WWW has this thing about London and it's a broken record. But look what happened in the wastelands of Coventry. London will work if the stadium is the right size, and transport links. The Stoop is the perfect example for both. Full house for most games. Great atmosphere. For those of us who have travelled to Sarries, the journey is a nightmare and last bit a road trip by taxi or Shanks pony.
Best of all would be in the South East of London or just outside, I don't how many people I have heard say if Wasps had stadium around Sevenoaks it would buzz. No professional rugby in this area
I was one of the messengers shot down repeatedly on Drunken Wasps, likewise here fold are (were) even more rose tinted.
The Midlands was a complete disaster, and mostly because for 150 years we have been around / within the M25 and the move was doomed. And then the grossly incompetant management of Eastwood / Vaughan and his merry band of board members that totally ignored the massive annual 7 year losses, and to the end had no plan B. To say our future is in the Midlands is insanity. Yet that is what the genius Holland and his interim CEO Scott are mouthing. Holland is of course tainted as a prior member of the disasterous board, and wants teh Midlands to use his training facility. The Legends are brilliant but he should not be allowed anywhere near the club, yet until we find a long or even medium term financier, he is the proud owner of our trophy cabinet and trading name.
Unless the Legends ditch him , find a backer with deep pockets who can steer us back to the South East, with plans for a newbuild self owned stadium to be put in place within a few years, this new show is not going to get off the ground.
Where to start with that. Some huge rose-tinted spectacles there.
Lets talk about the midlands and the 'disaster'. I'm not from Coventry but live there now, and have for about 30 years. The visibility of Tigers, Worcester & Saints as top teams was non-existent outside the local rugby clubs, not once in my 20+ years prior to Wasps arrival did Tigers ever promote themselves in Coventry, as soon as Wasps announced they were moving they got all indignant and put up billboards etc.
Coventry Rugby were a mess, they were in National league 1 and not doing well, they had also called in the administrators/gone bust twice. They had to sell off their ground in Coundon Road.
Again they got all indignant but had/have zero plans to get to the prem, and had about 1200 spectators at a match. I went to a few in the early years I was in Cov at Coundon road but stopped as they were poor and matchday experience wasn't great.
Then look at Wasps, yes free tickets, they weren't as freely available as the SBT lot would have you believe, but even in the final year with no freebies they were hitting in or around 10k spectators, a number of Prem clubs would love that level of support (and how often did it happen at AP, very rarely I understand). This side of things was good and successful.
What wasn't was the way the business was run, the losses, which did stop just before COVID were too high, then there was COVID.
Being in Coventry was a success in attendances.
Why do you think moving to Sevenoaks would work? Nothing says it would other than it's near your house so you want it there and a few local rugby clubs want it. In Coventry there are over 10 rugby clubs, plus numerous in the surrounding area, the support is there, and it turned out.
Yes the stoop is busy now, I went a few years ago and it was easy to get tickets last minute. Also it's capacity is under 15,000, every year except the COVID years that Wasps were at the Ricoh, we would have easily filled the Stoop, on occasion twice over. Saracens struggled to fill their 10,000 seater stadium, LI get nowhere near filling their ground, so what evidence is there that a move to London would work. It doesn't work for the current clubs.
It's really easy to be very negative about the move based on how the business side of things turned out, but for getting people through the turnstiles it worked, so I don't see how moving away from something that worked to an area with zero history of Prem rugby would be any better.
On the business side I don't think we will ever get the full story, I know someone who worked, and still does, at the arena and he was quite scathing of the way it was run by Derek, and how Stephen Vaughan was basically bypassed quite often, his comment that he felt it was unfair the amount of grief Vaughan got on the forums. Sounds like from RogerE's comments Vaughan wasn't the issue, but Eastwood was in that case. Whilst it is what actually sunk Wasps it doesn't really point to a well run business being unsuccessful in the same area with a sensible cost base.
Always a Wasp
