A premier-class experience
By Almo
November 13 2016
My first experience of the Ricoh Stadium, Coventry, was our pre-season match against Wasps. Despite playing a Championship side, the home-coming debut of lost Wasps’ son Cipriani helped swell the crowd over 7000, meaning that, come what may, Carnegie had probably performed before the biggest crowd and in the best stadium of the season.
Now I must declare a personal interest here, as the Ricoh is only 5 miles from where my Mum lives and from where I was brought up in Warwickshire. Speaking to locals, the Wasps take-over of the Ricoh has been a revelation, with the words “they know how to look after their fans”, a typical comment. So I decided to go back. I have an old school friend who now lives in Surrey, but more importantly lives and breathes rugby, so we arranged to visit our respective Mums, have a few pints for old times’ sake and then visit chez Wasps.
Wasps against Falcons was possibly not the most attractive Premiership match on the calendar, but it fitted our diaries. Arriving at the ground pretty early (as that was the point, after all) we wondered around to see that the Wasps players were making their way into the ground one-by-one, certainly not in the traditional annoying “get off the coach with earphones and ignore everyone” mode, but instead in a friendly “hello to the fans and happy to have a selfie with you” attitude. So a good start. Captain and England International Joe Launchbury was happy to greet fans
Then we wandered into the “Fans Village”. This was a huge exhibition hall, complete with tables and chairs for probably 1000+ people, and an excellent live group who occasionally rested to let the children dance and the brass band play. Food, beer (including excellent UBU Real Ale), netball, face-painting, passing the rugby ball etc etc all available within. Well attended by supporters of all ages/genders/affiliation and very impressive. Through the turnstiles and under the stands to three sides of the pitch there is a corridor with stalls on both sides selling food/beer/ the usual nasty-burgers etc. Making our way to the seats the friendly security guard said, “don’t worry about segregation/ where you drink beer – it’s not football, you know!”
So to the inside of the ground itself, which was built with Coventry City in mind – a soul-less oversized concrete stadium, or something feeling like a friendly rugby ground? The Ricoh was featured as the venue for the Rugby League Internationals last weekend, so some people would have seen it on the TV. The all-seated capacity is just over 32,000 and 15,000 were comfortably accommodated for the Falcons match. Excellent views from all round, although the ends behind the goals are seemingly kept empty for bread and butter Premiership matches, and those with vertigo are advised to pick a lower tier seat.
The pitch is a “hybrid” part grass, part textile affair, which stood up to scrummaging much better than Headingley, The Principality stadium (Cardiff) and many other pedigree rugby venues. So happy to report that the ground - despite its history - has a real “Wasps” feel to it and makes an excellent rugby venue.
And the match? Wasps won and it was very noticeable that the standard of play was a long way beyond Championship level: Falcons are playing so much better than they did when we ran them close in their Championship year.
In conclusion, full marks then to Wasps for adapting their new home so well and creating a truly excellent rugby experience. My friend and I will probably be visiting our Mum’s more often in the future……
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016:12:02:15:28:15 by Wildwillie .
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Quote:Bobba
Well done Almo! Good account of your visit. I think a big "well done" should go to the Board, coaching staff, players and indeed the supporters of Wasps who despite the countless doom-mongers predicting a disaster of a move to Coventry, have proved them to be wrong. The move has benefited the Club, the City of Coventry and Rugby generally in the Midlands. It would be nice if that Club in LS6 took note and adopted some of the decisions made by the Wasps board.
Thanks Bobba, but I think that there are already enough clubs in the Coventry area.
I seem to recall that Leeds Rugby own a bit of real estate that has been set aside for sporting activities, which they are currently using as a big stick to bludgeon Leeds Council into changing the usage of that land for the benefit of Leeds Rugby and Yorkshire Cricket into modernising the decrepit stadia that are called Headingley. If the land was to be used for the purpose it was intended, it could well be that the Council in Leeds would be more amenable in other areas. That in itself is irrelevant in that there are those captains of industry, who are involved on both the Rugby and Cricket side of the business, who could pay for the redevelopment out petty cash.