2018

[Wycombe Royal]

The cities have been chosen:

Birmingham
Bristol
Leeds
Liverpool
London
Manchester
Milton Keynes
Newcastle/Gateshead
Nottingham
Plymouth
Sheffield
Sunderland

[Stranded]

Decent spread across the country there.

[weybridgewanderer]

But for places like Quatar, Ozland, South Africa, Brazil, and Scotland millions of people have to watch on TV at best to see their heros.

[ZacNaloen]

How are they going to get 40,000 odd football fans in and out of Plymouth?

[Wycombe Royal]

How are they going to get 40,000 odd football fans in and out of Plymouth?

By the A38 and boats.

Oh I see what you mean.

I am still laughing at the prospect of Plymouth playing in a 46k capacity stadium.......

[Thaumagurist*]

Plymouth?!?! Milton Keynes?!?

[Barry the bird boggler]

Best stadiums to give a good spread across the country.

Shame the Mad Stad wasn't put up for inclusion but then being on the edge of London and needing JM to spend money to increase capacity it was never going to happen.

[ZacNaloen]

Best stadiums to give a good spread across the country.

Shame the Mad Stad wasn't put up for inclusion but then being on the edge of London and needing JM to spend money to increase capacity it was never going to happen.

The upgrade would have been bought and paid for by the olympic commission.


We are just plain too close to London.

[Thaumagurist*]

Milton Keynes is close to London too.

[Deadlock]

Milton Keynes

That's me totally against the bid, then.

[Compo's Hat]

How are Plymouth goping to manage that? They only had a transfer embargo placed on them yesterday.

This could come back to haunt The FA. Bigger joke of an expansion than ours.

All hail the new Darlington!!!

[Jerry St Clair]

So. Destroy a football club and move it 70 odd miles from it's home, just so you can leap into bed with an Asda retail development, and the FA will reward you with being a world cup host city.

Un-fukking-believable.

[Alan Partridge]

Plymouth are in a mess but have got the go ahead for this absolutely ludicrous short term idea. There aren't 40,000 Plymouth fans in the world so what the hell are they thinking? Going to be fantastic in 2013 Plymouth 0 Burton albion 0 in LEague 2 in front of 4000 in a 46,000 ground.

[handbags_harris]

Perhaps if the costs get too much to maintain a club in a 46k stadium they could move to Truro City's proposed 10k stadium

[Alan Partridge]

Perhaps if the costs get too much to maintain a club in a 46k stadium they could move to Truro City's proposed 10k stadium

Truro bigger club than Plymouth.

[readingbedding]

Of course these clubs at Plymouth and Milton Keynes will remain at 45k+ capacity after the WC.
Um, if they're at their present standard...no.

[ZacNaloen]

Milton Keynes is close to London too.

err exactly, they can't have too many matches concentrated down here. Milton keynes for whatever reason was preferred.

[Barry the bird boggler]

Plymouth Argyle has a very large catchment area as there are many who trek over from Cornwall

However with Truro on the ascent that catchment will be eroded, and should Truro ever hit the FL then Argyle could well start struggling...

[handbags_harris]

Plymouth struggle to attract 12000 through their gates in the Championship. I have always looked at Plymouth in a similar light to Norwich City, similar sized catchment areas, both clubs attracting fans from the majority of the county populace with little opposition nearby etc etc, both traditionally "Second/Third Division Clubs" etc etc. Norwich's success in recent years has contributed significantly to their sell out 26k crowds, but they still get that in League 1. Plymouth would struggle to break the 10k barrier in a similar situation.

[papereyes]

Plymouth are in a mess but have got the go ahead for this absolutely ludicrous short term idea. There aren't 40,000 Plymouth fans in the world so what the hell are they thinking? Going to be fantastic in 2013 Plymouth 0 Burton albion 0 in LEague 2 in front of 4000 in a 46,000 ground.

It's not about the number of fans a club has though.

It really isn't.

World Cup '94 and thereafter all featured stadia built in places without a traditional fan base.