Looks great, then you look at the bunged up and butchered hill in the background, and you remember jeez, Penrith (who already has an amazing stadium) gets a complete upgrade and overhaul, within 10-15 year of their last major one.
You then realise we are like the Scottish nobles in William Wallaces time through history, squabbling over the scraps from longshanks table (piecemeal improvements, like buying new boxes of Lego, and adding on as we go), while Penrith is the ruch becoming richer:
Sure the hill looks tired.
WRT Penrith, all we have heard is that they are first cab off the rank for a stadium rebuild, one that’s supposed to kick off at season’s end.
Given the size of the project, slated to cost c.$280m, you might have thought advice was in on an architect, tenders were called etc. The season ends in six months and a state election is less than 12 months away. They had better get cracking.
If history is any guide (look at the recent faffing around at Moore Park) I wouldn’t bet on a Penrith rebuild before the end of 2022, especially with the increasingly difficult and expensive cost of finding suitable builders/contractors, in a competitive market for large scope infrastructure work nationwide. Just this week Rob Stokes said as much in the NSW Parliament.
Meanwhile Brookvale has just had around $33m spent on an upgrade - the old ‘bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’ argument.
Let’s roughly extrapolate the money spent in the last three decades at Brookvale (into 2022 dollars) on the:
Ken Arthurson Stand (KAS), approx. $3.5m in 1995 dollars;
Electronic scoreboard and its newer replacement (overall cost unk.); and
TV standard lighting ($1m in 2005 dollars).
Plus in the 2009-12 timeframe:
Seating upgrades across three stands and the western concourse;
Corporate upgrades to the KAS plus a new passenger lift (the latter installed about 4-5 years ago); and
Extension to the Jane Try Stand with accompanying improvements to corporate, food/beverage and toilet facilities.
That last batch of work cost north of $10m at the time and the overall list isn’t exhaustive (did someone mention WHS-compliant upgrades at key points of the ground?). So if you convert it all, including the most recent work, into 2022 dollars, probably well in excess of $50m has been spent at Brookvale Oval in the 1992-2022 timeframe.
That would almost certainly exceed the sum spent directly on Penrith Park in the same timeframe, which consists mainly of extensions to their 1978 western stand, perhaps some corporate boxes fitted to their 1988 eastern stand; and some relatively minor work at the back of their southern hill, incl. a new scoreboard. Plus the ubiquitous TV lighting somewhere along the way, (presumably) courtesy of joining Superleague.