Progress in the project has slowed recently due to a mixture of real world activities and Subbuteo league matches taking priority over the build.
There has been a little bit of work on the temporary stand bases, which surround the pitch. These bases can be added when a match is not being played. If anyone has ever tried to play a match with grandstands in position, then they will know just how restrictive they can be.
As our surround areas are only temporary, we have been trying to find a balance between sturdiness and weight. The sides are fixed pieces of MDF and the ends are smaller boards and hinges for the corners. The corners have bene especially challenging as the board is effectively unsupported, so we are trying to design a way to add support from both side pieces.
We hope to hide any additional supports either underneath the boards or under the grandstands. As you can see from the images, our Subbuteo room is not really big enough with the stadium in place, so that is creating some extra difficulties when working around the outside.
Our testing has shown that the 18mm MDF we have been using is just too heavy. We chose 18mm as this would match the height of the pitch, but moving such large, heavy pieces in a small space is proving too much. We plan to replace it with 9mm MDF and then add extra support underneath to maintain 18mm depth. We just hope that 9mm MDF will be thick enough to not bow when in place.