History of Rovers' grounds - The road to UWE

New grounds

And so ever since the late 70s early 80s Rovers have been trying to resolve the stadium issue. In 1982 Bristol City's financial issues came to a head, the Rovers' board at the time sought to take advantage of this and offered £450,000 to buy Ashton Gate. When City folded and City 1982 was formed this option was rebuked, Rovers then suggested a ground sharing deal at £45,000 pa. We also touted Bath City at this time.

Rovers also tried to buy back Eastville, however this proved difficult and the commercial value of the area was being recognised, notably when Tesco bought land nearby to build their store.

A new stadium was suggested in Stoke Gifford and the local council was in favour, a £10m sports complex was tentatively planned that included a new ground. However this came to nothing.

After we moved to Twerton, attention was switched to a new all seater stadium in Mangotsfield (Carsons Road). This would have been the first all seater in the country with a capacity of 11,000 designed to meet the newly published Taylor Report. Sadly, the local council (and for what it was worth, the local MP) rejected the plan on the grounds it was greenbelt land. The fire at Twerton shortly followed which added to the disappointment and costs.

Whilst I don't recall any costs being mentioned at the time, Yeovil's new Huish Park ground was opened around then which cost £3.5m so I would have thought something around the £5m would be a reasonable "guesstimate". We had just banked around £2m from the sale of Nigel Martyn and Gary Penrice, plus the Leyland DAF trophy run so it could have been affordable.

In 1991, Hallen Marsh was planned with (from memory) a 25,000 seater stadium which could be increased to 40,000. I can still picture the artist impressions with the obligatory hot air balloons. This was later rejected as being too close to the chemical works to be safe for spectators.

In 1993 a follow up plan was suggested in Pilning utilising a 60 acre site to build a 20,000 seater stadium. This too was abandoned in 1998 (?)

In 1996 we then moved to the Memorial Ground (later Stadium) and eventually attention turned to rebuilding the ground over time and several plans were submitted and approved.

In the Autumn of 2002 tentative plans to redevelop it into a 20,000 all seater were made, with a separate sports development project with South Glos Council.

In September 2003 South Gloucestershire Arena came forward with a plan for Easter Compton, this was scrapped in January 2004 after local opposition.

By 2004/05 season, plans to redevelop the ground into a 17,000 all seater with an initial new stand housing 5,500 fans to replace the Blackthorn End. This was later deemed a piecemeal and too disruptive approach so was abandoned in favour of a complete redevelopment. This became a £16m plan to create an 18,000 seat stadium with student flats in October 2005. Approval was granted in 2008 after some adjustments and a temporary move to Whaddon Road was planned. Then came the financial crisis.

This brings us to the UWE.

In February 2012 the UWE plans were announced, and by July 2012 South Gloucestershire Council approved plans. By January 2013, the plans for Sainsburys to buy the Memorial Stadium were approved by Bristol City Council. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government rubber stamped the plans. We then just needed to wait for the clock to wind down for objections.

Sadly, this duly arrived towards the end of the period in September 2013 when TRASHorfield were formed and objected at the last minute. This started a protracted period of Court Hearings. Their objection was overruled by March 2014.

After a lack of action and various denials, it started to become clear that Sainsburys were having second thoughts and were looking at getting out of the deal. Further Court sessions followed and in July 2015 Rovers lost the legal bid to enforce the contract. An appeal was launched which finally failed in March 2016.

In addition to these many attempts, some others had been touted such as the Bristol Fruit Market and a joint stadium with City at Hengrove. None of which stood up under scrutiny but they make an interesting footnote.


The questions I have are (1) Can anyone add to this either by more information or clarification and (2) which of these would have been your favourite. For me the most realistic, other than the Memorial Stadium rebuild plans was the Carsons Road plan. I believe that had this stadium been approved in 1990 then our history would have changed greatly and for the better. All supposition though.

Severn side stadium?

The road to what?

Not sure the last paragraph is quite right :-

"Eventually we were able to return to Bristol by moving in with Bristol Rugby Club. The rugby club were in serious financial difficulties so we agreed to a 50% share of the ground at at a cost of £2.3m. In 1998, Bristol's financial issues became worse and they wanted to sell to Amtrack, reputedly for £1m. That agreement fell through as Amtrack pulled out so we triggered a clause in the ground share agreement where we could buy the remaining 50% for £100,000.*"

As I understood it the Rugby were about to sell the whole ground to Amtrak and we stepped in to buy 50% of it for the same amount. That deal had a clause that if either the Rugby or us went bust the other could buy them out to protect the ground. I always thought the nominal fee for the 50% was £10K not £100K but might be wrong.

It says quite a lot about us, the fans.

We've had to put up with a hell of a lot sh!t over the years, and we still keep going back for more.

I doubt there is another club who's had to put up with what we've had to.

False dawns, false promises. The UWE the latest in the long line of "Bristol Rovers stadium news!!!"

Tesco didn't buy land nearby. They bought the Muller road car park to build on from the Steven's on the understanding that no football was played on a Saturday. That was how I remembered the start of the sorry saga.

Spot on Gashead. I rarely buy in to the "we're worse off than you" type of feeling. I always think clubs outside the top two divisions fare pretty badly. But you are right, no one else has had a worse time than us. They always say about Brighton and how they had to travel to Gillingham for a season (or two) and then at the Withdean. Reading and Swansea got their new grounds fairly smoothly and Bournemouth just redeveloped Dean Court without the money and then went bust, but at least they had a new ground! I quote these teams because 20 years ago they were the same as us and we can aspire to where they are....with a new ground. Some of the commentators don't have a clue as to what Rovers have been through and I doubt if they care either. One of the factors for those clubs might be they are all one-club-towns and the councils don't have a conflict of interest. But Christ, everyone makes it hard for us don't they?
And as for us fans, well I doubt if Swansea, Reading or Brighton would get 9,000 if they were where they were, and Bournemouth would struggle to 5,000.
UTG!

Next year we will have owned the Mem for the same period as Eastville - 19 years.

Agreed amgas. When we moved in in 1996 it was purely as tenants. The rugby club were going to sell the entire ground to Amtrack's pension fund and we stepped in with an offer to buy 50% of the ground for £2.3m. I seem to remember that either club going into administration, allowed the other to purchase the remaining 50% for £10,000 as you say.

I believe while we were at Eastville, there was a short-lived Ian Stevens' inspired proposal to rebuild the stadium with a roof over it. Not surprisingly that rapidly vanished without trace.

Really interesting summary of all our attempts at acquiring a new ground. I'd forgotten there were so many.