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Anyone who has sat on the cramped away end in the wind and the rain at Fratton Park knows that it is one of the worst stadiums in the Premiership. Portsmouth itself is hardly an economic boom town. But now the club is in Franco-Russian ownership and has unveiled plans for an iconic new stadium, dropping plans to rotate the pitch at Fratton Park by ninety degrees. Plans to build on a greenfield site off Portsea Island were dropped some years ago. The club aims to set a new aesthetic standard for English football with a stadium that has been designed by the men behind London's architecturally iconic Tate Modern. The 36,000 seat stadium would be on a waterfront site between the station and the moored warship HMS Warrior. The stadium woud be surrounded by a dense mix of apartments and shops, the intention being to create a new urban landmark in the blighted docks. The residential element wraps around the building's waterfront facade, rising to a prow as it nears the naval city's adjacent and recently completed Spinnaker Tower.
In fact it is hard to imagine a more grittily urban area, which encompasses a detention centre, the naval dockyards, a ferry port and a railway station. Planning permission is not a foregone conclusion why is why Portsmouth have placed particular emphasis on the fact that the stadium will regenerate the area and be a significant asset to the city. Questions have been raised about the £600m price tag and whether people will want to live in a football stadium, particularly if they have to encounter some of Portsmouth's fanatical supporters on match days. It is claimed that 20 per cent of supporters will be able to reach the ground by boat which has led some cynics to suggest that Portsmouth should go the whole hog and put the stadium on a pontoon in the Solent which would be convenient for their Isle of Wight supporters. The cost of the stadium will in part be covered by the sale of Fratton Park for 750 homes which will bring in about £30 million and there will be revenue from redeveloping the waterfront. The 36,000 capacity in the stadium has been deliberately set at a relatively modest level to maintain the Fratton Park atmosphere. In any case, as Harry Redknapp has pointed out, if the team is successful, the crowds will come: 'They say it's special at Fratton Park, but eight years ago they were getting 9,000 against Hull.'
The new stadium certainly looks as if it will have a 'wow' factor if it is ever built, but is Portsmouth the new Liverpool in terms of the regeneration of a waterfront city? Of course, plans to move Everton to a waterfront site in Liverpool were dropped. One of the problems for Portsmouth has always been access in and out of the city off Portsea Island. However, the university has become increasingly successful in recent years and more is being made of the city's naval heritage for tourists. The fact that Franco-Russian banking tycoon Alexandre Gaydamak was prepared to buy the club in itself says something about what may be possible. Pompey has always had a very special identity as a club. However the Financial Times noted that the stadium plans underlined 'the game's growing sophistication, as a business awash with cash seeks to satisfy an increasingly demanding and middle-class fan base.' Try telling that to the guys who ring out the Pompey chimes.
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