Apologies to mods if I've missed a thread on this. These images break my heart: http://www.arsenal.com/article.asp?...e+year+on+since+Highbury’s+Final+Salute Guess I'd feel better if I was buying one of those flats...maybe. I know what we've gained, and are gaining, but dear Lord what a loss!
I'm going to admit here and clear it up completely: I've supported Arsenal since 1997. However, due to lack of the correct TV channels, often I was unable to watch the actual games live. Only in the last 5 or so years I have been lucky enough to watch live League games on TV - many times I had to rely on minute by minute text commentary on BBC.com or short highlight compilations a few days after every match. Despite having actually been lucky enough to attend a CL match at Highbury in 2004, and despite supporting the team for a number of years, I don't hold as big as an attachment to the stadium as many other fans. Anyways, just had to share that fact!
i dunno, i guess people really didn't understand it when they just said the facade, at least in the west stand. the east stand has more to it right now.
Made the left turn out of Arsenal station when I went to the Bolton match last year and wish I hadn't. Walked by what was left of the East Stand and it was crushing.
I'd always they were keeping more that just the wall on one side, made me feel quite emotional when i saw it a couple of weeks ago...
In the end, more of Highbury will remain than what normally happens to classic ballparks in the States where if you're lucky, you'll get a remnant of the outfield wall or a plaque where home plate once was.
Once they use the remaining sides as sides for the new buildings it will look better, but at the minute it looks like Victoria Beckham, nice from the front, then almost completely invisible side on. A little push, and it'd completely collapse. Ok, so now's there's a Jens Lehmann comparison too!
Yeah, it is just the facade. Saw it last weekend. It is kind of sad, but in the end, they are doing the best thing (of course it was mandated) by leaving the facades up. Because once the project is complete, that wall with Arsenal Football Club and East Stand will still figure prominently on Avenell Road. I'm looking forward to visiting it again and again over the years.
I wouldn't. Extra capactiy means more fans get to more games. Ultimatly your there to watch the football, not gawp at classy 1930's Art Deco
I stuck my camera under the gate to take this pic of the east stand on Sunday (from the west stand...the north bank was on the right.)
I'm a sucker for old sports stadiums. The two games I saw at Highbury, and the 6 or 7 other times I've visited the ground on trips when there were no games, are at the top of my list when it comes to memories. At the top might be the time one of the girls working in the shop took my wife and I down to the very edge of the grass and let us stand there and take it all in on an off day. The time I met with one of the marketing guys in a corporate box on an off day was really cool too. It was an unbelievable ground with a tremendous history and will always have a place in the hearts of Arsenal fans. But, time moves on I guess. I try to look at Highbury objectively, and I really can't find too much fault with it. People here in Chicago were horrified when Soldier Field was renovated. Not being from there and having no connection to the stadium, I could see that it was a horrible, horrible place, a dump if you will. And, the new Soldier Field is freaking awesome. Hopefully Emirates will continue to provide the same type of mystique and magic that Highbury did.
Interesting question. I'm in architecture, and judging by the looks of this, there probably wasn't much disclosure as to how the "guts" were going to be preserved. In this case, when the presentation drawings were shown to the public, the effect was to show how the fascades of the East and West stands were going to be saved and integrated into the concept. The flats would be organized and assembled within the fascades of each side for the sake of efficiency. Still, quite a bit of it has been removed... On a side note, i had heard that there might be ashes of former beloved fans buried behind the goals. Is this an urban myth, and if not, i'm assuming there have been "arrangements."?
I still think the club should have kept it as a museum and facility for reserve and ladies games. To me, the money we are getting from the flats isn't worth destroying almost a hundred years of history. It's brutal.
Remains of players and supporters were buried beneath the pitch, and contacts were made to see if families wanted them left at Highbury or taken over to the Grove.
Uh, ashes were scattered on the pitch, but there weren't any coffins under the pitch, which is what you seem to be hinting at.