What Newcastle United CEO David Hopkinson said about St James' Park redevelopment plans on Monday
Newcastle United CEO David Hopkinson and sporting director Ross Wilson addressed around 1000 fans at St James' Stack on Monday night and the big story of the night was the latest update on the stadium plans.
Fans have been hanging on for a while now after several update deadlines have come and gone without a whisper.
As covered on Tuesday, the overwhelming message from David Hopkinson was that they still haven't made a decision.
While it's beyond annoying how long this has now dragged on for, it was refreshing to get some form of honesty on the subject.
Newcastle United fans can expect to be going to St James' Park for many years to come
Today, The Shields Gazette have reported on the full quotes from Hopkinson as he told the fans in attendance to expect to see St James' Park in its current form for years to come before anything changes.
“I want to be really clear on this. We literally have not taken a decision on what we’re going to do.
“We’re modelling a multitude of different scenarios. But even if we were to make a decision tomorrow, which we’re not going to do, it still takes years of permits, planning, finance, construction etc.
“That’s the case whatever we choose – reimagining St James’ Park or building a new stadium. Either takes years and years. I lived through the total transformation of the Estadio Bernabeu [at Real Madrid].
“I was around through years of work. I love what they’ve built – I think we’ve learned a lot from studying what they’ve built – but these projects are years long.
“We’re looking at a multitude of different scenarios. One of the things we are reviewing right now is that we’re going to be here [at St James’ Park], in something like the current format, for years.
“I think that there are some things we’ve maybe not done because we’ve been waiting for the bigger decision. I think we’re going to think about the phasing of this next phase of our lives, and recognise that there are things we need to do now with regard to the stadium issue.
“Maybe we incorporate that in a future renovation? Maybe we pick it up and move it with us to a new park? But recognising that we are going to be at St James’ Park in pretty much its current format for years to come is important.
“We’re thinking through what improvements should we make in that intervening period? We could make tweaks and changes to improve the here and now.”
David Hopkinson seems like a safe pair of hands
It seems that brutal honesty is Hopkinson's style, and we're completely here for it. We've been kept in the dark and fed total crap under Darren Eales, who always seemed to have a way of only ever saying what he thought we wanted to hear or simply saying nothing at all.
As long as Hopkinson sticks around to deliver this project, then, given his involvement in the Bernabeu, we feel we're in good hands this time.
We always knew that the takeover wouldn't lead to an overnight transformation of the club, and we still feel we're well ahead of where anyone thought we'd be four years later, so we'll just have to be patient. Good things are coming.
