Member Article

From Offshore to Riverside: Teesside partnership gets Boro fit for Premier League

A Teesside partnership has completed a unique project at Middlesbrough FC’s Riverside Stadium after diversifying from the offshore industry due to the downturn in the oil and gas sector.

Macdonald Offshore Solutions and its sister company Protective Systems worked to manufacture and install an imposing new stair tower and television gantry in time for the club’s long-awaited return to the Premier League.

The project, worth more than £300k to the Yarm businesses, also included the construction of new Sky Sports TV single camera points and modifications to the West Stand press gantry and hanging camera gantries around the stadium.

The work was carried out to ensure the football club met demanding Premier League requirements, which include significant improvements to the previous facilities for Sky Sports, BBC’s Match of the Day and a myriad of international TV channels.

The 30-metre high stair tower, which will provide access to national and international television crews in the Riverside Stadium’s South-East Corner, features 45 tonnes of steel and stair-casing.

The tower features 1,000 individual pieces of steel, with a further 18 tonnes of steelwork within the new 90-feet long TV gantry installed at the back of the stadium’s East Stand.

Working in partnership with Tolent and the football club, Macdonald Offshore also installed a new 72-metre long walkway and handrail from the Riverside’s new TV studios to the TV gantry.

All steelwork was fabricated just a stone’s throw from the stadium on Dockside Road.

Fellow directors Steve Macdonald and Stephen Osbaldeston, former primary school classmates and lifelong Boro supporters, say the project was the most prestigious the firm had carried out since launching two years ago.

“With such a tight deadline to fit in with football’s close season, this was the most challenging project we’ve undertaken,” said Macdonald. “But it was also the most rewarding and satisfying.

“As lifelong Middlesbrough supporters, we were over the moon to be involved with a project of such prestige on behalf of our club, knowing that 30,000 people will be able to admire our work at every home match.

“It’s very special to think that our legacy will remain long after Aitor Karanka and the current stars have left the club.”

It took the firm less than two months to complete the work, with a highly skilled team of up to 20 fabricators and welders working around the clock to meet a rigorous deadline.

Final elements of the project were completed just 24 hours before the opening home match of the football season, as Boro made their Premier League return after a seven-year absence.

Macdonald added: “A lot of extremely skilled lads – most of them Boro fans like myself – were involved in making it happen, often working days, nights and weekends in the fabrication and erection of the steelwork.

“It was a close-run thing to get the job done in time but we were always comfortable taking on such a challenge.

“We’ve had to diversify from the offshore market due to the downturn in the oil price but we are gaining a reputation for achieving what rival firms may consider unachievable.”