Filbert St

Wessy Boy

Roofer
Just seen some aerial shots on Twitter of Filbo, then and now

Firstly, it a crying shame that the site has not been developed properly. Just some cheap student flats occupying a fraction of the site. Other clubs have have seen old grounds developed sympathetically and mark the previous use of the land.

Also, was there ever any consideration given to developing the ground buy moving half a pitch width westwards and building a new main stand on the car park? As I type I'm thinking a bigger East stand would probably been a non starter due to blocking light to the Burnmoor St homes?
 
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Just seen some aerial shots on Twitter of Filbo, then and now

Firstly, it a crying shame that the site has not been developed properly. Just some cheap student flats occupying a fraction of the site. Other clubs have have seen old grounds developed sympathetically and mark the previous use of the land.

Also, was there ever any consideration given to developing the ground buy moving half a pitch width eastwards and building a new main stand on the car park? As I type I'm thinking a bigger East stand would probably been a non starter due to blocking light to the Burnmoor St homes?
There were some plans to do that before building the Carling Stand.
In fact I think when the Double Decker was built some consideration was given to swinging the pitch round.

What gets me is we couldn’t get permission to replace the Popside yet there are now flats there twice as high as any new stand would have been.
 
There were some plans to do that before building the Carling Stand.
In fact I think when the Double Decker was built some consideration was given to swinging the pitch round.

What gets me is we couldn’t get permission to replace the Popside yet there are now flats there twice as high as any new stand would have been.
The problem wasn’t permission to build higher. The popular side was built out of matchsticks by John Merrick and he didn’t have enough. When the Carling Stand was under consideration, the Board did suggest a rebuild using lollipop sticks. But Merrick was long dead by then.
 
There were some plans to do that before building the Carling Stand.
In fact I think when the Double Decker was built some consideration was given to swinging the pitch round.

What gets me is we couldn’t get permission to replace the Popside yet there are now flats there twice as high as any new stand would have been.
There was talk about rotating the pitch before the Carling Stand was built
 
Secretary at the time John Smith was behind plans to redevelop Filbert Street by turning the pitch in 1980
 
Just seen some aerial shots on Twitter of Filbo, then and now

Firstly, it a crying shame that the site has not been developed properly. Just some cheap student flats occupying a fraction of the site. Other clubs have have seen old grounds developed sympathetically and mark the previous use of the land.

Also, was there ever any consideration given to developing the ground buy moving half a pitch width westwards and building a new main stand on the car park? As I type I'm thinking a bigger East stand would probably been a non starter due to blocking light to the Burnmoor St homes?
I feel just the same each time I walk to the ground. If someone had deliberately wanted to trash our history by leaving the site in the state it is in at the moment, they could not have done a better job. The student flats are awful; with them I am reminded of Walnut Street. When I was growing up in the sixties it was all terraced housing, deemed "unfit for human habitation ". They were replaced by cheap houses that did not last fifty years and were demolished and replaced with more cheap housing.

Do we know who owns the site ? I was very impressed with all the development that had taken place around Carrow Rd when we were there a couple of weeks ago, a vast improvement on when I lived in Norwich in the seventies. Where's Soulsby in all this ?
 
There were some plans to do that before building the Carling Stand.
In fact I think when the Double Decker was built some consideration was given to swinging the pitch round.

What gets me is we couldn’t get permission to replace the Popside yet there are now flats there twice as high as any new stand would have been.
I did a tour round the ground in about 73/74 (I was 10). We were told then that the plan had been to turn the pitch through 90 degrees and utilise the car park. However the Electricity Board built a substation in the bit of land behind the old main stand where it joined the double decker. The club were then in the process of buying the houses along Burnmoor Street, and at the time only needed about 4 more. I believe that the club sold these off in the 80's/90's when attendances dropped and they needed the money.
 
The car park was never going to be built on because the maze of cabling connecting the old power station to the city meant any building was not cost effective.
The present student flats were the first half of the planned development but the world economic crash put the rest on hold.
Yes, there was a plan to switch the stadium round but it was abandoned for several reasons. Keen to expand the Filbert street stand, the club had, for several years been buying up every property on Filbert and Burnmoor which came up for sale.
The plan entered a phase of trying to persuade owners to sell up but failed as one old lady refused an offer to move and more seriously the housing assocation owning a dozen adjoining properties asked for a six figure sum. Then some remaining Filbert owners, getting wind of the scheme petitioned the council against it. The club did a backstairs deal with the council to drop the plan and shortly after ideas to move to a site on the old wood mill over the canal were discussed, the present site became available which was the best all along, anyway.
The BLs site was little more than a pipe dream.
 
On reflection it was not the 2008 recession but an earlier crisis which put the second students block on hold...
 
Tucked away somewhere in the archives
Is my one page blue programme against Aldershot when we were in the southern section of the War Time League cost a penny, half - time scores, on a board propped up by the white wall
 
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