I really enjoy the clubhouse seats, but that could just be the fact our view at Kogarah in a similar area of the grandstand was at least 3x worse. Good they have finally started checking tickets for the area too, given it was marketed to be a somewhat exclusive area with only a certain number of seats being made available.
Only real drawbacks are the seated area behind is pretty bland and depressing and the food is shite. Grey concrete and grey tables and chairs…could have sworn there was mention of cushioned seats in the original marketing. I could also have the worst memory known to man.
Re food you can literally only get chicken tenders and chips or need to walk downstairs and find something else, provided the vendor is actually open, which is really fucking poor. Don’t have a huge song and dance and launch party for the food if you can’t get 50% of it 90% of the time.
I like the stadium generally though.
Also transport - bus from Naremburn, Light Rail from Wynyard with a few pints in between. Perfect for earlier kick off games, probably stick with the car for the later games though.
Went into the cove on saturday for the first time as my nephew is interested in becoming a hooligan and enjoyed the view there. I thought the safe standing was quite nice.
Still got English cunts whinging about The Cove cause it aint like they do it Bexton on Toxteh Pommy Wanker AFC.
Only because the Centennial Park Trust and Clover said no.
The first stadium proposal way back in 2015 was to build a new one on CPT land just to the north of Tibby Cotter Bridge and possibly filling in Kippax Lake.
Then demolish the old and presumably give that to the CPT… which could have possibly created a nice greenway/ path to the EQ and beyond to Centennial Park.
The stadium itself is a lot better in many regards, but still has flaws on wet windy nights.
Food and drink obviously has more options, but it’s just as expensive as it always has been, so meh.
We just need to get to drawing 20k for a regular game and 30k+ for the big ones.
Had this discussion at work today - yes it’s just as expensive, but the quality has risen dramatically to meet the price. Before you were still paying $15 for the world’s worst burger. At least now it’s quality food. I am concerned about how yellow the chips are though.
Definitely better. It looks significantly more amazing walking in and the hype on the outside is good. The concourse feels significantly more open and the beer selection infinitely better. I’m assuming the selection will decrease as they have crowd trouble and RSA restrictions force them to do half strength beer. Just the fact that they have proper amenities for parents is a massive win for me.
I wonder how much of this is not by design, but rather just the current market conditions and Merivale (or associated outsourcing shop) being too cheap to pay the market wages to attract enough workers to staff all the shops.
Derby is among the handful of biggest games that the stadium hosts, and if that many shops were closed for that big a game by design then I’m not sure how it would make sense to actually build and fit out so many.
I love the new stadium!! I enjoy watching us play there even when we lose. It feels like a football stadium, a world class one at that. Something the last one never felt like and was so in name only as we shoehorned ourselves in there.
As hyperbolic as this might sound, I feel connected to the world game watching us play out of that stadium. The food and drink options are fine. Don’t eat there if you don’t like it. I go there to watch us play football and now I love doing that even more.
They are reasonable. They’re better than most stadium offerings, better than what was there before and certainly not less than other offerings in this country at least. That sounds pretty reasonable to me.
Daddy parked on South Dowling & made his kids walk for 10-15 minutes on the weekend because he’s too cheap to pay for parking. Actually it was pretty good because we played in the park next to the Sicilian Freeway before the game. I can see the appeal of the significantly increased accessibility via the light rail however. I’m still waiting for a coffee & cannoli stand however.
hahaha, yeah, what is with that? They look radioactive.
Edit: agree with you on the food as well. The chicken burger is actually quite tasty, and I’d likely pay the same amount at most surrounding pubs for the same quality.
This is my main (only?) complaint about the clubhouse.
I particularly like the bar being open a little bit longer, and then in turn being allowed to stay in for an extra 10 mins or so to have a debrief over a fresh beer.
