University of Bolton Stadium replicated in Minecraft

Hi everyone, I was wondering if I'd be able to get your thoughts on my full-scale replica of the University of Bolton Stadium that I spent three years working on between 2015 and 2018. It has a fully fleshed interior and was the first of many stadium builds that I have done. The video I have attached is only the first part as the tour video ended up being so long it had to be split into three parts. As far as I'm aware it was the first time it had been built in Minecraft.

Cheers

Wow! It looks incredible!

I don't really know much about Minecraft the game but what you have built in it looks fabulous and I'm sure you have pulled your hair out in the process of building it due to it taking 3 years to build.

The amount of detail you have gone to is crackers.

Welcome to the forum!

Thanks very much for the response and thank you very much for the warm welcome as well 

It was painstaking I have to admit given the size of it, and I think there were many occasions where I was close to pulling my hair out haha. In fact about 16 months into the build I ended up demolishing and rebuilding the exterior, roof and upper tiers because I wasn't happy with how they looked. In all I think it took 3 years, 1 month and 30 days to complete

That looks amazing mate

Thank you so much   

Impressive. You must have the patience of a saint. You've done a cracking job.

Well done!

Not a Minecraft player but have seen young folk doing it and whilst I approve in principle with the game in the vain hope that it will develop the next generation of engineers, haven't seen anything like this before. Top job lad - but please get a life

This is impressive !  My grandson tries to make things with Minecraft, however he's not been doing it for too long, and if I show him this it might scare him off 

You'll be looking for the plans for Burnden Park next !

@Hipster_Nebula wrote:That looks amazing mate

 Thank you very much

@boltonbonce wrote:Impressive. You must have the patience of a saint. You've done a cracking job.

Thank you  It was very much trial and error and I used more than 200 images to build it. I can remember my support worker back along saying to me that if I didn't have Asperger's then there's no way she thought I'd be able to do it. In fact in her words I'd likely have given up after a month

@xmiles wrote:Well done!

Thank you very much  

@wanderlust wrote:Not a Minecraft player but have seen young folk doing it and whilst I approve in principle with the game in the vain hope that it will develop the next generation of engineers, haven't seen anything like this before. Top job lad - but please get a life

Haha thank you  I am actually at University studying architecture currently so I guess you could say I'm part way there

@gloswhite wrote:This is impressive !  My grandson tries to make things with Minecraft, however he's not been doing it for too long, and if I show him this it might scare him off 

You'll be looking for the plans for Burnden Park next !

Thank you  Hopefully it doesn't scare him off, who knows it could provide some inspiration.

Funnily enough I have contemplated building Burnden Park at some point, because I don't think it's ever been done before

Top job.

I prefer Mario Kart on the Wii myself.

@Natasha Whittam wrote:Top job.

I prefer Mario Kart on the Wii myself.

Thank you  

Everyone has their own preferences, although I did used to like Mario Kart growing up haha

@MattRushton1995 wrote:

@Natasha Whittam wrote:Top job.

I prefer Mario Kart on the Wii myself.

Thank you  

Everyone has their own preferences, although I did used to like Mario Kart growing up haha

Ignore Natasha. She doesn't know her wii from her poo.

@karlypants wrote:

@MattRushton1995 wrote:

@Natasha Whittam wrote:Top job.

I prefer Mario Kart on the Wii myself.

Thank you  

Everyone has their own preferences, although I did used to like Mario Kart growing up haha

Ignore Natasha. She doesn't know her wii from her poo.

Oh dear ‍�

This is absolutely amazing. The detail you have gone to is unbelievable. 

Me and my lad play minecraft loads and ive showed him your video.....he wants to do one of the AJ Bell now

He has just got a gaming PC and wants his own minecraft server, I'll be honest and I haven't a clue where to start, if you have any advice it would be greatly appreciated.

@y2johnny wrote:This is absolutely amazing. The detail you have gone to is unbelievable. 

Me and my lad play minecraft loads and ive showed him your video.....he wants to do one of the AJ Bell now

He has just got a gaming PC and wants his own minecraft server, I'll be honest and I haven't a clue where to start, if you have any advice it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much, I really appreciate that  

One thing I'm hoping to do and have been for a while now is to potentially show the build to the club and see what they make of it/whether or not they'd be able to put it to some use at the ground etc. However, I'm not sure how I could go about that

I'm glad to have sort of provided some inspiration there, the AJ Bell is home to Salford Red Devils if memory serves me correctly. It's a relatively simple design as well from what I can tell. Unfortunately I've never played PC Minecraft (I use Xbox One). By "wants his own server" do you mean he wants to create his own world? When building a stadium, in my eyes it's best to start on the main stand and work round clockwise, or to possibly make it a bit more simple, you could always build your pitch first and then build the stands around it (a method common among Minecraft YouTubers). I imagine there will be some tutorials on YouTube as well, hope this helps

Cheers Matt.  A server is where you build a world with mini games on and people can pay to join it.  You have to pay for a server, I think it's about 15 quid a month but I need to look into it more.

AJ bell is very simple compared to the Macron, i will have another look after because however you did them floodlights must of took some doing.

He uses all the redstone for making stuff, TNT cannons and hes even built a workable prison for one of his mini games.

I either just mine stuff of build stuff

He plays on ps4, PC and switch!

Is Paul Holliday still at the club, if so I'm sure he would point you in the right direction.  I've got his email if you want it.

@MattRushton1995 wrote:One thing I'm hoping to do and have been for a while now is to potentially show the build to the club and see what they make of it/whether or not they'd be able to put it to some use at the ground etc. However, I'm not sure how I could go about that

Hi Matt,

Are you on Twitter, if so can I make a suggestion that you contact Ollie Brittan and Toby Brittan who are the sons of the club owner.

My thinking is that if you contact the club you might be dealt with by an older person such as myself who doesn't really understand what you are doing or have done - I thought that Minecraft was a game that kids played and hadn't even viewed it before let alone consider how it could be used by the club.

Ollie and Toby seem to be similar ages to you so would probably get what you've done and how fantastic it is right from the get go and no doubt connect you to the right people at the club to take it further.

Hope my suggestion is of some help.

@y2johnny wrote:Cheers Matt.  A server is where you build a world with mini games on and people can pay to join it.  You have to pay for a server, I think it's about 15 quid a month but I need to look into it more.

AJ bell is very simple compared to the Macron, i will have another look after because however you did them floodlights must of took some doing.

He uses all the redstone for making stuff, TNT cannons and hes even built a workable prison for one of his mini games.

I either just mine stuff of build stuff

He plays on ps4, PC and switch!

Is Paul Holliday still at the club, if so I'm sure he would point you in the right direction.  I've got his email if you want it.

Ah right so they're relatively similar to how Realms work in that regard, and I know that a Realm is around £7 a month. The floodlights were probably the hardest part to do, especially the pylons where each leg had to line up with the corresponding truss and so on. The floodlights themselves and the platforms behind them were relatively easy to do, with each one being built and aligned in around 10 minutes or so.

I've never got redstone if I'm honest, although I know my brother can use it really well and he's 5 years younger than me haha. 

You can actually link your worlds between PS4 and PC now that crossplay has been enabled, if you have Bedrock edition installed on the PS4, but you will need to have a realms subscription to transfer your worlds across. 

I'm not sure if Paul Holliday's still at the club, I know he announced a few months ago he was starting his on PR agency.

@Sluffy wrote:

@MattRushton1995 wrote:One thing I'm hoping to do and have been for a while now is to potentially show the build to the club and see what they make of it/whether or not they'd be able to put it to some use at the ground etc. However, I'm not sure how I could go about that

Hi Matt,

Are you on Twitter, if so can I make a suggestion that you contact Ollie Brittan and Toby Brittan who are the sons of the club owner.

My thinking is that if you contact the club you might be dealt with by an older person such as myself who doesn't really understand what you are doing or have done - I thought that Minecraft was a game that kids played and hadn't even viewed it before let alone consider how it could be used by the club.

Ollie and Toby seem to be similar ages to you so would probably get what you've done and how fantastic it is right from the get go and no doubt connect you to the right people at the club to take it further.

Hope my suggestion is of some help.

Hi again,

I do have twitter, in fact I think I use it more than any other platform now actually. I have come across Toby and Ollie on there a few times (never spoken to them though), but I do get what you mean that they may be more with it so to speak. I know I'd be better off doing it through DM's but how should I word it to them. Thanks for the suggestion by the way and hopefully something comes of it  

@MattRushton1995 wrote:

@Sluffy wrote:

@MattRushton1995 wrote:One thing I'm hoping to do and have been for a while now is to potentially show the build to the club and see what they make of it/whether or not they'd be able to put it to some use at the ground etc. However, I'm not sure how I could go about that

Hi Matt,

Are you on Twitter, if so can I make a suggestion that you contact Ollie Brittan and Toby Brittan who are the sons of the club owner.

My thinking is that if you contact the club you might be dealt with by an older person such as myself who doesn't really understand what you are doing or have done - I thought that Minecraft was a game that kids played and hadn't even viewed it before let alone consider how it could be used by the club.

Ollie and Toby seem to be similar ages to you so would probably get what you've done and how fantastic it is right from the get go and no doubt connect you to the right people at the club to take it further.

Hope my suggestion is of some help.

Hi again,

I do have twitter, in fact I think I use it more than any other platform now actually. I have come across Toby and Ollie on there a few times (never spoken to them though), but I do get what you mean that they may be more with it so to speak. I know I'd be better off doing it through DM's but how should I word it to them. Thanks for the suggestion by the way and hopefully something comes of it  

I suggest you tweet to them a link of your work of the stadium and ask if they would please follow you as you would like to DM them to see if they liked it and if so if they could possibly put it to some use at the club in someway or other?

Maybe you could put your YouTube video in as your link like you have on here, so they can see it (and hopefully retweet it - they have loads of BWFC fan followers as you can imagine).

I don't know if you wish to commercialise your work in some way or form but from what others have said on this thread, you clearly have a talent and maybe more widespread awareness of what you've done may help you along your career path - hope so any way, if that's what you would like.

Just a thought before you do anything though, if you've not done already, it might be worthwhile to embed your name in your work if it is possible, as that would help preventing others possibly ripping you off and presenting the work as something they had done and not you.

Or maybe I'm just being over cautious, in which case ignore the last paragraph!

Best of luck though, there's no reason why they wouldn't like and appreciate your work and certainly are perfectly connected to take it forward in someway.

It might be wise to have some ideas yourself of what ways they could take it forward that might spark ideas from them as well, when you DM them.

@MattRushton1995 wrote:

@y2johnny wrote:Cheers Matt.  A server is where you build a world with mini games on and people can pay to join it.  You have to pay for a server, I think it's about 15 quid a month but I need to look into it more.

AJ bell is very simple compared to the Macron, i will have another look after because however you did them floodlights must of took some doing.

He uses all the redstone for making stuff, TNT cannons and hes even built a workable prison for one of his mini games.

I either just mine stuff of build stuff

He plays on ps4, PC and switch!

Is Paul Holliday still at the club, if so I'm sure he would point you in the right direction.  I've got his email if you want it.

Ah right so they're relatively similar to how Realms work in that regard, and I know that a Realm is around £7 a month. The floodlights were probably the hardest part to do, especially the pylons where each leg had to line up with the corresponding truss and so on. The floodlights themselves and the platforms behind them were relatively easy to do, with each one being built and aligned in around 10 minutes or so.

I've never got redstone if I'm honest, although I know my brother can use it really well and he's 5 years younger than me haha. 

You can actually link your worlds between PS4 and PC now that crossplay has been enabled, if you have Bedrock edition installed on the PS4, but you will need to have a realms subscription to transfer your worlds across. 

I'm not sure if Paul Holliday's still at the club, I know he announced a few months ago he was starting his on PR agency.

Thanks Matt, I will look into realms, he does have bedrock edition installed on both and on his switch.  And then java and bedrock on his PC.  he does a bit of coding and stuff, hence the java one.

@Sluffy wrote:

@MattRushton1995 wrote:

@Sluffy wrote:

@MattRushton1995 wrote:One thing I'm hoping to do and have been for a while now is to potentially show the build to the club and see what they make of it/whether or not they'd be able to put it to some use at the ground etc. However, I'm not sure how I could go about that

Hi Matt,

Are you on Twitter, if so can I make a suggestion that you contact Ollie Brittan and Toby Brittan who are the sons of the club owner.

My thinking is that if you contact the club you might be dealt with by an older person such as myself who doesn't really understand what you are doing or have done - I thought that Minecraft was a game that kids played and hadn't even viewed it before let alone consider how it could be used by the club.

Ollie and Toby seem to be similar ages to you so would probably get what you've done and how fantastic it is right from the get go and no doubt connect you to the right people at the club to take it further.

Hope my suggestion is of some help.

Hi again,

I do have twitter, in fact I think I use it more than any other platform now actually. I have come across Toby and Ollie on there a few times (never spoken to them though), but I do get what you mean that they may be more with it so to speak. I know I'd be better off doing it through DM's but how should I word it to them. Thanks for the suggestion by the way and hopefully something comes of it  

I suggest you tweet to them a link of your work of the stadium and ask if they would please follow you as you would like to DM them to see if they liked it and if so if they could possibly put it to some use at the club in someway or other?

Maybe you could put your YouTube video in as your link like you have on here, so they can see it (and hopefully retweet it - they have loads of BWFC fan followers as you can imagine).

I don't know if you wish to commercialise your work in some way or form but from what others have said on this thread, you clearly have a talent and maybe more widespread awareness of what you've done may help you along your career path - hope so any way, if that's what you would like.

Just a thought before you do anything though, if you've not done already, it might be worthwhile to embed your name in your work if it is possible, as that would help preventing others possibly ripping you off and presenting the work as something they had done and not you.

Or maybe I'm just being over cautious, in which case ignore the last paragraph!

Best of luck though, there's no reason why they wouldn't like and appreciate your work and certainly are perfectly connected to take it forward in someway.

It might be wise to have some ideas yourself of what ways they could take it forward that might spark ideas from them as well, when you DM them.

I'm thinking for practicality reasons that I should 'remake' or remaster the video to make it a bit more professional and presentable so that it's ready should it actually become commercialised. It's also a bit inconvenient to have a 29-minute three parter that's tough to sit through haha. I could then upload that to my channel and link that to them if that's better.

I think commercialisation of the video would be a huge step if that were to happen and it would give my channel a massive boost, I was thinking the video could be used in promotional terms or as a tour of some kind if that's possible. 
I wouldn't say you're being over-cautious, it's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to copyright or plagiarism. My videos do have my channel watermark on them, but again I could always change this in some form if needs be.

It'll be interesting to see if this develops. Keep us in the loop please.

@gloswhite wrote:It'll be interesting to see if this develops. Keep us in the loop please.

I'll be sure to do so, absolutely  

Btw Matt, my lad has subscribes to your channel and has been watching your other videos

He is after setting up his own YouTube but hes a bit young yet.  (10 is too young isnt it?)

I'm gonna see if we can do a  video of this world hes been building though and maybe put it on mine so will let you know when it's up. It's his world but hes been building it with about 6 or 7 of his friends (and dad!)