There's been a lot of Chelsea coverage on these pages lately, and for that, I apologize. It's mostly Will's fault, but hey, nobody's perfect.
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Courtesy of The Guardian |
Yet the club's bid to put a stadium in the iconic Battersea Power Station just might be. All joking aside,
Chelsea's current stadium predicament is only part of a larger trend of
ambitious clubs finding themselves "too big" for their current and often
historic stomping grounds.
Of course, this realization is often met with a good deal of hand-wringing on the part of nostalgic supporters hell-bent on preserving the tradition of their club. Unfortunately for the guys calling the shots, the bottom line is more important.
Now I love the fact that many of the games' great cathedrals are as much integral parts of their cities as, well, cathedrals. I'm a pretty nostalgic guy myself and if I had it my way, Liverpool would just expand Anfield and call it quitsies on the various other new stadium ideas floating around.
Unfortunately, the lot-owners of the houses that surround the stadium know perfectly well just how valuable their property is and you can only make so much money with a 44k-seater. In short, reality says expanding a century-old stadium in any major city that's grown around it is nearly impossible.
Chelsea's plan includes preserving the station's four chimneys as well as its wash tower, and I think it's brilliant. Take another antiquated city site a few miles away, clean it up, maintain the shell and have at it.
It's not a perfect plan and it might not even happen, but it tips its hat to tradition and location. Something other clubs would be well-served in replicating.
- Jacob Klinger
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