big occasions due to how tight it is plus something that Spurs and City will either never have or take decades to get - history.

Even if we could have built a new stadium like Spurs, while it would probably have been 25% cheaper in the NW, at the same time it won't generate the same hike in match-day revenue due to the London factor. So expanding was the right call in that regard too.

I don't understand that comment?
 

[Yosser0_0]

I read that they have had to reduce the size of the ground floor to accommadate the re-routed Anfield Road, I wonder what the compromise was. I wonder what the new road will look like? Will it be narrower, and one-way? I assume it will be closed for Match days? There seemed to be a determination not to encroach on to Stanley park, I thought it was mainly car parks around that area rather than actual fields?

[CraigDS]

I read that they have had to reduce the size of the ground floor to accommadate the re-routed Anfield Road, I wonder what the compromise was. I wonder what the new road will look like? Will it be narrower, and one-way? I assume it will be closed for Match days? There seemed to be a determination not to encroach on to Stanley park, I thought it was mainly car parks around that area rather than actual fields?

Where have you read that? As it appears to go behind the stand as it was and not changed the stand at all.

[Yosser0_0]

Where have you read that? As it appears to go behind the stand as it was and not changed the stand at all.

Liverpool's Chief Operating Officer Andy Hughes said he was "pleased" a solution had been found to the Anfield Road concerns.

He added: "We've actually shrunk down the ground floor of the building a small amount but it allows just enough room that we can divert the road around the back of the stadium without encroaching into Stanley Park.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-51477259

[CraigDS]

Ah ta - it must be a tiny amount as looks pretty much the same.

[Fromola]

Not to go off topic but I have some sympathy for Spurs.  They overtook us in the dark years near the start of the last decade as we struggled to get our house in order.  But then they hit a glass ceiling.  You can argue their stadium move was a bit of a vanity project, but they've now seen Liverpool leapfrog them and leave them for dust - storming to a title they never even got their fingers close to. 

They can't put it down to a fluke like Leicester either.  We are simply a far better run club.

They had a golden chance the year Leicester won it but blew it. Last year's CL final also a gamechanger but they didn't turn up.

[Fromola]

Didnt notice that. Even so it looks like only perhaps a 4K allocation max which is still not bad on a £61K stadium. We need to look after our own and give a modest max allocation to away fans

3k. Glad they're stuck in the corner like away fans at City and split over two tiers. Hopefully we can get a good vocal section at that end.

[Alan_X]

Too many hospitality seats. That's more guaranteed cup final tickets gone.

Why? Any hospitality in the extended Anfield Road will be the low-end packages for one-off games. They don't get you access to cup final tickets.

[DougLFC94]

3k. Glad they're stuck in the corner like away fans at City and split over two tiers. Hopefully we can get a good vocal section at that end.

Despite that photo I still think the away end will be 3k all in the lower as just as we see now. That line of segregation there in the upper has got to be what...250 to 300 seats? Segregation that would not be required if away fans were all in the lower and can be sold to our fans instead.

[Peabee]

As long as it's being seriously looked at that's fine. Work on the other 2 stands are going to be a long term project anyway.

We’ve gone from 45000 to 61000 in a few years, after decades of aborted stadium plans, at a fraction of the cost of a new ground while keeping Anfield.


The long term plan may well be to eventually redevelop each side with that design. Given the residential concerns and transport issues, there’s a political game to be played. Plenty of people didn’t think we’d be able to get this far.

[Mighty_Red]

Dunno why people use announcements about the stadium as a chance to post something negative. Literally every discussion comes back to someone wanting a 90k stadium. It's not happening, we need to accept that instead of wishing for unicorn stadiums like the bitters.

60k is the typical size of a large club stadium. Utd are the only ones significantly bigger which is starting to show its age.

In that respect, getting to 61k is fantastic considering we were at 45k just 4 years ago. The plans look really good and it seems that the club have done a lot of work behind the scenes to get this up to scratch.

Remember a couple of years ago when Ayre told us the ARE plans were on hold as the ROI didn't stack up. This is the reality - things cannot get done if they don't make financial sense. The new hospitality suite will go towards the viability of the project so it's a necessary evil I guess.

Hope it gets approved in time.

I can't see anything happening after this for a good few years other than maybe rrfurbs to the existing SKD suits.

[M7 Heckler]

Too many hospitality seats. That's more guaranteed cup final tickets gone.

Only the premium hospitality members get guaranteed cup final tickets, and I don’t think there are any premium hospitality in the new ARE, just the mid-level sports bar tickets. You don’t get away ballot entries or cup final tickets with those.

[Richie69]

More important than anything, thank god we never left Anfield for a soulless new stadium.

This is showing we can have a reasonable capacity where we are with proper planning and diligence.   Plus there's standing to come.

[paulrazor]

yep, people should be happy with the progress

i know united have about 78 or whatever but it didnt happen overnight, its not as if in one season they went from 40k to 78

61 is a good number for us and im sure if things are going well we could look at doing more elsewhere