Gunners' green light for danger

Will Arsenal decide there's no place like home?

As Arsenal prepare to leave Highbury, BBC Sport Online's John May looks at how other clubs have coped with moving house - and some of the dangers involved.

Arsenal will have to be wary that the green light for their field of dreams is not a red light for danger.

As other clubs have shown, a move to a new house is fraught with problems on and off the field.

Arsenal's stature gives then an immunity to some of the mundane difficulties suffered by lesser clubs who have moved.

But it would be folly for Arsenal to ignore some of their lessons.

Foremost of which is the delicate tightrope-walking act of balancing the funding of a major, multi-million pound project while not short-changing Arsene Wenger's team building capabilities.

Hamstrung

As one of English football's big names, Arsenal would have little problem in attracting finance for their new stadium.

The difficulties arise when the money has to be paid back.

Bolton are expected to announce debts of £33m when their annual accounts are published this week.

Those debts are a direct result of building and moving into the Reebok Stadium.

Bolton are hamstrung by interest charges of £2.5m a year with all income diverted to paying for the stadium.

Bolton's Reebok Stadium threatens to be a financial millstone

Manager Sam Allardyce's feat in maintaining the Trotters' current mid-table position is all the more creditable for that.

Bolton are a prime example of how crucial it is for clubs who move to new stadiums while in the Premiership, to retain their top flight status.

The middle two of Bolton's four seasons at the Reebok have been spent in Division One.

And failure to bounce back immediately following relegation forced them to sell Claus Jensen, Eidur Gudjonhsen and Mark Fish.

Allardyce has had to cut his playing cloth accordingly this season, with Henrik Pederson his only substantial signing at £650,000.

Mortgage

New players have been recruited on season-long loans with options to buy, or retained on year-long contracts.

All designed so they can be jettisoned at the end of the season if Bolton are relegated.

With the millstone of interest payments threatening to drag them down, Bolton are looking to transfer the means of paying for their stadium.

They could take a leaf out of Southampton's book.

Saints are paying for their 32,000-seater Friends Provident St Mary's Stadium on a mortgage.

The repayments are slightly more than for a semi-detached, but the principle is the same.

They pay a fixed rate of interest over a set period of time and the Saints built in a worst-case scenario into their calculations.

Southampton are paying for St Mary's with a mortgage

That scenario is relegation and Saints chairman Rupert Lowe has ensured that if the worst should happen, Saints would be able to cope with the repayments on reduced First Division gates.

Arsenal would feel that relegation is not a factor they would need to take into account.

Saints had other problems, though, which Arsenal might heed.

It took Southampton six games to record their first win at St Mary's while they settled in amid talk of curses and Saxon burial grounds.

Arsenal might want to ensure Ashburton Grove is free of psychic nasties before moving in.

Either that or get their players conditioned to playing on a pitch that will no longer be the smallest playing area in the top-flight.

Testament

But what benefits can Arsenal look forward to in moving to a new home?

Simply, bigger crowds and increased income.

Since moving to St Mary's, Southampton's crowds have doubled.

An average of 29,833 have flooded through the turnstiles, twice as many as could shoe-horn into The Dell's cramped 15,000 capacity.

For a team struggling at the foot of the Premiership, it's a testament to the Premiership's pulling power.

With chairman David Dein claiming that Arsenal have a 20,000-long waiting list for season tickets, the Gunners would expect to pull in close to the 60,000 proposed capacity of their new stadium most weeks.

It is not difficult to work out the effect such a dramatic increase in capacity would have on Arsenal's income, and the consequent effect on their spending-power.

Arsenal's field of dreams will take shape over the next two years, and as the voice told Kevin Costner in the film of the same name, the message is simple.

Build it, and they will come.