Wednesday this week brought contrasting news for two famous English football clubs regarding their home grounds.
Coventry City, a quarter of a century on from the greatest day in their history, when they beat Tottenham Hotspur in an enthralling Wembley F.A. Cup Final, were struck with a demand to pay £1.1m in rent which remains owed for occupancy of their Ricoh Arena home. The Sky Blues moved from their long –term abode at Highfield Road – scene of so many dramatic last gasp survival battles and forever synonymous with the club – into the modern but identikit surroundings of the Ricoh in 2005.
The switch to a costly new environment has not provided Coventry with the hoped for boon. In fact, it has coincided with the bleakest era in the club’s history. They have fallen into the third tier of English football for the first time since they topped that division in 1964, and suffered damaging and enduring fiscal difficulties. Coventry were placed under a transfer embargo earlier this year as they fought, unsuccessfully, to remain in the Championship.
A mini on-pitch revival is underway in the West Midlands since the appointment of Mark Robins to replace Andy Thorn as first-team manager, but the sword of damocles hangs threateningly over the club. Arena Coventry Ltd, the organisation responsible for managing the Ricoh Arena has warned that they will issue the occupants with a winding-up order if they are not in receipt of monies owed by Boxing Day. Alarmingly, it has emerged that Coventry are being charged a staggering £1.28m per annum as tenants at the venue – to give that figure some context the average 12 month sum charged to clubs in the same division is £170,000.
The case of a shiny new ground not being a precursor for joy on the field is far from unique to the Sky Blues. Southampton left their claustrophobic but evocative home at the Dell in 2001. Like their Midlands counterparts, the Saints had profited from the rudimentary surroundings at their compact, beloved dwelling. Many celebrated visitors were vanquished as the South Coast team became a top-flight fixture.
A mere four years after the St Mary’s stadium began housing Southampton’s home matches they were playing their football in the Championship, which unfortunately happened to be a two-year stopping post before a subsequent descent into League One.
Happily, the Saints are now recovered from those miserable years – which included the ignominy of entering administration in 2009 – and are in possession of arguably their strongest side since the days when Matt Le Tissier, Alan Shearer, Tim Flowers and Rod Wallace could be seen tearing into Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and many more esteemed opponents in front of a tightly-packed, raucous crowd at the Dell.
Sunderland hoped that leaving the tired Roker Park, a host ground during the 1966 World Cup, for the Stadium of Light would herald an upward turn in fortunes for the team. The Black Cats current home is capable of producing an electric atmosphere when well in excess of 40,000 are in attendance and doing their best to reproduce the famed ‘Roker Roar’. All too familiar for Mackems, however, is a matchday lacking in sustained atmosphere, while their side’s form remains consistently patchy.
Since the dawn of football at their 49,000 capacity arena in 1997, relegation has befallen Sunderland on two separate occasions. Indeed, the prospect of starting life in more plush settings failed to inspire the team enough to avoid being demoted immediately prior to their move.
The failure of the ‘new ground phenomenon’ as the solution to all financial worries, and synchronous spur to grand on-field feats is far from unique to Coventry, Sunderland or Southampton. Derby County, Leicester City, and Middlesbrough can all offer cautionary tales.
Arsenal have been playing in a wonderful arena at the Emirates Stadium for six-and-a-half years. The ground offers everything a spectator could ask for in terms of comfort and sightlines. Nevertheless, it unquestionably provides nothing akin to the buzz created at their former home, Highbury, and certainly contains nothing of the history and tradition that was redolent when watching football at that magical venue.