Brandywell Stadium's new North Stand unlikely to be ready for Derry City's Euro fixtures

​The Brandywell club is self-funding the impressive new stand at the Council-owned facility with the support of their landlords and is expected to accommodate a further 2,700 standing places at the Brandywell Road end of the ground or alternatively 1,850 seated supporters when it comes to European competitions.

Mr O'Doherty provided an update on the development at last weekend's Derry City fans' forum at the City Hotel and explained the new stand was 'not a complicated construction', however, 'the completion date is not 100 percent clear'.

Should Derry create club history and make the group stages of European competition this season, the North Terrace is likely to be operational - at least for a limited capacity.

However, the Candy Stripes will most likely nominate Tallaght Stadium and Windsor Park as venues for a potential third round tie in the coming weeks while the Aviva Stadium could be available depending on the opposition.

Preparatory works began last week with the removal of seating in block A and B ahead of the partial demolition of the Southend Park stand after the club got the green light from Council. That work will continue with the disconnection of services, the dismantling of the roof steel frame and cladding followed by the complete demolition of the concrete terracing.

It is anticipated these works will take four to six weeks to complete after which the building of the new safe-standing covered terrace will commence. The club opened up a tender process for the main construction contracts on Monday.

The redevelopment has been hit by a series of delays due to initial objections from NI Water and procedures surrounding planning, building control, leases and licenses and is 'a little bit behind programme' but Mr O'Doherty is delighted to finally get the work underway.

"It's going to be dependent on weather and depending on the progress of the construction but my best estimate at this time is some time during the month of July, moving towards the end of it," said the City chairman.

"Patrick Simpson, Sean Barrett and myself have been working with the design team. The Council officially gave us the go ahead to start the demolition. We've achieved planning permission. We've used the same architect who worked on the Mark Farren Stand and Council have good experience with them. From what I've seen so far they're very good architects and they know the Brandywell location.

"The tenders for the main contractor are ready to go on Monday who will be responsible for supplying the slabs and the foundation of the stand and the steel work, the roof, the seating and everything else.

"It's not a complicated construction. It's concrete slabs and steelwork. There is no detailed fit out type work. This is going to be a really good facility and we like the idea of the terraced seats [rail seats]. It's a great option to have. I think it's going to look really good when it's finished and it will be a good facility and provide extra tickets for our fans. We have a lot of calls about additional tickets which we just don't have and we're having to turn people down.

"We've already appointed the demolition contractor and we've appointed a contractor to isolate the mechanical and electrical services. So in blocks A and B the lighting has to be disconnected now and that [last Friday] will be the last match we will be able to use those two blocks. They will be demolished but we have to disconnect the lighting and the various pipes underneath that stand have to be disconnected as well before we can get the diggers in," he explained.

"Hopefully we don't encounter any problems with the ground but we just don't know until the diggers get in and start doing the foundation work so we'll see what happens there.

"The final legal hurdle we have to overcome is the licensing and the lease which is in its final stages with Council but the fact they're giving us permission to begin the demolition I think everyone is confident that it's going to be finalised.

"It's positive for the club. We're talking about, depending on whether it will be for standing which we have the option of, it could be around 2,700 fans standing places or 1,850 seated places. For European games it will be all seated but for league and cup games it will be all standing which is a good option to have."

For Derry City's opening game of the season against Drogheda last weekend there were only 75 seats available for the visiting fans due to the limited capacity and while Mr O'Doherty expects some disruption during the construction of the stand, he wasn't prepared to wait until the end of the season to commence work.

"We have to start this project," he insisted. "We just can't wait. Some people will say to me 'why not start at the end of the season'. I don't want to put it off any further. There's going to be a bit of disruption but there's a couple of reasons for that."As we all know, inflation of construction costs has been rampant. I didn't think there was any point in putting it off so we're just going to start it. There will be disruption and I apologise in advance for that but we're doing our best.