The plans for Manchester United’s new Old Trafford see it become worryingly similar to many other new stadiums across European football.
The first time I ever visited Old Trafford was in 2004 for the league visit of Charlton. At the age of eight, the stadium took my breath away just like it does to every child in a corny football movie.
I grew up in the countryside so this behemoth felt like an otherworldly place. One where heroes lived and the best football in the country was played. I can still remember the white metalwork on top of the roof, the red MANCHESTER UNITED letters beaming out into the misty evening sky.
Twenty years later I was back at Old Trafford and it all felt rather similar. The stadium is still as intimidating but a stadium feeling the same way as it was two decades ago is not entirely a good thing.
Inside, Old Trafford still had the red rubber floor that wouldn’t look out of place at a rundown leisure centre. A falconer was near the pitch, sending the bird to catch rats that had made a home. Workmen hung from the top of the East Stand, fixing one of the many holes that gives fans an unwanted shower during a wet matchday.
When my team, Ipswich, were promoted to the Premier League for the first time in 22 years, it was Old Trafford I looked for first in the fixture list.
It may still have the mysticism around it but no one can deny it had been left to rot. The Glazers’ apathy towards their home ground had seen it not just no longer be the best club ground in the country but one that was in the headlines for one star health and safety food hygiene.
When Sir Jim Ratcliffe paid £1.25bn to become the face of the United mess, he identified Old Trafford as one of the main areas of concern. The last major work done to the stadium was in 2006. In that time, Manchester City, Liverpool and Fulham have developed their grounds. Brentford, Spurs, Brighton and soon Everton have all built new homes. Even my own club Ipswich gave Portman Road a facelift after their Premier League return was secured.
But the neglect of Old Trafford has meant the cost to restore it has become massive. Ratcliffe’s attempt to access public money was negotiated to help with the area around the stadium meaning the reported £2bn fee will come for the club, all while having a £1bn debt chained around its neck.
On Tuesday, Ratcliffe was in London to present the future of Old Trafford for the first time. Designed by architect Lord Norman Foster, who most recently helped revamp the Camp Nou, the first images of the completed stadium were released and it was all just a bit meh.
Not too dissimilar to what we have seen in the Middle East in recent years, the plans see the stadium draped over by a tarpaulin-looking umbrella which the club say will harvest solar energy and rain water. They also say it will be visible from 40km away which, forget atmosphere and affordable ticket prices, is what every fan wants.
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Three spires surround it, one with what looks like a viewing platform where you will no doubt have the luxury of a £2,000 ticket to see the players as small as ants, and plans show what under the umbrella will look like.
The designs show circular platforms with dancers performing on top. Mascot Fred the Red high fives kids as they walk past the Red Cafe. Members of the public watch the Manchester marathon while a canal boat sails by (which will be nice for the two days a year when it doesn’t rain).
The projected vision is exactly what the owners want. A one-stop shop for fans to be and crucially spend money. Every inch of the new plans has been designed to be monetized. Gone are Old Trafford’s four looming stands and instead there is a flat bowl. The reason for the move from four stands to a bowl is obvious: you can fit more people in and then make more money.
United are not the only ones to do this of course. Arsenal abandoned the historic Highbury for the Emirates and even 19 years on, there is little atmosphere there on matchday. Spurs have been praised for the futuristic stadium they deployed in 2019 but the juxtaposition of this hundreds-of-millions-of-pounds project being next to one of the poorest areas of London is only something you would see if you went there and not just watched on TV.
Head 12 miles south and West Ham fans can tell you all about how a football stadium is not a football stadium just because you say it is.
In Europe, one of the best-looking and most iconic stadiums in the world, the Bernabeu now looks like a microwave from the outside. The San Siro was about to be demolished before it was deemed a site of cultural interest.
The result of this new trend is dozens of Europe’s top clubs playing in identical-looking stadiums. Athletic Bilbao’s San Mames looks like Bayern’s Allianz Arena. Atletico Madrid’s Metropolitano Stadium looks like Wembley. Soon Old Trafford may well suffer the same fate as the Emirates.
But a soulless bowl is not the only choice for clubs. Liverpool have successfully built up Anfield without losing its soul. Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion is an example of how a stadium can fit over 80,000 whilst keeping the four-sided theatre that football was formed in.
Old Trafford had its flaws, of course it did after so many years of neglect, but it’s sad that another landmark of English football is going the way of so many others.