Don’t know a heap about Redcliffe as a area or region but it’s good they have their own “boutique” stadium and a dedicated leagues club adjoining the premises.

How interested are the Dolphins in having a co tenant and being football friendly?

Would Redcliffe create a tribal divide with the Roar and perhaps gain some fans from Sunshine Coast?
Im sure you and Pauly would have a better insight to this.

The biggest aggregate attendance this past year at Dolphin has been football with the FFA Cup game and W League matches, and the feedback from club staff at Roar is the team at Dolphin have been easy to deal with. 

Redcliffe tends to be like Ipswich, clear identity but close enough to pull Brisbane size crowds. They would also service the sunny coast as well. 

The best tribal divide imo though would be Ipswich - there’s a definite rivalry there. 

never heard of Dolphin Oval, but it looks like it has some potential for Football. what is the timeline for the upgrade? 

Does anyone else find it somewhat amusing (as well as concerning) that the last half dozen comments on this thread are about Brisbane and where they should be playing?

No. Can’t talk about Brisbane enough - we should have more threads on BRFC !!! 

WU doesnt have any fans so not really

Is Wyndham Stadium Still on Track?

02/06/2019 BY PHIL

In the past week there have been new revelations about Western Melbourne Group’s (WMG) proposed Wyndham Stadium at 1160 Sayers Road, Tarneit. The Wyndham council gave the ground to the franchise to stimulate investment into the local area.

When the WMG consortium was given an A-League licence in December 2018, Director Steve Horvat stated that the stadium would be privately funded.

Horvat also stated that the infrastructure for the stadium, including a new train station and upgrades to Sayers Road, to accommodate the extra traffic, would be financed by the State Government. Club officials have also publicly maintained that they’ll set up house for the 2021-22 season.Now it has come to light in the past two weeks that these plans have changed, leaving the original timeline of playing at the Stadium for the 2021-2022 season unlikely to occur.

According to the May State budget, there have been no funds allocated to the upgrades, leaving the local community scratching their heads as to how these upgrades will occur.Currently Tarneit Train station is the nearest station to the proposed stadium and is 7 kilometres away. A new station at Sayers Road is being slated to be only two kilometres away and would be easier to get to the stadium either by bus or walking.

As reported on the SBS World Game website ‘Almost six months on from winning the bid with ambitious promises of fast-tracked permits, there’s been no turning of soil, as project managers deal with on-site issues’.Western United FC CEO Maurice Bisetto stated that this is of no concern. Greg O’Rourke the Head of the Aleague is not fussed by the setback stating that the FFA had originally expected the stadium not to be ready till the 2022-2023 season.

This raises questions regarding the funding, which surpassed the licencing bids of both Team 11 , Dandenong, and South Melbourne FC. The question has to be asked, if the goal posts around getting the licence are now moved, why did they get the green light in the first place?Further updates on the stadium will follow.

They still haven’t even started the paperwork for the approval, which ordinarily would take a year or more to go through the planning process before there is an actual approval in place.
The only hope for them is if they’ve secretly been working with Dick Wynne to get him to use his ministerial call in powers to approve this all by himself.
Kate Roffeyis a good operator but Dick is under a bit of scrutiny at the moment and I don’t think he’s gonna risk the fallout at the minute. 

Honestly at this point, if the stadium isn't going to happen their license needs to be taken away. It was a stretch to have the stadium open at two years into the bid. If it's going to be longer than how do they expect to ever connect with the people of Western Melbourne?

All I can say is they better absolutely dominate on the pitch. It's the only way they will generate any real fan base. They need to be top two at an absolute minimum. Even that might not be enough. 

I don't think it will be enough even then, the people of Geelong know that they don't want to be playing there and are only there as a stop gap. The people of Western Melbourne don't know if they will ever actually play a game in Western Melbourne. It's an organizational catastrophe of the highest order that is green light by the FFA.

They're not playing in west Melbourne though . They  are based in the western suburbs . 

I meant Western Melbourne as a collective not the singular suburb, for example Footscray, Maidstone, Sunshine, Moonee Ponds, Seddon, Maribyrnong, Avondale, Albion, Tarneit, Williamstown, Braybrook, Trugania, Laverton, Derrimut, Altona, St Albans, Caroline Springs, Deer Park.

https://soundcloud.com/fnr_footballnationradio/evenings-on-fnr-31-may-2019-fnr-football-nation-radio

Steve Horvat on the new stadium at 36mins, basically says they never expected to have turned dirt yet and that they’re still committed to the same timeline.

Say’s the kit will be a “classic design”, and that green and black will be in the mix. still hoping a mainly white design but we’ll see

Why though? Most people who follow football down here are either mv or city fans. And or euro snobs. The people they are trying to target dont like the hal due to the lower standards of the hal. I know this cos I hear it 

So horvat said one thing when they won the licence but is now back tracking. Hmm 

Also the western burbs  is more than those suburbs you mentioned  .

Have always been optimistic about this license but they really should’ve had more movement in regards to the stadium situation. Macarthur really should’ve been in first as they already had the stadium ready to go.

Um okay I just want to point out that "cos I hear it" isn't empirical  evidence, consider the participation numbers in the western suburbs. There are vast numbers who aren't attached to an A-League club, an A-League club representing them at national level might help them to engage with the A-League. There are more suburbs in the West, I don't have the time to go through and find them all, I was simply providing a small sample of the suburbs in the West.

I went to their first forum before their bid was successful, they said they would be turning soil the second they were approved and they had already done all the paperwork.

Absolutely no way they had “done all the paperwork” nor do I believe they would say that - nor could they be turning soil the moment they were approved. The planning process is well documented and can’t be short circuited. 

I’m struggling to see how they will get the planning approvals done when there really hasn’t been any steps taken in formalising it.

Steps like consultation are key to a planning process (think of all those NIMBY types that will come out of the woodwork).

Part of the reasoning given though appears to have been some soil issues on site. If it’s a significant challenge that can’t easily be overcome, I do wonder what their Plan B would be.

The transport challenges they will encounter also really have to be sorted soon though. Getting the station built is key to the success of the stadium, and the surrounding development. With no government funding locked in for that infrastructure, and a state govt heavily affected by the fall in the property market, I do wonder what their appetitive would be.

And most of those who arent attached to  a hal team are euro snobs. Those kids are more into Barca and juve than the hal. 

So we should all pack up and go home?

Well that's what they said, they said they already had permits from council, along with a Councillor sitting with them saying they did, and that they would be working as soon as approved by FFA.

So I wonder when we tally up the cost of all the infrastructure that this WMG bid requires to be successful (train station, roads, extending sewers and power etc etc), how close will that cost be to building the stadium for Team 11? From what I understand the Team 11 stadium was situated right on the major train line with all the required infrastructure already in place or only requiring minor upgrades - in addition to that, the temporary home for Team 11 was at Casey Fields, which is at least still in the catchment area for their team, allowing a supporter base to grow organically without travelling an hour down the highway. I'm sure if Team 11 was offered the licence, even on a conditional basis, that they would've found both State government and private support to help with the costs of the stadium. They had prime city location that is going to be squandered because FFA saw the licence fee that WMG were willing to pay to skip the queue.

And to top it all off, they're coming into the competition AHEAD of Macarthur, who are ready to go. Fmd, the decision making at times.

I'm still OK with the timeline at this stage (although losing faith as every day passes and there is no news), but this is what alarms me the most...

A new station at Sayers Road is being slated to be only two kilometres away and would be easier to get to the stadium either by bus or walking.

All along we have been led to believe the stadium will be on the site of Sayers Rd/Tarneit West station. I hope the article is inaccurate. 2km is about a 20 minute walk for most people. Too far for kids and the elderly. 

There was also 0 money for it in the Victorian budget.

Not that big of a deal yet, given the current time frame. However, if they cannot secure funding in next years budget then it may be a big problem. It should be easier to secure funding for the station once some actual planning progress is made for the stadium.

i look at that photo of the cow paddock "site" ----   and then of the "artists impression" of how the say it will look.

:ermm:

chewie, i've got a bad feeling about this.