Welcome to our section on our new stadium build project.
After many years of loving Subbuteo and football stadiums in general, we are fortunate to have the space to begin work on a brand new stadium based on Tottenham’s White Hart Lane stadium from the early 2000’s.
We do expect this stadium to take a number of years to build – this is not going to be a quick, ‘couple of months’ project. The other dilemma, which is a nice one to have, is how much time do we put into the stadium opposed to using our spare time to continue our solo Subbuteo league. Time will tell…
With plenty of ideas to incorporate into the build, there is lots to do, but we won’t be giving too much away at the moment, as its nice to keep a few surprises for later updates . We will mainly be using Subbuteo modern stadiums for the initial build, although we will look a Zeugo too.
The initial plan is to create a simple stadium to begin with. This will mean that it can be used for matches, whilst work can continue to turn it into a replica of White Hart Lane over time.
If funds allow, we hope to do some 3D printing to create some custom bits to make my stadium unique – although there is a concern that our imagination is far more advanced than ability! We have already obtained a couple of iphones which are intended to be used as scoreboards. These may require a custom frame to fix them to the stadium roof – plus add some add further construction pieces so the roof does not collapse.
The actual stadium will have to be configured so that it can be removed from the sides of the pitch, to allow for matches to take place. There has been some thought to model not only the stadium itself, but the outside space too – this has commenced already have via purchases of a few 1:76 coaches, which will arrive outside to drop off the teams.
There are two main questions which are under consideration before we go any further:
1. The pitch. We already own a Subbuteo soft pitch, a Subbuteo Astropitch plus we have been tempted by a new Pegasus chequered pitch. Which should we go for?
2. Floodlights – we already own 4 of the Subbuteo modern floodlights. If we are being true to realism, then White Hart Lane did not have floodlight pylons, so should we use them or go for LED strip lighting? Or should we find a way to incorporate the old floodlights into the design as they are such a ‘feature’ of older English stadiums?