Inside Leeds United’s plan to modernise Elland Road while maintaining its edge

With fans standing on seats, swinging white scarves around their heads and singing I Predict A Riot in unison, the unique atmosphere of Elland Road could not be captured more perfectly than last season’s win against Norwich that sent Leeds United to the Championship play-off final.

Fervent and joyous at the prospect of a return to the Premier League, the old stadium can also be a cauldron of hostility – a place visiting teams can find difficult to deal with. Watching the people get lairy, as the lyrics to the Kaiser Chiefs song goes, can shrink some opposing players as much as it lifts those wearing all white.

And that will be the task for the club’s 49ers Enterprises owners as they look to expand their 127-year old stadium and move it into modern times. Everyone associated with the club, from fans to the boardroom, accepts the need to improve the ground but it cannot be at the cost of losing its edge.

Last month, Leeds announced the next phase of their expansion of Elland Road with proposals to increase the capacity by 15,355 seats, which would make it the country’s seventh-largest club ground as a 53,000-seater arena, “in a stadium that retains the unique atmosphere”, according to Leeds chairman Paraag Marathe.

The stadium has long been on the agenda at the club, prior to 49ers Enterprises taking full control, so it was always going to be a project for the American owners to work on. The group built the Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara where the San Francisco 49ers have played for the last decade. It has been the host for Super Bowls in the NFL.

Sleeping giants

So that is the dream for the 49ers Enterprises; to retain the atmosphere while moving with the times. An elite stadium – with prestigious Uefa Category 4 status, which makes it eligible to host European club football – is the plan. But it is the plan for a Premier League team.

That wild night against Norwich put them on the brink of a return to the top flight but they were beaten at Wembley by Southampton. It is understood the work on the expansion will start if they get out of the Championship and back into the big time.

Daniel Farke is a manager with a track record of promotion and excellent points hauls in the second tier, and this vision rests on him getting the team back promoted. They are currently fifth, looking handily placed for a shot at going up, but there are no guarantees.

High-profile, albeit minority, investment from celebrities such as Will Ferrell, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and the Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps only reinforces the view that Leeds have huge potential. Red Bull identified them as a shirt sponsor and their kit manufacturer is Adidas.

Current status

Anybody driving on the M621 cannot miss Leeds’ colloseum from the motorway, with the large Jack Charlton East Stand and its steep trajectory unmistakable. Sight of the white girder-like beams at the top of the stadium means you are getting very close to the match. Driving towards the stadium, however, can send fans, and journalists, into palpitations. That final stretch from the motorway down onto the actual Elland Road street is a notorious bottleneck that can add time to journeys.

“Every year there is a story about the city of Leeds getting a tram service and expanding the stadium,” said Rob Conlon, of highly respected fanzine The Square Ball. So we have been here before.

What Leeds have done is appoint a Local Transport consultant to look at the routes to the stadium by road and from the city centre. According to the club the aim is to “ensure an improvement in the experience for both residents and supporters arriving at the ground”.

How will the development look?

Leeds have not released images of their plans. It is a long-term project and they are getting everything in place in the event of promotion. What they have released is the appointment of stadium specialist architects KSS and they have a track record in British football. They have worked on Leicester City’s training ground, which is regarded as one of the best in the Premier League and is the talk among players at other clubs for having a golf course built onsite. KSS have worked on Anfield’s expansion and Manchester United’s training-ground revamp.

There will be an upgrade to the hospitality areas in the West Stand, which makes the build financially viable according to sources. Leeds are also determined to get their season ticket waiting list down, as it currently stands at 26,000. They will also plan to increase the number of general admission tickets.

“There wasn’t much further detail apart from the announcement so we’ll wait and see what the trade-off is,” said The Square Ball’s Conlon on the balance between more hospitality and keeping the atmosphere. “There is a lot of unknown to it. But there is obviously a need to modernise the stadium and nobody wants it to lose its soul.”

Keeping Elland Road atmosphere

Whether Elland Road will retain its roar from the stands has been a topic of conversation. To that end, Leeds will work with acoustics experts on “reverberation times”, which is the technical term for the time between chanting stopping and decaying by 60 decibels.

The company who worked on Tottenham’s new stadium, Populous, worked with the sound engineers of U2 and tapped into the experience of stadium concerts to fine-time the acoustics for Spurs’ ground.

As Conlon points out, fans are not getting too carried away, as they have heard about plans for the stadium before. What is clear is that everybody wants to stay at Elland Road rather than relocate.

Talk has more been about moving the Thorp Arch training ground but they ended up giving their headquarters a major refurb under Marcelo Bielsa and have stayed there. They are staying at Elland Road too, and it will have a different look if they get back in the Premier League.