colonial roof

[bomberthommo]

i was just wondering what everyone thinks about this idea,seeing as theres been quite a few problems with the turf,especially with it not getting enough sunlight,etc in some parts,well i just wonder if it would have been fesible to have put a see thru roof on top,thus allowing sunlight to get to the turf,and also so there wouldnt be those anoying transititions from shadow to sunlight during a game telecast
what does everyone think?

 

[Dan26]

Astro-turf is the answer. Little maintenance and an even surface all round

 

[ytry4]

Well, if we had the kind of roof you are talking about, then it would be a greenhouse, and thus, the players, crowd, etc. would be cookin'...

 

[Daniel]

Isn't astro-turf more conducive to knee injuries and the like? I thought that US gridiron players incur more injuries on astro-turf because it is firmer than grass. Could be wrong, though.

 

[The Ball]

Daniel, your right about astro-turfs. They do incur more injuries than grass. Also, the NFL has said in statements that it prefers natural grass surfaces compared to astro-turf.

 

[Dan26]

The thing I don't understand is that they can build a space shutlle and they can put a man on the moon, but they can't find an arificial turf that is as soft as grass !

How hard can it be ? I'm sure it can be invented. Gees, just find something in a laboratory that is a soft as grass and put it all over colonial.

 

[Pessimistic]

The sad fact is that this should have been resolved before the damn thing was built.

I think they knew the problems before they built it , as they (the problems) are so obvious.

Perhaps they are 'hoping' that technology will come up with an answer. But they should have based the $460M investment (which we will all pay for) on more than that. It could be 10 years before technology comes up with an answer.

As I see it they grow the grass somewhere else, then put it in there in 'squares' then the grass starts to die. They are already replacing it much faster than they budgeted for so you either blow out the costs or reisk player injury or poor football.

PS It was nice on saturday night. They shut off the top deck so the bottom and middle deck seemed quite full. If the 16,000 crowd was a true one then its much more than they ever got at waverley v freo, even on a warm day. I hate to think how many would have gone to waverley to see freo.

I do think there were a lot of hawks 'supporters' there wh hadn't beento the footy in years. Two even got the police to ask my mates to move on for 'barracking' too loud

PS The olympic sadium has a translucent roof to avoid those shadows you get on very sunny days. This is mainly for the TV

I remember seeing a model of colonial with a bright light above it and thinking it would be a problem (the shadows) Perhaps if channel seven has it's way they will close the roof on sunny days also.

 

[bomberthommo]

Originally posted by ytry4:
Well, if we had the kind of roof you are talking about, then it would be a greenhouse, and thus, the players, crowd, etc. would be cookin'...

but the roof isnt sposed to be shut during sunny days,only during incliment weather (usually theres no sun light when it rains) or at night,when they r closing the roof anyway.........im sure they could come up with something to control the climent over such a large area so that we wouldnt have the greenhouse effect your mentioning

 

[The Ball]

What the architects should have done with their design of the stadium was that they firslty get rid of the permentant roof, i.e. the one underneath the movable roof. Secondly, thay should made the roof retract totally away from the stadium, either into two parts like now or a single roof the contracts into a smaller one. This would mean that the stadium would have been totally open on sunlit days, which would also have meant the grass would have been in mint condition.

This sort of design was used in America when they were designing baseball parks and it seems successful.

Another design they could have used was a moveable pitch. That is, a pitch that would move underneath the stands so that adequate sun light could be recived. This was used in a soccer stadium in the Netherlands for the forthcoming Euro 2000 tournament and also for the proposed New York Mets baseball stadium. However, the drawback of this system is that it is expensive to build and maintain.

 

[Tracker]

Pess, there was a 40,000+ crowd out at Waverley but freo had nothing to do with it.

They were there to see Dunstall's last game, 100 freo supporters there max.

(I know this is an exception to what you are saying though).

 

[Pessimistic]

Yes I was at the dunstall game. I didn't include it because the other freo games are consistently low drawing.

I thought it was a great idea to not use the top deck on saturday night. the crowd for the hawthorn game looked much bigger on TV than the melbourne bulldogs one which drew 26,000. but patrons were spread thinly in the top deck (I think it holds 22,500 up there)

Incidentally, on Colonial. It's good to see Jackson and co resorting to the standover tactics by criticising any player who makes a comment on the colonial surface as being 'precious'. Saying they should remember surfaces 10 years ago. He cited waverley of ten years ago, before it was fixed up.

By talking about that he has highlighted that the AFL have always been negligent on surface preparation, and have not learned a thing.

Conveniently forgetting that some $460m (and possibly the future of the game)have been invested here and we should all expect more.

The saad thing is the grass is grown elsewhere and when transplanted to colonial, immediately begins to die. It's your stadium which is precious, mr Jackson, not the players.

 

[elt]

Exactly Pess.

The whole point of this "fantastic" new stadium was that it would be an *improvement*. What would be the point of building a very expensive stadium that is on par with where our grounds were 10 years ago?

Don't like the leaky roof dripping on your new seat? Well it is just as wet as a seat in the outer at Waverley was ten years ago on a rainy day

 

[Eagle_Fan]

Don't want to harp on the surface since I haven't seen it, but we've lost our best midfielder for another week because of an injury sustained on the newly laid turf in the centre. Maybe it would've happened anyway, but I'm not sure. His foot got 'stuck' in the mud and twisted under him. Still frustrating though

Hope he's back soon cos we REALLY need him! (How's our outs this week? Gehrig, Cummings, Matera, added to Cousins, Wirrapunda, White, Symmons and more.... and McKenna's is chronic, and Banfield's just come back... Makes up for our couple of relatively injury free last seasons I guess....
BTW/ nice of Kouta to knee McKenna in the back last week. Career, and possibly life threatening injury, and he's stuck his knee right at it. They were winning comfortably, there was no need for it. Very sad aspect of our game)

 

[Pessimistic]

Those (including Jackson) sescribing players as 'precious' are playing the man, not the ball. Discuss the grass (or lack of it) rather than the attitude of the players.

Isn't it funny how the roof at colonial was the most discussed thing last year. Yet now it's here its the least contentious thing. The roof is twice as good now the cold weather has set in. The only drawback being we can't afford to pay for it !

 

[bomberthommo]

just getting back to my query for a sec,doesnt man utd's large stand have a glass roof for the purpose of letting the sunlight through to the pitch,and yes i know that they dont have a roof over the ground,but its just an example of another ground that is trying to let sun light to the ground (c:

 

[The Ball]

While that is true bomberthommo, the Man Utd pitch still has to be relayed several times a season.

 

[servo]

They were discussing this on sports radio in Adelaide yesterday.

They talked about a soccer ground in Stockholm that is in a permanently covered stadium. Whenever the ground is not in use the whole base of the playing surface rolls outside onto the carpark thereby getting all the required sunlight and rain it needs.

While it is a great solution to the problem it would be a bit difficult with an Aussie Rules ground due to the oval shape and the much lareger area involved.

Very ingeniuous though.

 

[Sandra]

Servo - if the AFL hadn't been so eager to to provide carparking at colonial for those that can easily afford taxi or limo travel anyway, they would probably have had the extra dollars to put into the playing surface.

 

[GoEagles]

This is directly off the AFL Website.

MELBOURNE, June 7 AAP - The AFL's troubled-plagued Colonial Stadium in central Melbourne has reportedly been hit by more problems with cracks in the trusses that support the state-of-the-art moveable roof.

Cracks and splits discovered in the trusses were possibly due to high winds causing greater than expected stress, or may have happened during construction, The Age reported.

Shane Leonard, the building surveyor at the stadium which opened in March, said even if the damaged trusses fell out, the stadium's roof would not fall in.

'If the three members that are showing cracks fell out, the roof would stay up ... (but) the roof could deflect slightly,' Mr Leonard told the newspaper.

'When the cracks were discovered, they had been there for some time. I would say it's happened during construction,' he said.

Colonial has been hit by various complaints since it opened, including criticim of the accoustics at a Barbra Streisand concert, access problems, ticketing problems and questions over the turf quality.