Is the time of the Out-of-Town Stadium coming to an end?

A day at the football is about so much more than the 90 minutes played out on the pitch. It is about the journey there, meeting your mates, looking through the latest odds and tips, and having a laugh. That goes as much for home fans taking their usual seat every other weekend, as it does for an away fan venturing into a stadium, and perhaps even a town, for the first time.

For a while that message appeared to get lost on clubs and developers. More and more new grounds were being built in out-of-town locations that required a degree in orienteering to locate. This makes no sense at all. A football stadium should be seen as an asset by a town. Every other week, hundreds or thousands of people arrive for a few hours to spend time â€“ and money â€“ in your town and its pubs, hotels and restaurants. If they have an enjoyable experience, they are likely to return.

The Problem with Out-of-Town Venues

Building an out-of-town stadium wilfully ignores that whole concept. Not only is it a joyless, soulless experience for the fan, but the town receives virtually no benefit from having its own football team, a team that would hitherto always have been a valued part of the community. In fact the only beneficiaries are the nearest petrol stations and motorway services, both of which we can all agree are not high on anyoneâ€™s list when it comes to places we want to spend time in. As an example, it is perfectly possible, indeed a lot easier, to visit the University of Bolton Stadium without ever setting foot in the town of Bolton.

Compare that with the away fan experience at Ipswich. The train station is a ten-minute walk, if that, to the ground, passing a designated "away" pub en-route. The bus station is a similar distance from the ground, and the town centre is itself again a ten-minute walk from Portman Road. Go to an away game at Ipswich â€“ or any of the other "traditional" stadium - and you leave feeling that you got to know the character of the place and its people.

Football has come a long way from a purely community based game

Changing Perspectives

Fortunately, this may have finally started to sink in for club administrators. If you are cynical, it could be that it is money based, and probably that does have something to do with it. It likely also has a lot to do with that word we used earlier: community. Football clubs have suddenly realised the benefits to aligning themselves with the local community. It was how and why football clubs came into existence, and how they thrived through some very tough years and decades for the nation. It is why the national game thrived when so many other national institutions fell by the wayside. Now that football â€“ at the top level at least â€“ is thriving, it would be a shame if they do turn their back on the very people who made it what it is.

That is happening in the EPL to a certain extent, but you only have to look at the teams in the Championship, League 1 and 2 to see that clubs that not that long ago graced the top tier are now struggling in the lower reaches of the footballing pyramid. All clubs should take note that nothing is guaranteed forever.

The counter argument, and one that has driven much of the recent out-of-town developments, is that by selling their town centre ground a club can make untold millions, freeing them up to buy cheaper land further outside their urban core. Money that then of course can be invested in the team. That is perhaps true on the surface, but how many of these clubs have followed such a move with a similar shift up the leagues? If the move genuinely saves the club from going under then that is one thing, but if it is just a short-term fix, then one could consider it to be a very short term one, and one that risks distancing â€“ literally and metaphorically â€“ the club forever from its traditional fanbase. And that cannot be a good thing.