Crystal Palace Football Club has been given the green light to build a new main stand at its Selhurst Park home, increasing the venue’s capacity from 26,000 to 34,000 seats.
The Premier League Club, which pays in south London, gained unanimous support from planners at Croydon Council after making a few recommended modifications to the blueprint. The new stand design pays homage to the original Crystal Palace, the building in whose surrounding grounds the club was originally formed before moving to Selhurst Park in 1924.
Sheet metal fabricators may be busy at work on providing many of the materials, as modern stands tyically have a lot of light but sturdy element to enable the roof structure to be supported from the rear by means of a cantilever. This enables it to cover spectators without having to be supported by pillars in the stand, which can obstruct the view for those nearby.
Such stands have been in existence in England since Scunthorpe United installed one at the Old Show Ground in 1958, but the addition of more modern materials and innovative designs means Palace will end up with something appropriately more crystalline – and palatial.
Club chairman Steve Parish noted this when he remarked: “It has a nod to the Crystal Palace and the eagle’s wings and I think it’s a very exciting design. Lots of glass. Very, very, very similar.”
Other football clubs that may be constructing new stands soon include Scottish side Aberdeen, who want to move from their ageing Pittodrie home to a new site nearby. A report by Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce and MKA Economics, jointly commissioned by the club and the city council, has said the project would give a £1 billion boost to the Aberdonian economy.
The club had previously planned to build a new stadium adjacent to their training ground at Kingsford on the western edge of the city.
