What if: Re-developed the Manor

DreamInYellow

Level: Mateo Corbo
(13 Apps, 8 Yellows, 1 Red)
Retrospect is a fine thing, and as a relativley younger supporter I probably don't fully understand the full circumstances of the time. But can I put the following out there:

The Manor was deemed not fit for purpose. With our annual rent of 500k per annum since 2000. If invested at the Manor site, would it be fit for purpose now?

Genuine question, please reply respectfully.

Ps. I know looking backwards isn't helpful. But maybe fully understanding the decisions along the way is beneficial to younger fans.
 
Absolutely impossible. Try visiting the area today. It is totally hemmed in by houses and roads. Plus the hospital owned ground that there is no way they would give up, nor the bowls club on Osler road. Stands were entered by alleyways and small residential streets. Cookoo Lane was a football disaster waiting to happen, ask any away fan.
 
Belgium Yellow said:
Absolutely impossible. Try visiting the area today. It is totally hemmed in by houses and roads. Plus the hospital owned ground that there is no way they would give up, nor the bowls club on Osler road. Stands were entered by alleyways and small residential streets. Cookoo Lane was a football disaster waiting to happen, ask any away fan.
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Appreciate your reply. I went to the Manor as a 9/10 year old boy. I have nothing but magical/naive memories.
 
DreamInYellow said:
Belgium Yellow said:
Absolutely impossible. Try visiting the area today. It is totally hemmed in by houses and roads. Plus the hospital owned ground that there is no way they would give up, nor the bowls club on Osler road. Stands were entered by alleyways and small residential streets. Cookoo Lane was a football disaster waiting to happen, ask any away fan.
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Appreciate your reply. I went to the Manor as a 9/10 year old boy. I have nothing but magical/naive memories.
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It was indeed magical. But it was time to let go, unfortunately.

*Sobs*
 
When you look at aerial photographs of the Manor you can see just how hemmed in it was. It really would have been very very difficult to make it into a stadium for a progressive club in the 21st century.

Having said that, it was a magical place, and if I could have one thing that money can't buy, it would be a time machine to transport me back there for one more game. I still can't believe I'll never stand on the London Rd terrace again!
 
Yeah my nan and grandad had a house on staunton road and my dad used to drive me and a mate or two up for a cup of tea before heading over to beech road terrace. It was magic. But to see the small narrow lanes leading to the away end, well, I can now see how that wouldn't be possible. However, that was real football for me... walking into the London road with my mates as a teenager was so exciting. But then I knew I'd be seeing joey, Matty Elliot, bobby ford etc. I don't want to be a downer but what we have now is a vast vacuous wasteland of a stadium compared to my days at the manor.
 
I reminisce every day [emoji22] Other half works there and boy at nursery just off cuckoo lane. Sad that the hospital doesn’t highlight its past.
 
MJB said:
Sandhills Yellow said:
I reminisce every day [emoji22] Other half works there and boy at nursery just off cuckoo lane. Sad that the hospital doesn’t highlight its past.
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Football pitch in the middle of a ward is probably going to be a nightmare for infections.
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True! There’s no recognition of the history tho. Something for another thread maybe.

Whilst I remember, anyone know what happened to someone’s plan for a plaque at The Brit?
 
Great thread, shame it couldn’t happen after all the magical times I had there, but impossible. Someone did ask this at the town hall meeting all those years ago when Kassams name first cropped up, bet they wish they put more consideration in to it now, even though it wouldn’t have worked.
 
I`m just so grateful to have experienced it at such a magical time for my club. Born in Old Headington (just past the Bell, another memory trashed) and lived for many years on Grays Road The Manor was part of my growing up. From walking past on the way to school to riding past on the way to work and then graduating to a "spot" on the Left Side LRT. I was also fortunate enough to see a game from every stand & terrace at The Manor. I could probably write a book on the memories.... from being pictured in the OM watching over the fence from a mates back garden in Osler road to getting there late for a midweek and watching from the Cuckoo lane (think it was Bolton) the view of the LRT from the other end was dark & menacing and noisy. It could never have been redeveloped in its old footprint for the reasons noted above, the Bowls Club are ridiculously wealthy and can`t be "bought", the price of purchasing housing etc the hospital grounds etc as well as the rights of public access along Cuckoo Lane/Devils Alley.
However nobody can take those memories and its just that that makes many of us "old farts" the heart beat of the club.

I`m off to mither in the shed with my pipe......
 
It was a very unique football ground with a lot of idiosyncratic characteristics.
It is amazing when you talk to football supporters of other teams, who are in their 50's 60's they remember and tell their story of their trip to "The Manor" as an away supporter.
The car park - the modern fan would struggle here! I think there were a few car park spaces round the back of Beech Road/London Road corner, probably 10 at most. Everyone had to park in a side street and walk, this included the players!
 
Yes, the Manor Ground had huge "investment potential" not as redevelopment as a football ground but as residential land. Unfortunately Mr K saw this and bought the ground himself and with a bit of planning permission sold it at huge profit to enable him to complete the build of the new stadium (sorry, partly complete). So we are only paying £500k rent a year to Mr K for a building that he financed out of the Manor Ground.
 
Perhaps Mr K could be persuaded to buy the manor hospital back, he could sell it to another of his companies who could redevelop it into a football stadium and rent it back to us with a promise of first refusal should he ever sell it on. All we need is someone to sign off on the rent for 25 years.

That might work....
 
Had some great memories, some utterly awful memories and everything between.

In fairness, much as in a perfect world I would have loved to have seen it, there was in truth nothing there to renovate. With the new regulations being passed on stadiums around that time there just wasn't the space.

I class myself as lucky to have cut me teeth (so to speak) on the London Road.
 
Osler road, 3 steps up just to the left of the urinal. Watching OUFC take the p*ss.

Never looked back!?
 
With the slope at the Manor some of Mehmeti’s theatrical dives would of taken him twenty foot if we were shooting towards the cuckoo lane end.

The Manor was a unique ground, tighter than a Jewish jock, with stands thrown up at random so we have gone from having 102 to 3, and a slope Eddie the Eagle trained on. Hemmed in by houses, alleyways, hospitals petrol stations, bowling greens etc it created a great match day experience, one that unfortunately can’t be replicated nowadays.

Those who design modern football grounds completely miss the point though, it’s a place you spend a couple of hours at so it doesn’t need to be a pristine, sterile environment, you don’t design a great football ground like The Manor, you grow one, that’s why the old grounds were so much better, a stand put up here and there gives a place character, just lumping identikit stands round a pitch does nothing to create a footballing home.
 
holdsteady said:
With the slope at the Manor some of Mehmeti’s theatrical dives would of taken him twenty foot if we were shooting towards the cuckoo lane end.

The Manor was a unique ground, tighter than a Jewish jock, with stands thrown up at random so we have gone from having 102 to 3, and a slope Eddie the Eagle trained on. Hemmed in by houses, alleyways, hospitals petrol stations, bowling greens etc it created a great match day experience, one that unfortunately can’t be replicated nowadays.

Those who design modern football grounds completely miss the point though, it’s a place you spend a couple of hours at so it doesn’t need to be a pristine, sterile environment, you don’t design a great football ground like The Manor, you grow one, that’s why the old grounds were so much better, a stand put up here and there gives a place character, just lumping identikit stands round a pitch does nothing to create a footballing home.
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"The Manor was a unique ground, tighter than a Jewish jock"

Big grounds,big stands,give the impression of a big pitch.
Small grounds,compact stands,give the impression of a small pitch.

Pretty sure i read years ago,that the playing surface at the Manor was bigger than Old Traffords.
 
The Manor was special, it was build and constructed by people who loved their football club, a proper fans ground and old school that would be hard to replicate today, but for all the good memories the ground itself had long past its sell by date, and this romantic view it was packed to the rafters most weeks full of singing and atmosphere is a myth, for all the good "matches" we had there were an lot of awful matches at the Manor.
Most of the people who went to the Manor are of an age when you look back everything was better, well if you had the internet and this forum around in those manor days, you would of really heard some whining about everything, the fans Today don't realise what they have got.

The only thing I would bring to our ground from the Manor is the occasional big match atmosphere.
 
LondonRoader said:
The Manor was special, it was build and constructed by people who loved their football club, a proper fans ground and old school that would be hard to replicate today, but for all the good memories the ground itself had long past its sell by date, and this romantic view it was packed to the rafters most weeks full of singing and atmosphere is a myth, for all the good "matches" we had there were an lot of awful matches at the Manor.
Most of the people who went to the Manor are of an age when you look back everything was better, well if you had the internet and this forum around in those manor days, you would of really heard some whining about everything, the fans Today don't realise what they have got.

The only thing I would bring to our ground from the Manor is the occasional big match atmosphere.
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I couldn't agree more.
The last scum game at the Manor,the crowd was 7,400,1500ish scum fans so less then 6k home fans.
Our crowd against Bury that season was 3,600 about 3k less than last Saturday.
People had just had enough of s**t facilities,i think i went about 6 times that season.
 
saddletramp said:
I couldn't agree more.
The last scum game at the Manor,the crowd was 7,400,1500ish scum fans so less then 6k home fans.
Our crowd against Bury that season was 3,600 about 3k less than last Saturday.
People had just had enough of s**t facilities,i think i went about 6 times that season.
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I think people had grown tired of the team more than The Manor, that was probably the most inept side I've ever seen turn out for us. Didn't we concede 100 goals that season?
 
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