Tell you what Huddersfield could have done with some cladding today. Brrrrrr. The dancers must have been freezing.

I had a little walk round the stadium today (mixing with the riff raff) and didn't see any water in the bar areas at all like I'd seen before the cladding went up, so looks like the cladding has solved that problem.

I was sat in the box in the south stand but noticed the ends of the north stand is still open to the elements as the cladding is only about half way down which isn't good if you have to sit there.

While mixing with the common people, I did notice the queues was massive in the bar areas!

What was the crowd?

14137, If you believe the figures.

14,137

Would they be the ones that ran out of food and beer. Great organisation!

Not sure about that but it looked like nobody was serving when I looked and the queue was massive.

The people sat at the end of the north stand next to the west were getting rather wet last night but the weather was rather extreme so cladding the corners would have helped?

There were alot more wet at huddersfield.

Here are some pics from last night

North stand Queue for the Kiwi bar about 30 mins prior to kickoff.



Normally I have no problem getting a pre match pint from this bar, but not last night.
One thing I noticed from the picture is that there appears to be only a single serving point. This is ridiculous.
Normally at Saints games there are three or four queues for people on different tills.

The Marching Inn on the half way line also had a sizeable queue



Aussie Bar in the north stand looked like fairly normal sized queue.



You will notice in all the above pics that the concourses are nice and try. There was a breeze blowing round the area though.

Below I have a pic from the Samoa game at Warrington, showing the rather claustrophobic South Stand. (half way line terrace).
You can also see in the distance a large queue for beer and food. It starts under the v14 sign and finishes near the v13 sign. So its not fair to say that long queues for drinks are purely a Saints thing.



I will add however that Warrington are far superior at telling people what they sell and how much things cost.
They have big signs showing the price of food and the various meal deals on offer, for example I was instantly aware from signs that they sold Dominos Pizza within the stand.
Saints however don't advertise at all what they sell, and also don't display clearly the prices of food on sale. I would go as far as saying that Saints may be in breach of various Sales laws re failure to properly display prices.

Anyway back to more pics.
This one shows the extremely packed North stand at half time. This was the busiest ive ever seen it. I suspect the bad weather encouraged people to decamp to the back of stand to warm up a bit.




Onto pitch side view.





This isn't my normal spec so its hard to compare, but I didn't notice the wind as much in the seats as in the past. I also thought the noise from the west stand seemed to carry better than in the unclad stadium.
The true test of this will be next season.
I also noticed that more people seemed happy to stand in the North West corner. This is probably a good indication that fans are getting a lot more protection from the elements now.

Apparently Langtree park has wind damage again

Quote ="St pete"Apparently Langtree park has wind damage again'" https://twitter.com/WishFmOfficial

Quote ="St pete"Apparently Langtree park has wind damage again'" https://twitter.com/WishFmOfficial

Saints are denying any damage to the stadium. https://twitter.com/Saints1890 St.helens star saying oh yes there was (of a sort) https://twitter.com/sthelensstar Cliff Edmundson stadium construction photographer confirming reception windows smashed and insulation seen on floor https://twitter.com/SaintsCrusaders FWIW I know the door to the ticket office was smashed the other week. When I enquired if it was vandals, the staff said no, it was merely the wind catching the door and blowing it shut vigorously. Hopefully tomorrow morning intrepid Saints fans will do a recce and check the place out to find out what the state of affairs is. on a side note, people had to move their cars from a car park were I work in Manchester because the roof and fascia was coming off an expensive office block nearby. It was also interesting watching the planes pitch, roll and yaw as they attempted to land at Manchester airport. Flight after flight came into land, then sacked it off once they realised how bad it was.

Saints are denying any damage to the stadium. https://twitter.com/Saints1890 St.helens star saying oh yes there was (of a sort) https://twitter.com/sthelensstar Cliff Edmundson stadium construction photographer confirming reception windows smashed and insulation seen on floor https://twitter.com/SaintsCrusaders FWIW I know the door to the ticket office was smashed the other week. When I enquired if it was vandals, the staff said no, it was merely the wind catching the door and blowing it shut vigorously. Hopefully tomorrow morning intrepid Saints fans will do a recce and check the place out to find out what the state of affairs is. on a side note, people had to move their cars from a car park were I work in Manchester because the roof and fascia was coming off an expensive office block nearby. It was also interesting watching the planes pitch, roll and yaw as they attempted to land at Manchester airport. Flight after flight came into land, then sacked it off once they realised how bad it was.

Quote ="The Chair Maker"Saints are denying any damage to the stadium. https://twitter.com/Saints1890 St.helens star saying oh yes there was (of a sort) https://twitter.com/sthelensstar Cliff Edmundson stadium construction photographer confirming reception windows smashed and insulation seen on floor https://twitter.com/SaintsCrusaders FWIW I know the door to the ticket office was smashed the other week. When I enquired if it was vandals, the staff said no, it was merely the wind catching the door and blowing it shut vigorously. Hopefully tomorrow morning intrepid Saints fans will do a recce and check the place out to find out what the state of affairs is.'" i saw one of the doors smashed a couple of weeks ago, its probably that

Quote ="The Chair Maker"Saints are denying any damage to the stadium. https://twitter.com/Saints1890 St.helens star saying oh yes there was (of a sort) https://twitter.com/sthelensstar Cliff Edmundson stadium construction photographer confirming reception windows smashed and insulation seen on floor https://twitter.com/SaintsCrusaders FWIW I know the door to the ticket office was smashed the other week. When I enquired if it was vandals, the staff said no, it was merely the wind catching the door and blowing it shut vigorously. Hopefully tomorrow morning intrepid Saints fans will do a recce and check the place out to find out what the state of affairs is.'" i saw one of the doors smashed a couple of weeks ago, its probably that

Nah the door is nothing to do with the wind, it was just Mose trying to get through it.

On a serious note, no structural damage at LP.

And to think I was going to unsticky this thread. Seems to have become the weather thread now.

Mind you the cladding was always a bit of a weather thread really.

Saints initial comments appear to have been economical with the truth, over damage to the stadium www.sthelensstar.co.uk/news/1101 ... it_Saints/

Saints initial comments appear to have been economical with the truth, over damage to the stadium www.sthelensstar.co.uk/news/1101 ... it_Saints/

I sat in the North Stand on Friday for the first time since the cladding was on and I didn't think the cladding had made a jot of difference outside (wind still funnelled through) but the concourse was like another stadium completely. It was dry. And not windy!

I stood in the West Stand for the international, just after it had been clad and the difference in that stand was enormous, both outside and to the concourse.

How anyone could have debated the need for cladding, if only in relation to the safety and comfort of the concourses, I do not know.

Quote ="The Chair Maker"Saints initial comments appear to have been economical with the truth, over damage to the stadium www.sthelensstar.co.uk/news/1101 ... it_Saints/'" Quote It is understood a precautionary weighting solution has been put in place with the aim of preventing further problems should winds gather force again the coming days'" Bricks on the roof?

Quote ="The Chair Maker"Saints initial comments appear to have been economical with the truth, over damage to the stadium www.sthelensstar.co.uk/news/1101 ... it_Saints/'" Quote It is understood a precautionary weighting solution has been put in place with the aim of preventing further problems should winds gather force again the coming days'" Bricks on the roof?

I am no expert but reckon the roof is too flat for prevailing conditions, traps the pressure underneath bit like the lid lifting on a pan of stew when it boils, blame the structural engineer?

You say you are no expert and then blame the expert?

possibly the worst winds for a decade flew by a few weeks ago, the roof is fine.

Its more like a plane wing. It creates lift and thats were the problem lies.