Five Aside Football Pitches in Finsbury Park

Ali

http://www.haringeyindependent.co.uk/news/4844894.Five_a_side_pitches_planned_for_Finsbury_Park/?ref=mr Not sure I like the idea of additions to the park which would include more floodlights and a pavilion housing changing rooms, an office and bar or social club What will the guys with thier model radio racing cars do ?

tosscat

Sort of the same subject; has anyone seen the dog obedience training over near Manor House - it's really great to watch.

tosscat

Oh, and [yawn](http://www.haringeyindependent.co.uk/news/4844894.FiveasidepitchesplannedforFinsbury_Park/?ref=mr)

hellojo

5 a side pitches doesn't sound bad - as long as there are other places for the existing activities to go. Not sure about floodlights..

But 80 more parking spaces for cars and bikes? That's really nuts. That side of the park is too full of cars as it is, and if people are coming to play football, surely they're athletic enough to get the tube/bus and then walk? You'd need to find a way to encourage people to do that, to avoid people driving anyway and parking in nearby streets - maybe a price difference?

graeme

Seems like it might bring some benefits of evening access across the park.

Agree with hellojo though, why do users of a local facility need so much parking? Endymion's a snarlup at the best of times without the extra traffic this will bring. There's a bike park at the station, and a massive rail and tube and bus hub right there.

And the noise is a major nuisance with 5-s complexes.

And agree, does this area *really* need more football?! Hmm, council site says "If the tarmac area was converted, the pitches could also be used for other sports such as netball and tag rugby." They can ALREADY be used for netball and tag rugby.

I suppose it's a revenue stream for the council which might be driving this. I wonder who initially proposed this?

It's a weird one, but by handing it over to a private company, it might make money for the council. The 'trust system' and pay-point at the new tennis courts hasn't exactly worked.

JungleFaceJake

Oh No Sounds Awful and stuff...

Think about the local something or other!!, its going to further light polute the sky so I won't be able to see 'Inserst funny planet name here'

What are we going to do?

Does anyone want to start a regular match? there must be 10 five-a-siders on this forum..

Ali

This is the Haringey Notice so far http://www.haringey.gov.uk/index/news_and_events/latest_news/five-a-side_plans_for_finsbury_park.htm I love the way the council claim they have provided an informal football are along side Seven Sisters Road ! Is that not just set of guys with their jumpers as goal posts !

markwhitehead

The plan will change a nice open space where people can play basketball, volleyball etc, teach their kids to ride bikes, do exercise classes, play with radio controlled cars, or whatever they want, for free, into a privately-run complex you have to pay to get into, with up to 80 cars parked alongside.
I think the idea of doing up the area, perhaps with some five-a-side pitches, is excellent, but why hand it over to a private company?
I think it should be kept as a fully public asset, not turned into a commercial operation.

andy

The school behind us has been doing five a side for a couple of years. Weekend mornings used to be amazingly quiet. We felt really spoilt, because of this little tranquil corner we had found. Now, from 9am, there's screaming and shouting and quite frankly, too little midfield movement for effective pass-and-move. I love 5-a-side, but it was nice when it wasn't there.

ADGS

Oh joy, more disruption and profiteering on the back of footballism, because the area's really short of that. And I'm sure Haringey's consultation on this plan will be every bit as democratic and free of foregone conclusions as Islington's was on the speed bumps.

Reg

Tosscat - we love watching the dog obedience lessons too. If anyone is in need of £250, take a video camera down there and wait five minutes. Its as if it was a big set-up for 'You've been Framed'. Very amusing.

krappyrubsnif

Anyone got a dog?

bennyfromtheblok

I've often sat around watching the dog obedience lessons and it's comedy gold. The impression I got last time was that they hadn't done the lesson yet that teaches the dogs to stop trying to hump each other.

krappyrubsnif

If you were a dog, which would you rather be doing?

twinspark

I've been playing 5-a-side for years and there is a real shortage of good facilities. We play in Shoreditch as this is the nearest reasonable space. There was a short-lived place in Stokey but swimming pool sprang a leak and the whole place closeed.

Part of this difficulty is due to other sports becoming popular,e.g basketball, which uses the same space and therefore available time slots are reduced. We used to play at the Sobell before their arcane booking system drove us away - couldn't get a regular slot unless it was before 4pm,[?!] [or you were a friend of someone on front desk - we had to book in person and only half-hour per member - so two members had to queue at 8am and hope they could get back-to-back slots!! After that a half-hour drive seemed a doddle. The reason you take a car is because you carry quite a lot of stuff, you need to lock valuables away and most importantly you're knackered afterwards and want to drive home - 80 spaces is too many though about a third of our number drive, some cycle, others walk. [ they probably plan to charge for parking so 80 = more £'s]

andy

I used to play at spitalfields (before it was a market) and they would only take bookings at 10 on the dot, a week in advance. It was like getting a table at a hot restaurant, four of us used to have the number on redial and keep hitting it trying to get through.

markpack

Dog classes sound unmissable. What time / day?

tosscat

Sunday afternoon I think, I'll have a look.

andy

and sunday mornings

twinspark

These obedience classes are really for the owners aren't they?

hooofck

I think generally this is a great idea.

I've lived in this area for years and have always played 5-a-side but have to travel to Enfield and Battersea Park to get a pitch. Sounds like there are other people also want to play but find it hard to get a game anywhere nearby.

I pass that area of the park twice a day and there are rarely more than a few people on there, often doing stuff they could do just as well elsewhere in the park.

But with these pitches, you're giving up to 100 people per hour the opportunity to enjoy playing sport - isn't that the sort of this councils are supposed to do? - I bet it would be really popular too. And if they raise some revenue along the way then all the better.

And I understand nobody should be subjected to shouts of 'Time, Mickey, Time' every night but these pitches are a little way away from any residential property aren't they?

sg_mike

I don't think it's too hot an idea converting the old tennis courts. The people who use them for pick up basketball games, as well as the "jumpers for goalposts" football games on the main park use them because they're free and nearby.

All that happens when a 5-a-side centre is put down is that people from right around London come and use the 5-a-side pitches, and everyone who was there before squeezes onto somewhere else which is still free.

If they opened up the CH reservoir as a park with no lights, changing facilities or anything else then maybe giving up some of FP for 5-a-side pitches might be OK.

And yes, there's probably another thread somewhere on the CH reservoir but I really can't be arsed to go find it and put a link in ...

ShaunG

I recognise I'm probably in a minority here but I couldn't agree more with hoofck's comments. This area of the park currently gives little pleasure to anyone, and seems to me like the last scrappy bit of what is a hugely improved park over the last 10-20 years. The excess demand at the Sobell shows there is local need, and I really can't find anything in the plan to object to.

markwhitehead

It's a great idea if:

1 You like playing 5-a-side football
2 You've got some money to spare
3 You like driving to your sports activities
4 You don't care about a free, public space where all sorts of activities go on like teaching kids to ride bikes, remote controlled cars, basketball, exercise classes etc etc being turned into a commercial operation available only to those who can pay
5 You don't mind loads more cars driving in and out of Finsbury Park

markwhitehead

PS personally, I'm against it. It's the privatisation of leisure for the benefit of the few.

Keep Finsbury Park free!

JungleFaceJake

1) I like playing 5-a-side Football
2) I have some money to spare
3) I don't Drive, but I love polution
4) I hate free public spaces, they're always full of stupid kids falling off bikes, and tossers driving remote control cars (badly) and people murdering an already crap American sport.
5) The only thing missing from Finsbury Park is a shit load of Cars drining in and, indeed, out.

hooofck

I'm not sure why we're assuming everyone who might use this facility will drive there. Where I play football virtually no one ever drives there. They go after work on the tube or bus or maybe cycle.

Also, on the money issue, it's usually about £3 per person to play 5-a-side which really doesn't exclude anyone.

I've been past that area three times this week and a grand total of zero people have been using it. Anyway, it's not like they're selling off the whole park, there would be loads and loads of free space still...

I think they should retain a couple of basketball and maybe a volleyball court but I don't know... it just feels like people object to anything new... I don't understand how anyone could be nostalgic for that big area of empty tarmac in an otherwise lovely park.

ADGS

Because it's free, and lots of different people seem to get lots of different use out of it (some even for football), and because sometimes when they've all gone home I just like to wander over to the edge of it and gaze out across the tracks (though there's less opportunity for that now the park shuts so early).

Alex

This debate reminds me of [Ground Control](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ground-Control-Fear-Happiness-Twenty-First-Century/dp/0141033916/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264029288&sr=1-1), which wanted to be a blistering polemic on the creeping privatisation of Britain's ertswhile public spaces, from Canary Wharf to Manchester and Liverpool city centres. This is supposed to be profoundly anti-democratic and generally a very bad thing. Unfortunately, apart from being poorly written, the book was also weakly argued, and the author ended up demonstrating that the private bodies put in charge of many of the spaces were able to manage them better than when they were subject to local authority neglect. Keeping spaces clean and safe, and converting them to popular new use, turns out to be something that private bodies can be quite good at. In this case, I don't see a problem in principle, as it is simply another paid-for amenity in the park to join the boating lake, cafe and athletics track, all of which cost money already. I would prefer a brightly lit and well-used new facility to the dark and neglected space there at present (especially in winter).

rainbow_carnage

Would privatisation keep the park gates open later? And would the extra traffic encourage the council to add some streetlights? If the answer is yes, I'm all for it. Anyone who's had to choose between crawling under the cycling gate or walking the length of the park in the dark will understand.

andy

@alex Interesting recommendation. This stuff starts and finishes with Janes Jacobs, as far as I'm concerned