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Essex CCC looking into using Olympic Stadium for Twenty20

Furball

Evil Scotsman
Breaking news on Sky Sports News.

Interesting proposals, Essex and West Ham will be looking to ground share the Olympic Stadium post 2012.

Essex will keep the county ground at Chelmsford as their home ground and use the Olympic Stadium for Twenty20 matches according to the proposal.

Will be interesting to see the proposals, the plan is to reduce the capacity from 80,000 to 25,000 and use it as an athletics venue, an idea which West Ham's owners have branded as nonsenscial. If the capacity is kept as it is, or even reduced to say 40,000 or 50,000, it could be a massive boost to Essex's finances.

Keeping this discussion out of the official English season thread, because there's a few issues which this raises - not least Burgey's point the other day about the size of cricket venues in England, as well as the place of Twenty20 as the main revenue driver, both for the counties themselves, and the ECB.

If the Olympic Stadium idea is a goer, there's the potential for the ECB to raise massive revenues through scheduling internationals, hosting the Champions League, and the domestic T20 Finals Day.
 

vcs

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It would have to be a drop-in pitch, right? As an aside, I've heard that the MCG hosts some football matches, I've always wondered how they do that.
 

Jayzamann

International Regular
It would have to be a drop-in pitch, right? As an aside, I've heard that the MCG hosts some football matches, I've always wondered how they do that.
They just plonk it in the middle, no changes in seating.

File:CG-MelbCricketGround-Pano.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The idea of using larger stadia for Twenty20 has foundation, imo. It's like how they're planning on shifting NSW T20 matches to the Olympic Stadium which is larger than the SCG.
 

Jayzamann

International Regular
You can kind of see the square in the middle of the ground. iirc that game against Greece was held in Winter, so the ground was prepared for football games anyway.
 

HeathDavisSpeed

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
They should just go back to using Valentines Park, Ilford. It's pretty much just round the corner - or up the main line or something.
 

Chubb

International Regular
They should just go back to using Valentines Park, Ilford. It's pretty much just round the corner - or up the main line or something.
It is also a dump, but I guess you know that.

I like the idea. It's easy to get from Chelmsford/Colchester/Southend to Stratford, and I'd like Essex to have some cash to splash!
 

HeathDavisSpeed

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
It is also a dump, but I guess you know that.
I used to enjoy watching Essex play their annual Ilford Festival match, thankyouverymuch.

Still, I'm not against anything that makes Essex a better club. Let's face it, Chelmsford is only ever going to be an international cricket backwater, suitable for Women's internationals and hosting Papua New Guinea's 'home' games at the World Cup, so a decent sized stadium within easy reach of the main towns of Essex is great.

Plus, the big advantage of the Ilford ground was the exposure to London youths of Essex cricket; something sadly lacking in the current schedules. Its easy to forget that a number of Essex's best players have been trained in Ilford.
 

Chubb

International Regular
Plus, the big advantage of the Ilford ground was the exposure to London youths of Essex cricket; something sadly lacking in the current schedules. Its easy to forget that a number of Essex's best players have been trained in Ilford.
That's a very good point.
 

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