New and improved? An artist's impression of a rectangular ANZ Stadium. But is it really money well spent? It seems so, with the government announcing exactly that last week, saying both stadiums will be razed to the ground with bigger, better ones built in their place. Why? I am still not sure. The first thing to note is that it cannot be because they are too small to meet demand. How many times, since the torch that Cathy Freeman lit went out, has the Olympic Stadium, for starters, been sold out? Could you count it on the fingers of one finger, or need the whole of your left hand? Maybe, tops, both hands, but the point remains most sports events held at the Olympic Stadium are an eighth full at best, with the crowd scattered around, to use John Arlott's felicitous phrase, "like confetti in a graveyard".

Familiar sight: A sparsely populated ANZ Stadium. Credit:Craig Golding The fact is, Sydney is not like Melbourne and we don't attend sporting events in nearly the numbers they do. We never have. We have other things to do, people to see, places to go, waves to surf, beaches to lie on! Perhaps then, we need a roof – as is proposed for the new version of the stadium in Homebush? Again, I ask, how many times in recent years and decades has the need for a roof come up? Personally, I am going to go with ... never?

Of course, Melbourne has an enclosed stadium. I think it's called the Colonial/McDonalds/Emirates/Telstra Stadium, or something, and good luck to them. But they are in Bleak City, we are in sunny Sydney, and there has been no particular agitation to get our footballers out of the rain. Surely then, it must be to enhance our viewing pleasure, with some modern configuration, that will bring us closer to the action. Make no mistake, I have been a critic of the Olympic Stadium and noted at its opening, that watching a Bledisloe from high in the Gods is like watching a game through binoculars backwards. But, very broadly, that experience goes incontrovertibly with a very large stadium. And there has never been any such problem at the Sydney Football Stadium where the viewing is intimate. On that subject, what exactly are the problems with the SFS? Beyond the queues for the food that seem to snake at right angles across the path of people trying to get to their section of seats, it has always been fairly affectionately regarded, yes? Sports Minister Stuart Ayres also says there are not enough toilets for women and those with disabilities. Let us take him at his word, but knocking down the whole stadium in order to get new ones seems rather knocking down a house because you don't like the front door? Get a different front door! Build new toilets, on to the existing structure!