By James Gurney
November 11 2004

If you have been a follower of Wasps for more than half an hour then one thing will be so obvious it hardly needs saying – nothing remains the same. As with most rugby clubs professionalism hasn’t fully settled. In Wasps’ case there is the added matter of where they will play. It has been very disruptive over recent years to not have a place to call home, many reading this will remember Wasps trying to challenge for the European cup while training on a pitch open to public access, and more disgustingly their dogs.

Now Wasps have reached the peak with resources that would make some of our European rivals choke on their foie gras. And yet the question that has repeatedly been with Wasps for some time is still there – where will Wasps play next year?

Of all the answers there could be, our own stadium is not an option. Not in the immediate future. Being the landlord rather than the tenant is far more preferable from a business point of view – as well as a morale point of view. There would then be a home, a focus wherever it is around which to build the club. But the practicalities of life mean that this is simply not today’s issue. Hopefully one day soon though.

The choice – if indeed it is a choice – comes down to two realistic alternatives. Stay at the Causeway Stadium or return to Loftus Road. How does the club decide?

There is in place a contract between London Wasps and Loftus Road for Wasps to return to play there. Whether it is considered a right or an obligation is another thing. A figure of £1.5M has been mentioned in the press recently as a compensation amount if Wasps were not to return. This figure was derived by David Davies in January for the Loftus Road board of directors when he was chief executive at Loftus Road. Now he is chief exec at London Wasps, which is an interesting move in itself.

Considering that figure just for the moment, it wouldn’t be a one-off hit. Presumably the £1.5M comes from 5 years left in the 10 year deal at £300K per annum. So immediately the mind races as to whether staying at Wycombe would generate £300K more on the bottom line over going back to Loftus Road. If only decisions were that simple.

Many of the current supporters were supporters at Loftus Road and so know it well. I don’t think anyone would argue that the creature comforts at LR left a little bit to be desired. But there is a major plus that the Causeway Stadium could never have – access to the London transport system. Commuters amongst you may chortle at that being a benefit, try going 10 miles by public transport outside of London. London is the biggest conurbation in northern Europe. The potential market for Wasps rugby is huge. It is, on the face of it, an absolute dead-cert that an event in London could – if marketed properly – dwarf anything that could be put on in the shires. The sheer number of available bodies would seem to make that “obvious”. But then, except on one occasion it never really happened.

I am not particularly convinced that Wasps featured all that high on the priority chart while at Loftus Road. There was the slight matter of a football club haemorrhaging cash to occupy minds. The effort in marketing the club and the much praised work of the community development team that exists now was a mere shadow back then. It is hard to conceive that with the sort of dedicated team there is in place now, if they got to work at Loftus Road, that the crowds would not be far higher than they were.

Well, the logic would appear to stack up. The whole of London plus readily accessible areas must have a target population of 8 to 10 million. But, and there are fairly big buts (no jokes about them not fitting into Loftus Road seats), is it realistic to assume that Wasps is a strong enough brand to compete against the other leisure interests in the area. Even in the Hammersmith and Fulham borough there are 3 senior football teams, a concert venue and more pubs, clubs and restaurants than you could shake a stick at. Of all the people throughout London who are or could be potentially interested in rugby, how many could be persuaded that coming to rugby every fortnight is better than whatever they currently do and that Wasps is their team?

Both London Irish and Wasps have increased average attendance when they moved away from the metropolis, coincidentally though when really turning up the marketing effort.

So there is one of the great imponderables – could Loftus Road ever be as successful as the Causeway Stadium? The immediate locality of the two grounds could hardly present a starker contrast. In Wycombe there are a lot of people who either were or have become very interested in rugby in general and Wasps in particular. In White City – well I knew of a handful from Hammersmith. Essentially everyone would be from out of area, although that is much easier for a London location than an out-of-London one.

Another group that it is important to get on well with is the local government. Here there is a great difference in attitudes between the two councils. For Hammersmith and Fulham Wasps is a side-show at best. There is no notion of Wasps providing jobs and economic benefit to the area – everything gets lost in the overall blur of London. While individuals on the council may be interested in rugby there is no political mileage and thus no political support. In Wycombe the difference couldn’t be greater. A council study a year or so back showed that having Wasps in the region brought in £2M to the area per annum. That gets local councillors sitting up. There’s also the civic pride of having a top European team in the town. A lot of locals love it, and of course they all have votes. So when talking to the planning committee, or the highways committee you may not get them agreeing to everything but they are ready to work with Wasps to find solutions.

The matchday experience is very significant matter for many, particularly families. Compare and contrast the two stadia. Many shudder at the thought of the discomfort of the seats at Loftus Road, the lack of bars and somewhere to sit down in the bars that exist. The Causeway Stadium has far superior sight lines, with no pillars blocking the view and, unlike Loftus Road, you can see the corners of the pitch quite easily. Loftus Road pitch certainly looks smaller, I think it is only a metre or so but it looks much more. More alarming is the low concrete wall about 18 inches from the touch line – doesn’t exactly motivate your winger into try saving diving tackles.

Rugby has always been an easy and safe place for whoever was there (unless you are just about to be tackled by Trevor of course). The extra bar areas and car park within the stadium boundary gives an area for people to spill in to and for children to go through re-runs of the game. Not possible at Loftus Road.

Key to the matchday experience is getting to and from the place. The Causeway Stadium can’t match Loftus Road for access to the public transport system. Travelling into White City from Buckinghamshire is hardly a difficult thing, so while it would be an inconvenience it would have to be the most fair weather of Wycomb-ites who would be put off by the journey if Wasps were to return. What they could be put off by is the lack of parking. I am assuming that most people drive to wherever they want to go – it seems to be more and more the situation. In which case the parking around Loftus Road is pretty appalling. There was a residents’ parking scheme which can only get worse. There were places on the streets but it doesn’t fill the car owner with complete confidence to leave a car unattended in such an area. The BBC car park was available until the IRA paid a visit to the area and they decided that an appropriate measure was to not let anyone other than the BBC use the car park. A local school is now a housing estate so there’s less there. If Wasps want to have a realistic expectation of gates of 12K, 13K and upwards, where will all the cars go?

Getting to and from the Causeway Stadium does have its own challenges. Most notably one road in and out through the industrial estate. The traffic route in and out of the stadium area has come in for a lot of criticism that doesn’t really stack up when compared with what is presumably acceptable at other grounds. I have come up with a theory for what it’s worth. I am not sure that anyone could say that the journey into Bath is remotely pleasant, or Northampton – both of which involved er.. one long traffic jam in. Bristol – when we had to go there, maybe we will again – is laughably atrocious in how it treats car driving away supporters, and indeed home supporters who are not season ticket holders. Living not too far from Watford I don’t even attempt to drive there when Wasps go to beat Saracens! So why does Wycombe come in for such bad press? Probably on the one count it is new to nearly everyone and time is needed before people have their own systems, places to park and the such like. Also, when you eventually arrive in Bath or Watford and park in some soulless multi-storey on the other side of town you are at least in the town. You have in some way already at least partially arrived, even if you do have a 15-20 minute walk to the ground. 15-20 minutes from the Causeway is still a distance from the destination, with no little stopping off points in between, so you don’t feel you have arrived and it seems a long way to park from the ground. Hence, everyone wants to get as close as possible and thus we have clogging up of the roads and the situation is worse than it could be. As I say, just a theory.

Those travelling by public transport to the Causeway Stadium do have their own set of problems. A train service from London from a station that is not the easiest to get to followed by an hour’s walk or a bus ride that gets stuck in the queue through the industrial estate. The location of the ground seems to discourage people from using public transport.

What is true is that when looked at dispassionately, the parking facilities in and around the area of the stadium are a lot better than many other sports grounds

The single road in and out has a implication on the Causeway Stadium that many are aware of. The appropriate local body has – probably quite sensibly – decided that there is a safety limit on the highway infrastructure for a large group down the end of the road, regardless of how well built and super safe the actual venue is. The physical limit on the Causway Stadium is about 11K. Stress testing on the barriers within the terracing is expected to increase that to 11.5K. Logistically you can get that number of people in to the space available, but the powers that be have to be sure that everything is indeed more than strong enough. It would include people standing in front of the BCUC stand as well. There is a knock on effect that there would have to be a height limit – that is to say a lower limit – on who can get into the standing areas, as is the case at Northampton. This is all without any new build. But there is the safety limit.

Now this is where political support from a council counts. Discussions have and do take place in order to meet the safety access requirements. The situation causing concern is not so much how long it takes the average punter to get home for his tea, but how can you get people away from, and emergency services to the stadium in the event of an emergency (another visit from the famed Mr Sands). Routes being looked at are things like gated access through other sites, and lit pedestrian routes to take people safely away through the woods. It doesn’t involve laying new tarmac down. The club feels that the council want to help find possible solutions. They aren’t blurring regulations, just entering helpfully into discussion about what the different authorities need.

This is before any building work has to happen, a second tier to the Jewson (terraced) stand or the BCUC (single storey side of the pitch) stand both being likely candidates for development. So an initial limit of 10K on crowds at Wycombe seems movable with co-operation and some creative thought. Whether or not the Causeway Stadium is to be the permanent home for Wasps is another matter. That decision does not have to be taken yet.

I haven’t touched on the community development work, mainly because I don’t know anything about it. Other than anyone who comes into contact with it sings its praises from the roof tops. This has brought many local rugby people into Wasps and many local people into being local rugby people. I cannot imagine that such a success story would be pulled if Wasps did go back to Loftus Road. Having made a new load of Waspies I can’t see that effort being dumped, even if the people concerned would find the journey etc (see above!) challenging. I can’t imagine that nobody would travel from Bucks to Loftus Road, the question is how many?

And so in conclusion…. I am not putting forward a conclusion. I am just trying to air the issues.

Over to you.