Farewell to the terraces of my youth

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While the performance of the team this season has caused severe angst amongst the Hellas faithful - and rightly so - equally, people have become concerned with the progress of the Lakeside redevelopment. I know that many South fans are both anxious and excited about the redevelopment to our ground - and it's certainly a feeling that seems to exist especially strongly amongst those who live far from the venue, and have no reason to head down that way any longer while there are no games on. At Laverton Market, one of the traders there asked me what was happening, and I've been asked by fellow travellers while watching the reserves at Altona East PAOK. In addition, at the recent game against Altona Magic, I was being asked by readers of this blog as to what the situation was, and I was unable to give a definitive answer beyond what I had been told at the time, in that they hadn't started works yet.

A week has passed since I posted an aerial photograph of Lakeside taken in late June of this year. Within the same day, I was politely informed by a reader's email that they were now woefully out of date - I invited the reader to submit to the comments section, but they've gone one step better and provided a half dozen photos, of which I've selected what I believe are the three best to illustrate what's happened. They're from yesterday as well, so these are very fresh. As you can see, the terraces are indeed gone, as are Waverley Park's wooden seats, finally dead after all these years. The light towers are still there, but the scoreboard and the sponsor banner poles are gone. The toilet block on the outer side is still there though, but the rickety old media tower is gone, and it's about time too.

I thank our reader for their photographs, which while instilling a sense of sadness - both South related and existential - also provide a level of reassurance that things have started happening on this front at last, that we've reached the real point of no turning back now. I will still use the aerial Nearmap photographs when they become available, as I have a fondness for aerial/top down photography, and enjoy the neat, linear effect that the Nearmap service provides. Of course, this operation won't solve our immediate on field problems - that's usually beyond a government that's non-totalitarian - but it does offer a little piece of perspective, perhaps. Don't forget to click on the photos to enlarge them.