Britain/Ireland may bid to host World Cup 2030

All seater stadiums were the worst thing to ever happen to football

There's a reason why stadiums like Fenway Park and Wrigley Field are so cherished in the US, I know US stadiums are all seater but the character and architecture of a stadium matters too

Given that music festivals take place quite safely in big fields, it's astounding that football authorities cannot see the benefit of standing areas with reduced price tickets to the game as a PRODUCT

There are a couple of "genres" of modern stadiums that lend themselves very well to atmosphere even if they are all seater

One is the group of heavily modernised stadiums in Germany - the best examples of this are Dortmund and particularly the Fritz Walter Stadion in Kaiserslautern, which has roofs which slope down, which you hardly ever see in modern stadiums - there was something about an old style sloping roof which was terrific for creating atmospheres - high roofs which slope slightly upward are terrible for atmosphere

Italy v Australia in the 2006 World Cup was played in Kaiserlautern and I felt the setting added a lot to the occasion and helped turned it into a "classic" World Cup game even if it wasn't actually a great game in football terms

The other is 1980s South African rugby grounds - Ellis Park, Newlands, Loftus Versfeld and particularly King's Park Durban

Horrible regime but they were very good at building modern, atmospheric stadiums - almost uniquely, they managed to make corporate boxes a feature of stadiums rather than something which takes away from the atmosphere

The Bombonera does this too

The 1994 partial rebuild of the Bernabeu was an exceptional job - they managed to build the new tiers in a very "lurky" way, very steep and almost on top of the pitch

It made an already very good stadium into a great stadium

I presume the new redevelopment will ruin it

The really steep third tier at the Mestalla in Valencia which was also built in the early 90s added a huge amount there in terms of atmosphere and architectural ambience

At a time when Stadium design brought us Pride Park, the Stadium of Light, the Riverside etc, it was a very refreshing and unique way of building a stadium.

Also, one of the sad things about this development, is that a number of newers stadiums are built on the fringes of the places they used represent. So many clubs in the 1990s and 2000s left their homes which were located on residential streets, and close to residential areas for business parks and industrial estates, which could easily accommodate large venues, but there is little charm and very little too differentiate. Its part of the reason I would be so resistance to any efforts to replace the Hill 16 terrace (a potential limited by logistic reasons) with a mirror image of the Canal End.

'82 I think

Some of the '86 stadiums seemed to use concrete bench seating which wouldn't be allowed now

I think the Rose Bowl used wooden bench seating actually in '94

Terracing was allowed at UEFA events up to 1992, Euro '92 had terracing

Michael Walker wrote an article about this years ago, and of course the club he focussed on was Bolton, where he used to regularly attend matches, because they are the prototype of this

He talked about the leisurely walk from the centre of Bolton out to Burnden Park, less than a mile, with familiar watering holes lining the way

How in the mid 90s there was a feeling that the club was in the up, Burnden Park was a great place to go to watch football, good FA Cup runs and promotion runs, reaching the League Cup final, I think most people here remember that Bolton team with John McGinlay, Alan Stubbs, Jason McAteer, Alan Thompson 

Ironically part of that optimism in the mid 90s was associated with the new stadium then being built, only Middlesbrough up to that had built a plastic bowl and the feeling was that because this new stadium was new, it would automatically be good, better than what Bolton had then

The when the new stadium arrived, the reality set in, the place was a cold, soulless windswept dump, six miles outside Bolton, halfway to Wigan, beside a motorway junction and a Tesco

A line he wrote stuck with me: "there's a sense that the future never happened for Bolton Wanderers"

West Ham supporters' dissatisfaction now is based on their supporters thoroughly despising the Olympic Stadium and if any team has benefitted from no spectators, it's West Ham

They're pretty much stuck there though, at least until the place is inevitably razed to the ground and rebuilt in about 15 years' time

Its difficult for fans of teams that loved their old grounds, before being moved, always with the promise of longer term growth and success. The Championship and lower is festooned with teams in ostensibly "nice" stadiums, but on the whole, they are soulless, and removed from the original experience. Also, when times are good, the places might be full. As these teams tumble down the league the seats are emptied, the football becomes less motivating to watch, and the actual extent of the fanbase becomes clear. Its a sign of the emperor having no clothes.

With WHU the issues run a lot deeper, and the ground is just one of the issues at the moment. The think is, as long as the current administration is in place, the ground will remain the same as it is.