Apologies if already posted, but Luke Shaw says that doctors revealed a few months after his horrific injury that he almost lost his leg: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/45413126 I can’t believe he’s still only 23!
The tackle that did that did that, was one of those grim moments in sport I can't get out my head. David Burst is another one, makes me shudder.
The rent West Ham pay to the owners of the London Stadium doesn’t even cover the cost of staging matches there: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/45439883
Hence the nickname "Tax payers stadium" ....even though West Ham fans try to assure everyone otherwise.
Whatever happened to the calls for an enquiry? The deal seems so onesided, it would suggest at best, some incompetence somewhere.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/45158878 Article about the difference between club reported attendances and the actual attendances gathered from FOI requests. We get a mention - Southampton: Hampshire Police figures were an average of 4,246 fans lower than figures issued by the club. Average figures taken over 12 games...Quite a difference in a ground of that size.
From the club's standpoint, sold tickets is definitely the more important metric versus actual attendance. That said, the difference between the figures can be fairly telling; could mean that season ticketholders aren't bothering to show up (which could lead to fewer STs sold in the future), could mean that the team is giving away large blocks of tickets to goose official attendance figures that are then going unused, etc. Ironically, Man City's cheap ticket pricing is probably a factor in the low attendance; it's more affordable there than at most clubs to buy a ST even if you know you won't get to a large number of games. West Ham's figures are pretty staggering, though.
Thought you might be interested in that Schad after our discussions last night... would be interested to see which 12 games were used for the average.
Nice that we provided a larger (and thus more accurate) sample size than most; I'd imagine that it varies quite a bit depending on circumstance. So long as we're actually selling those tickets, it's not the end of the world, but it isn't great...you'd imagine that those with single-match tickets turn up on a high rate, whereas those with STs are less likely to, and I think we sold somewhere around 20k of them last year (we did in years previous, at least). So if they were all paying tickets, you'd probably have a figure not too far off 1 in 6 giving each match a pass, which isn't spectacular (but might not be unusual, either). And when the discount is only something like 1 in 19, you quickly get into territory where you're better off buying individual tickets so long as you don't mind getting moved around (or waiting for the Groupon sale, heh).
Yeah it would be interesting to know how many STH's we've sold for this season. Either way, this match undoubtedly proves two things which are 1) The prices of tickets need looking at and 2) There's absolutely no way we are ever going to need an expansion.
Having read through the article again, I'm really not sure about this bit: "The Saints said their attendance for Chelsea's visit on 14 April was 31,764 but police figures show 6,945 fewer fans at St Mary's. There was also a difference of 6,799 (31,778 - 24,979) for the home game against south-coast rivals Bournemouth." Nearly 7k empty for the Bournemouth match? Not sure I believe that... Wasn't at the Chelsea game to comment.
Having just tracked down footage of the Bournemouth match as a reminder, I agree...looks fairly full. Odd, because those figures are based on the turnstiles, and thus ought to be quite accurate.
Mixed up with Brighton perhaps? That was pretty dead if I remember rightly and like this one was a night game too. I haven't looked at any footage, but I was at the game and from my memory there's absolutely no way that there's only 25k there...
Possibly. 31,778 is definitely the listed attendance for the Bournemouth match, but the Brighton one clocked in at 30,034. There's no way that there is only a 1700-person difference between this: and this:
Yeah that Bournemouth game had 7k empty seats... seems legit that Cheers for that Schad, looking at that then I can only think that it's a mistake and that they meant the Brighton game, still doesn't look like 7k light though.
We absolutely need to reevaluate the pricing regardless. Our pricing is wildly out of line with both our league position and current fan interest, and whatever extra money they're scraping in that fashion has gotta be offset by the increase in bad will from supporters (especially if they start dumping tickets on the secondary market for prices well below those paid by the STHs).
No disagreement, though teams make a concerted effort to fill the side of the stands most-seen by the cameras, and there's a fair quantity of empty seats even there.
Agreed. Going to the match is a habit more than anything for a lot of people, it's just as easy to get out of the habit as it is to get into it.
On another note, anyone know where I can find out the capacity for each individual stand? Quick google giving me nothing (so far). I'd hazard a guess at (approximately) 6k each for Northam and Chapel and then 10k each for Itchen and Kingsland but would be interested to know the exact figures. If that's even roughly correct (which I believe it will be) then Hampshire Police are effectively saying that the Bournemouth game had the equivalent of an entire empty Chapel... please log in to view this image
