Yes. So, same issue next year. One plus is that there's a sports bar just a few feet away from House, and a public park across the street. So we will have much improved tailgating/pre-/post-game pub options.
I suppose it's highly dependent on what social circles you run in, but my personal experience after living in various places in Austin over the past 6+ years is that for every 1 "downtown snob" I have met, there are 3 others that refuse to go downtown due to traffic, etc. These types that I've met tend to live in less-central places such as South Austin (as in south of Ben White) or north/west of Hyde Park. In spite of this, I still would much prefer a downtown location. After all, these are the AUSTIN Aztex. I loathe when teams are forced to out of the way places (see: FC Dallas); it damages attendance and community immensely. I think the City would want to give some sort of tax break/incentive to teams such as the Aztex to get them close to central Austin and to combat the restrictively high land prices.
I wouldn't say that is an absolute. If the Austin residents see value in this stadium, and are given good information from us and folks like GRASS, they might see what so many of us see. We aren't building a big box store here. It's a mixed use venue for soccer and outdoor music. We just have to make sure we save all the trees in the area of construction. If we don't do that, then look out.
Might (I've bolded your key word). But most likely won't. All it takes is a NIMBY campaign with a simple, catchy slogan to sway enough of the mostly uninformed masses. (BTW, I'm not meaning that 'uninformed' as a slight. It's the reality of our lives. The vast majority of people have many other higher priorities than issues-watching.) My hope is that there won't actually be much to do regarding a public vote. To my mostly untrained eye, the land is probably zoned in a way that allows for a stadium/concert venue. So it would require a more coordinated effort to put pressure on anyone in the City that has a vote -- council, planning board, etc. Ed's GRASS is a really good start on getting our side organized and prepared ahead of time. You are right, though, that if they can not only preserve the trees but add green space and open up the Tannehill Branch as part of the plan, it will go a long way toward getting buy-in from some NIMBYs. The neighborhoods west of the highway have no nearby parks of any size.
I definitely had House Park as my first choice when the Aztex first came to town, but I think switching to that stadium at this point is a mistake. Especially if they're hoping to build a stadium just down the way, in the Highland Mall area, staying at Nelson Field makes sense...and believe me I understand all the arguments about intimacy of the stadium and the skyline, etc. But I think they risk alienating a certain fanbase just like Dallas did when they left the Cotton Bowl. And quite honestly I'd not trade the east Austin fans for a bunch of prawn sandwich eaters from west Austin for a million bucks. Also, the pitch is too small, and we'll probably have to play Open Cup matches at Nelson like the Lonestars did anyway. That said, I'll of course, be in attendance, I just hope the rest of their fans follow. Basically, I hope I'm wrong about it being a mistake.
I'm not sure, but both House and Nelson were re-laid about the same time, so my guess is that we'll see the same "quality" there as we currently have. That means little padding between the slab and turf. However, this is conjecture based on when they refurbished the stadiums, and the fact they're both AISD facilities.
I had a question for everyone, regarding House Park, posted on another thread and it never got answered soo I guess I'll ask it again here. Just how much wider would the pitch at house have to be made for it to be up to your standards, ie those of you who have mentioned it's narrowness.
There's no set size. I found this online that walks you through it... "FIFA, the international governing body of soccer does not have a designated "regulation" size for the field of play. There are, however minimum and maximum dimensions for field width and length. Law 1 states that the length of the field shall be between 100 and 130 yards, and the width between 50 and 100 yards. The field must be rectangular and the touchline must be longer than the goal line. For international matches (the FIFA World Cup, WC qualifiers, region confederation championships and international friendlies) the length must be between 110 and 120 yards, and the width between 70 and 80 yards." What I would say is that our pitch, is too narrow. US Football (gridiron) is typically using fields that are 120 yards in length, and 53.3 yards wide. So is our field within FIFA regulations? Yes, except for World Cup play (which we don't need to worry about for too many reasons to list here).
I didn't get any but I did snap a photo of the orange fog emanating from the east side stands. I had a great time but feel pretty lousy about that loss. On the upside, I noticed an interesting thing. Orange paper airplanes. The nerd in me got all excited. I can buy me some red construction paper. And, I still remember how to make ones that sail pretty far (and wont hit people in th head). Gotta be much nicer than throwing random pieces of trash, which was happening a bit too often at the match. And I loved the chant (despite being a bit umm.. mean) when the Houston player went down first half. (to the tune of yellow submarine) You're going home in an Austin ambulance! Austin Ambulance! Austin Ambulance! hehe. Awesome.
Yeah, I don't like the chants about injuries as much, but that made me smile guiltily .... Next meeting we need to run with something Blackburn yelled. You still live in Houston, You still live in Houston. Feel free to add or embellish it a bit.
You still live in Houston. ... Very good idea. We have until next year to finish that one. One thing I wanted to say about watching Cleveland last night on FSC was that I thought their supporters were decent. Though few in numbers, at times they held together some solid chants in the match. I would hope that we could pick up the chanting, and one-up them. Cmon, the support needs to be a little more creative than a constant 1 2, 1 2 3, 1 2 3 4 beat with plastic horns. More than anything, it would be nice if the support was one the most original in North America. Something that stands out from the rest and something that is very clearly Austin. Not just borrowed songs and styles. With that said, the FO might want to consider hiring Funk Plastic as our spiritual beat master. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKDlWReEG-8&feature=related"]YouTube - Funk Plastic 06.02.07[/ame]
0.0 first off holy crap that cat is smokin and secondly holy sh!t I think I jammed with that gangsta. It was late, me and my buddy were heading to our car from 6th and there was this guy with a couple of buckets stacked on a plastic container. I jammed a little with that dude before we moved on. Small world.
Considering how crappy we defend with a good wide field (I think we're averaging giving up 3 goals a game anywhere outside a bowling alley), maybe we should keep House just like it is.
For some reason, this photo from Ebbet's field (Brooklyn Dodgers) in the 40's reminded me of our Army, only without the suits http://www.life.com/image/50614822/in-gallery/23782/classic-new-york-the-1940s great collection of photos though.. What's that drum say? Weird..