Football Stadiums of the Future - Stamford Bridge

The season is over, and it's time to look forward. So here's part one of my Football Stadiums of the Future blog.

Chelsea - Stamford Bridge 2020/2021

It kind of looks like a giant egg dicer, but I like it. This is a regeneration of Chelsea's Stamford Bridge, which means they have to knock down the 41,663 seater stadium that is standing there today and build this new 60,000 seater stadium on top of it. It's going to cost Roman Abramovich around 500 million pounds, and Chelsea would have to play three seasons at Wembley, we could be seeing the first league game here in the 2020/2021 season.

Chelsea almost sell out their tickets for their current stadium almost every match day, with this new development it gives them the chance to attract twenty thousand more fans. With a stadium this posh, I think they'll have no problem with achieving that goal.

This is how the ground will be lit up at night, hopefully on a Champions league night if Chelsea can pull their socks up by 2021. 

What will the new Stamford Bridge look like? 

Each column is made up of 264 bricks, with the architecture taking inspiration from Westminster Abbey, Glass will connect the columns giving it a strong structure, then decorative metal will line the glass giving it a silvery effect. The fans  have taken to twitter and compared the look to a rolled up slinky, but the majority seemed to approve.

What do you think of the new Stamford Bridge? Let me know in the comments section below.


Please share to your social media of choice, and help a new blogger out. Check back every day for new Stadium of the Future entries. 

England Squad for Euro 2016

Yesterday Roy Hodgeson announced a 26 man squad for the friendlies leading up to the Euros, which he'll cut down to 23 before the actual competition starts. Here's the Squad.

GOALKEEPERS:
Fraser Forster, Joe Hart, Tom Heaton

DEFENDERS:
Ryan Bertrand, Gary Cahill, Nathaniel Clyne, Danny Rose, Chris Smalling, John Stones, Kyle Walker

MIDFIELDERS:
Deli Alli, Ross Barkley, Fabian Delph, Eric Dier, Danny Drinkwater, Jordan Henderson, Adam Lallana, James Milner, Raheem Sterling, Andros Townsend, Jack Wilshere

STRIKERS:
Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford, Wayne Rooney, Daniel Sturridge, Jamie Vardy

This squad will take the field in the friendlies listed below.

England V Turkey - Sunday 22nd May
England V Australia - Friday 27th May
England V Portugal - Thursday 2nd June

Old Trafford - How does a fake bomb go unnoticed for four whole days?

So I'm there doing my gardening, and my phone sends me an alert from the Sky Sports' score centre app saying that Manchester United V Bournemouth has been abandoned due to a suspect package found in the stadium. I run to the internet and I'm looking at pictures of a bomb disposal van and we're being told there's going to be a controlled explosion at the Old Trafford shortly. I turn to my girlfriend and say "this is the real deal, it's no longer safe to watch football in this country, this is horrible", I feared for the other matches going on that day, I'm in a state of confusion and disbelief, then I'm relieved to find out before bed that it was just a fake bomb that was left over from a terrorist drill recently on Wednesday. Relief, everything felt okay in the country again, football wasn't being attacked on this soil. My state of confusion and disbelief was gone... Oh wait, no it wasn't. What do you mean a fake bomb was left over from Wednesday!?

Yeah, Wednesday. Four whole days before the match was meant to take place. The "bomb" was apparently very real looking, a mobile phone looking device that was attached to some piping in the toilets in the north west quadrant of the ground. A very suspicious looking object indeed.So how on earth was it left there in the first place, and what the hell was the ground staff doing for four days? did they not check there? Somebody's getting fired.

Stan Collymore made some tweets:
1. Nobody knew of Wednesday drill amongst stewards, #MUFC staff?
2. Experienced company leaving shot behind in heightened security times?
3. Every news outlet putting "accidental" narrative out without any questions?
4. Police calming genuine fears with "accidental" line?
5. Wednesday to Sunday Man United have no cleaners on site checking/cleaning loos?
6. Company left one rogue device but took the rest?
7. Security company walks away from Old Trafford Wednesday without an inventory check and does nothing till Sunday till Police check?

As much as Stan normally annoys me, he has 7 valid points here. The last one being the most egregious. Surely when you're driving away someone would count the fake bombs, you can't just leave one behind, it's not one of those jobs where it's okay to be lazy sometimes. You have to be on the ball when it comes to security pretty much all the time.

That being said, the Man Utd's security did a great job of evacuating the stadium, and it was the right call to do, but spare a thought for the Bournemouth fans who woke up at 3am, made the journey to Old Trafford to be told to go back home. The match is rescheduled for Tuesday night, and fans have been given a refund, and free entry to the game if they choose to make the trip again. Eases the pain a little, but I bet it was one of the fixtures their fans were most looking forward to after their promotion to Premier League last summer.

Despite the events of the day, the bomb being a result of someone so incredibly bad at their job is the best possible outcome. We don't want our Football being attacked, we can't have fans feeling frightened for their lives when they go to these grounds, we're all there to watch a football match, So I'm glad it all unfolded the way it did, but like I said before... somebody is getting fired.







Dan

Will John Terry be Captain Next Season?

John Terry deservedly received a new contract offer for another year at Stamford Bridge yesterday in a different role, as a Chelsea fan this pleases me greatly, but what is this new role he's been offered? Terry released a statement on Instagram yesterday

"Thanks to everyone for the kind wishes. The contract extension the club has offered me is a different role and I hope everyone will understand I want to take the time to consider it carefully before making a decision" - John Terry Via Instagram

I'm going to predict that John might have a contract that says he could be demoted as captain, and moved from the first team, acting as a Didier Drogba character in the 14/15 season, as moral support in the dressing room, which worked out for them winning the League Cup and Premiership crown that year.

Chelsea have been operating for most of the season with the mindset that Terry was leaving, so I can imagine they already had plans in place for life without the defender. The new manager Antonio Conte will be taking over after Sunday's fixture against Leicester, which was announced to the public in April, so he must have spent a lot of time deliberating who should be the new Chelsea captain. It's a big decision to make, I feel like it's made. No one saw Terry publicly asking for a new Chelsea deal, and quite frankly Conte doesn't really have a choice but to offer him one. As far as the fans are involved, to turn away the most decorated Chelsea captain before your new manager arrives would be the definition of starting on the wrong foot. They had to offer him something, so it will be interesting what his new role in the club is.

I agree with Tim Cahill who said losing John Terry would be a blow to  the club. He's Mr. Chelsea, he's the link between the fans and the team. He cares about that club more than anyone who ever put on the blue shirt since he arrived 17 years ago. With all these big money stars coming and going, Chelsea need a man like Terry in the dressing room, stresssing the importance of each fixture. Getting through the fans needs in the squad, because without him, I fear that the club could lose it's passion for certain games and could see Tottenham getting a comfortable victory soon at the bridge for the first time in 26 years.

It could take days or weeks before we find out what the new role is, but I personally hope he stays, Chelsea is his home, and as a fan I'm not quite ready to say goodbye to another legend.
Time shall tell.

What's all this, then?

So what am I doing here blogging about Football? Why does my opinion even matter, I've never played football professionally, I've never reffed a game, and I've never studied sports in school or college, so no, my opinion isn't of any higher value than your own, but I'm a fan, and you are too, or otherwise you're just incredibly lost right now and I'm surprised you got this far reading this paragraph, But yes, If you're a fan of football, then you probably think highly of your opinion of the beautiful game, and why not? Fan's know everything. Football "experts" on Sky Sports are living proof that anyone can have an opinion, and everyones opinion is worth something, even theirs, especially theirs, they get paid for theirs. Not that I'm disrespecting their views on football, it's just that I don't think their two cents is worth any more than your average Steve who you bump into at the pub on match day.

But I do enjoy writing, I don't do it too often, and I like working on projects, I'm a nightmare for it, I'm always having ideas, always coming up with something new. So with this blog, these are my ideas for the next month or so.


MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER

I plan to increase my knowledge of leagues outside of England, the MLS is fastly rising, so together I think it would be fun to learn about the clubs that are involved in this league, and their history, even if they appear to not have much history, for example, Orlando City SC was founded two years ago, but holds a 61,348 capacity stadium, and has a Brazilian world cup winner in the squad. We need to do our homework on this league, so expect an MLS report from week to week.


TRANSFER WINDOW

Who's going where? The premier league is all over, and it's time for the newspapers of England to play with our feelings, is your favourite player leaving? is your club going to spend 100 million? I'm not saying that I'm going to cover every transfer going on, but I plan to blog about the transfers that interest me over the summer. That's all we really have to do in the summer, but it's okay because this summer is special because we have....

EURO 2016 FRANCE!

On June 10th, we get a month long football fest, which in England, is a cure to end of season blues, I'll be blogging about any interesting build up, previews, and reviews of certain matches. All the fall out, and all the glory. As an England fan, I'm pretty excited about the team we have this this time, and I think we could get a taste of that glory if the spirit from Leicester FC winning the Premier league transfers over. More on that later! but you dont' have to be an England fan to read my blog, I'll try my best to keep it unbiased.

AT THIS EARLY STAGE

This blog is two days old, so these are the three ideas I want to run with, I'll be blogging about sackings, stadium refits, new kits, and of course what footballers are doing on their pre season tours, I hear Leciester are going back to Thailand, good luck guys!

Thank you for reading my blog, I hope you check back and find something that you like in the near future. If you want to help me out, then share this post, or leave a comment. I'm happy to talk football with anyone, so don't be shy. Until next time.

Dan

Newcastle Relegated Again

I must admit I was disappointed in Chelsea last Saturday when they had the chance to put a dent in Sunderland's survival chances. From my biased Chelsea perspective it would have done us a favour to get rid of them as we don't travel to Sunderland well, in fact it was one of the two places that Mourinho had never won, the other team is Newcastle, so seeing them relegated should please me too, but it doesn't, because we often beat Newcastle on the home leg, where as Sunderland are always a tricky tie at Stamford Bridge. My bias aside, it disappointing me to see a team like Newcastle get relegated again.

Rafa Benitez didn't get enough time, Alan Shearer could tell you that, he had around the same games left in the season when Shearer took charge in 2009's relegation season, the change should have been made sooner, you'd expect a club to learn a lesson from their previous mistake. I thought Rafa did a great job at giving the team a bit of fight though, because without him they were sinking like a stone.

It's a shame Newcastle never achieve any greatness, they have such a large passionate following, a terrific stadium, and a history of having some legendary players. They just could never reach that star they've been reaching for. Maybe a spell in the Championship might do them some good, as it did in 2010, they came back to the Premiership after one season, and were a revitalised team. Time will tell, but I don't think they'll sink down to any lower divisions any time soon like many other recently relegated Premiership clubs. I predict they'll win the Championship next season. putting it out there now. But they're probably favourites anyway, so it's not a bizarre shout to be honest.

Relegate in Peace Newcastle