The Doghead wrote:
hate to keep on about this, the stadium is fantastic, but there is very little cover in the Northeast and the Northwest corners of the ground, also check out the pics on redvee and see how far the rain has come up the front of the terrace, this of course cannot be helped but it will also come in from behind the above mentioned corners with the aid of the wind.
Go and have a look at how open these corners are it will effect seated and standing fans, granted not a lot of fans will be effected but some will.
They do look a little exposed, however perhaps not as bad as people think.
Look closely and you will see that the ends of the stands are walkways, so no speccies will be sat right on the end of the stand, they will actually be a few metres in. This will mean they have a couple of extra metres of roof cover, in addition to the curved roof in the corner. This will make it harder for the rain to get to them.
I do however think that seats in the far corners will be a bit like those on the front couple of rows, in that if the wind and rain are blowing the wrong way you can expect some rain getting to you, but i doubt if people will get a soaking.
The open corners are my only real bugbear with the new stadium. I would have liked them to be at least partially cladded, upto say the height of the North stand seated area. This would leave an open bit at the top but would make the stadium look and feel more enclosed.
I regard the open backs of the stands to be an opportunity. In summer months on a nice warm evening, the natural light will potentially make for a more pleasant drinking experience, than being stuck in an airless claustrophobic concrete cavern, with nothing but flickering neon lights to keep away the dark. Its only really in February, March and early April that the open backs will make for potentially a bracing experience. The vast majority of the season will be played in mild to warm, though often wet conditions.
Furthermore re the open backs, one of the things i have not liked about Widnes is that the North stand bar areas can be a bit of a sweat box in summer due to their fully enclosed nature.
