My review of the stadium... : Fri Jan 20, 2012 11:46 pm  

We parked on the former Tesco car park and wandered down over the disco bridge. A very decent walk even in the dark, which will probably be a really nice walk later in the year.

Up to the ground and given fixtures and bought a programme, the stadium looking fantastic up close as you approach from Tesco. Ticketing stewards around the ground were useless. They had obviously never been to the ground and weren't able to do anything bar stand still in a high-vis jacket and reply to questions with "I dunno, I'm from Sheffield, we're contract staff".

Into the ground and the fears about the lack of cladding are realised as our first impressions in the ground are splashing around in standing water. Up to the seat and the viewing angles are fabulous. Utterly brilliant presentation of the pitch. Even at the back of the North Stand you can still see the action so clearly. All corners easily visible and the pitch looked great, as did the packed 'home' end.

The atmosphere was non existent, having the noisy rabble at the end of the stadium will mean there is only even anything approaching an atmosphere when it's full in a big match against a big team. Home to London/Huddersfield/Salford/Widnes/Cas/Wakey/Bradford etc it'll be ultra quiet.

The toilets were great, big and well kitted out. Only suggestion here is to paint instructions on the floor and having signs above the doors as the men of St Helens are incapable of managing a one way system by themselves, meaning a big crush as people attempt to walk into and out of the same opening.

Catering facilities? 0/10. I shudder to think how much money the club lost tonight. Having zombified staff who have obviously had no training at all in even the basics of decanting a drink and picking up a packet of crisps led to the worst 'service' I've ever seen at a sporting venue. I queued for the duration of halftime and was about 10th in the queue at the start. I didn't get to the front by the time the second half kicked off, in fact I think they only served two people on the till we were on. If it's like that I won't bother in future and I'll give my money to one of the places outside the ground instead.

On the way out the slow march down Saints Way and over the bridge was interesting with good conversation with a few lads who'd come up from Cornwall to see the game. Will be interesting to see the sea of people when the place is full to capacity. Exit from carpark was seamless and roads around the ground empty.

All in all pretty positive for a first night I think. FFS put the cladding up quickly, I really don't understand why they are waiting to do it. And replace the catering company and insist on human staff, have pints pre-poured and have people gathering the order whilst the other processes the till and takes the money. It's not rocket science.

Re: My review of the stadium... : Fri Jan 20, 2012 11:51 pm  

I was wondering who would review the stadium, thanks.



I shudder to think of your comments on the match itself.

Re: My review of the stadium... : Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:01 am  

I agree with most of my sad friends post.

The lack of cladding makes the bar area like a swimming pool which also gets very slippy under foot. First thing in morning I'll invest in some wellies for our home games.

The staff on the bars are terrible, twenty mins in line for a pint! I do like the saints gold tho, very very nice!

The scoreboard is to small, if lms or laffranchci score, I doubt it will fit their names on it.


It's a very very good rugby stadium and I think we will have to wait until the competitive games arrive before we know what sort of atmosphere we will get. I think it will be a excellent stadium when the suns out.

Re: My review of the stadium... : Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:14 am  

bewareshadows wrote:

I was wondering who would review the stadium, thanks.



I shudder to think of your comments on the match itself.

I've posted those in another thread.

Do not read if your name begins with Lance.

Re: My review of the stadium... : Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:19 am  

You are experiencing exactly the same as we did at the LSV and as Salford are at there nrew place. All I can say is don't let it get to you because everything will be fine and enjoy your new home. All the best Saints.

Re: My review of the stadium... : Sat Jan 21, 2012 1:35 am  

Saddened! wrote:

We parked on the former Tesco car park and wandered down over the disco bridge. A very decent walk even in the dark, which will probably be a really nice walk later in the year.

Up to the ground and given fixtures and bought a programme, the stadium looking fantastic up close as you approach from Tesco. Ticketing stewards around the ground were useless. They had obviously never been to the ground and weren't able to do anything bar stand still in a high-vis jacket and reply to questions with "I dunno, I'm from Sheffield, we're contract staff".

Into the ground and the fears about the lack of cladding are realised as our first impressions in the ground are splashing around in standing water. Up to the seat and the viewing angles are fabulous. Utterly brilliant presentation of the pitch. Even at the back of the North Stand you can still see the action so clearly. All corners easily visible and the pitch looked great, as did the packed 'home' end.

The atmosphere was non existent, having the noisy rabble at the end of the stadium will mean there is only even anything approaching an atmosphere when it's full in a big match against a big team. Home to London/Huddersfield/Salford/Widnes/Cas/Wakey/Bradford etc it'll be ultra quiet.

The toilets were great, big and well kitted out. Only suggestion here is to paint instructions on the floor and having signs above the doors as the men of St Helens are incapable of managing a one way system by themselves, meaning a big crush as people attempt to walk into and out of the same opening.

Catering facilities? 0/10. I shudder to think how much money the club lost tonight. Having zombified staff who have obviously had no training at all in even the basics of decanting a drink and picking up a packet of crisps led to the worst 'service' I've ever seen at a sporting venue. I queued for the duration of halftime and was about 10th in the queue at the start. I didn't get to the front by the time the second half kicked off, in fact I think they only served two people on the till we were on. If it's like that I won't bother in future and I'll give my money to one of the places outside the ground instead.

On the way out the slow march down Saints Way and over the bridge was interesting with good conversation with a few lads who'd come up from Cornwall to see the game. Will be interesting to see the sea of people when the place is full to capacity. Exit from carpark was seamless and roads around the ground empty.

All in all pretty positive for a first night I think. FFS put the cladding up quickly, I really don't understand why they are waiting to do it. And replace the catering company and insist on human staff, have pints pre-poured and have people gathering the order whilst the other processes the till and takes the money. It's not rocket science.

You were obviously in the same queue as we were in near the middle of the North Stand.
We went down for a pint 5 mins before half time (it was a friendly after all!) and there was already a decent sized queue which suprised us. After 10 mins of no movement it transpired that they had run out of change so everything stopped until some manager type person, who looked about 12 came with change.
We thought well at least we will get served now but it took another 10 mins and the match had restarted.

You are right it was unbelievable how slow they were; there were enough staff but only 2 or 3 were actually doing anything for some reason.
Some random woman behind us with bright red dyed hair started having a go at the staff and the girl serving us started shaking - poor thing was terrified.
No sign of the famed multi-pumps for some reason?

It was clear that none of them had ever been on that side of a bar before and were not trained at all. It is something that needs sorting out and I am sure will get sorted out as its such a potential money spinner. Doubly sad as the pint of Gold was really good for this sort of venue and quite reasonably priced.

Apart from this, the soaking concourse and turnsyle teething problems it is a truly magnificent stadium.

Re: My review of the stadium... : Sat Jan 21, 2012 2:14 am  

My brother (who knows about these things and had to wade through, as he describes it, "a duck pond" in the North stand) claims that they've used indoor building techniques on the flooring for a fundamentally outdoor structure, leading to uneven flooring (which is apparently fine and very common when building indoors) with nowhere for anything to drain resulting in the enormous pools of water reported. He doesn't reckon it'll be too big a deal to sort out but was most unimpressed by the competencies of those involved.

FWIW I was sat in the South stand and had no such worries - the seats were a bit tight widthwise for my plus-sized frame (although I'm spoiled by Stadium:MK's magnificent seats these days) but legroom was fine thankfully. The burgers were absolutely divine (although curiously lacking in cheese) although I could physically feel my lifeforce draining away in the 15 minute queue I had to endure to get to them. Number 1 priority MUST be for Saints to sort out the bozos lumbering around behind the counters or I shall be eating at BK or Maccies beforehand in future.

Was most impressed by the speed of getting out of the place contrary to some's experiences too - we left on the hooter, used the wide path and not the Tesco ratrun and got over the bridge without the slightest hitch or holdup. Also encountered absolutely no traffic holdups getting out of the old Tesco carpark and heading off to Tatty Heath at all either.

And WTF was the point of the 2 (no doubt very expensive) "Britains Got Talent" dancers before the game? Just utterly awful...

Re: My review of the stadium... : Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:15 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

Home to London/Huddersfield/Salford/Widnes/Cas/Wakey/Bradford etc it'll be ultra quiet.

Usual trolling garbage. At a scandalous £18.50 for a friendly, you really think last night was a true representation of a typical Widnes turnout? There was a whole raft of people who didnt go to this game on principle. The subject created a 4 page thread on a widnes forum alone.

For what its worth, the stadium looks really nice from the outside, but is just a slightly larger version of the Halliwell Jones on the inside. Breeze blocks everywhere. Fit for purpose, nothing more. Pitch seems an awful long way from the stands. The roof in the East stand appears to keep rain in rather than out. The PA system was farcical in our stand, sounded like a £25 ipod docking station.

As for the logistics, well the congestion walking away was ridiculous. The bridge to town was utterly rammed to the point of tripping over your feet, the walkway round Tescos to get there is so constricted (and dangerously dark) that at times you could barely walk at all and it ended up taking about 15-20 mins to get across into town. Just to remind you, that was with 11k fans. God knows what it will be like when Wigan turn up.

Good experience overall, mainly due to it being a good game. It will become a good RL venue, but some serious flaws need ironing out.

HTH.

Re: My review of the stadium... : Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:29 pm  

the walkway round Tescos to get there is so constricted (and dangerously dark) that at times you could barely walk at all

The walkway past Tescos is actually the staff entrance to Tesco it needs blocking on match nights so everyone uses the LARGE and WIDE path across the middle of the grass which is well lit , seems everybody took the shortest route as peple are wont to do , with a little marshalling should be fine , the brisdge was a little crowded but not excessively so when we crossed

Re: My review of the stadium... : Sat Jan 21, 2012 1:07 pm  

Viking Vengeance wrote:

God knows what it will be like when Wigan turn up.

Yeah, 'the invasion'. I'm still waiting for the 'invasion' of Widnes from June last year.

When they bring the usual 8,000

They'll bring no more than Wire, Leeds, maybe Hull/Widnes..