What Highfield Road did have was a strong 'brand' of its own if harnessed right - 60s games, first televised screening of an away game, first prefab stand... first all-seater in England! I struggle to accept the general consensus that it wasn't able to expand. The area's hardly renowned for pricey houses
sure if the will was there, things could have been done...
But, there we are. Can't go back, even if we wanted to. We're not alone in losing that branding either - corporate naming sponsorship dilutes that even more. The main handicap with us building our own isn't the building in itself - if Scunthorpe and Bristol Rovers can do it (although the latter haven't yet, of course!) then so can we. They did of course have grounds to sell, although Rovers built back after being homeless and playing in Bath of course... and Bristol already had Ashton Gate, so the 'only need one ground in a city' doesn't apply (sure, Bristol's bigger, but Cardiff's not much bigger than us and has a rather obvious pair of stadiums).
Still think if they were truly genuine about it, the way forward's in partnership with the University of Warwick. If Birmingham Uni can build an Olympic sized swimming pool, after all...
Oh and as for the Ricoh, the problem was as the budget got cut it lost all its USPs and identifiers. It became generic flat-pack. That's a curse that befalls many, many English grounds. If only we could do something like this: