St Totteringham Day

they have blinkers on, and one eye closed.

 

So hiag is wrong?

 

But that’s just official attendance. Not necessarily full capacity.

I’m sure there were 60,000 crowds there in the mid 60’s. I was only little, but I can remember the announcements

 

But not official then?

And defo not 70k regularly ?

 

If you mean 1962/63 then yes, you had official 60k crowds that season before the Paxton was seated

 

Let's hope the club don't your stats as basis for selling out.

You and 76000 cheering on Martin Chivers

 

Their regular crowds in the 70s were 20-30k.

Plus a handful of 50k crowds in the whole of the 70s

 

From last season:

• West Ham: Newham council says the average attendance at West Ham was 42,779 based on the 12 games it attended - which is 12,530 fans fewer than the club's season average figure of 55,309.

 

The second season? There are 50000ish Geordies turn up every home game and we are coming up to the 50th anniversary of us winning anything (and that was some poxy invitational competition to most of you and the forerunner to the Europa League for Comm and CBD Saffy.

I think Spurs will more or less sell out most games and think its good if clubs have a bit of spare capacity anyway to allow for the occasional visitors.

At least Levy has taken a punt on it that could pay financial dividends in the long term. Our marvellous owner transferred the rights to a piece of land the club had bought years back for future expansion to himself and has now just sold it to a developer at a significant profit on the price he paid the club.

 

Newcastle’s support is quite exceptional considering they haven’t been near a trophy for years. Why do you think that is? (Not being a smart-arse here, I’m genuinely interested).

 

I think it applies to that whole area of the North East (Newcastle, Sunderland and to a lesser extent Middlesborough) and it stems from a combination of fierce local pride, the working class industrial roots of the region and heavily populated local catchment area, somewhat isolated from the rest of the UK. The passionate nature of the support also manifests itself in how quick they get on the backs of players and managers - a phenomenon that is then put down to delusion.

I fell in love with it when I was there at University 38years ago and still get goosebumps when I enter the stadium. I am not a Geordie so maybe someone like Haslam could provide more insight.

 

This ^^^^

In London there are loads of clubs to support, so the spread is wider. There's also a couple of successful clubs in Arsenal and Chelsea, so the smaller London clubs tend to attract less supporters.

Spurs are trying to break into that 'big club' genre and fill a 60k+ stadium each week. As I said on another thread, they probably will for the first season, but if they continue with their barren trophyless run, I think they'll struggle to fill it other than for the big games.

 

Newcastle owned land to expand St James’?

What were the expansion plans?

 

I didn't think he owned Sid James bigtop?

 

The other 12,000 are there, just too far away to count.

 

They owned the land behind the Gallowgate end Strawberry Place. No specific plan had been drawn up and it actually doesnt need expanding right now - there is no ST waiting list and its fairly easy to get a ticket as a member. However the developer who bought has planning permission in place for a 70million quid office and apartment complex which removes the most obvious place the ground could be expanded when the new Arab owners fund our inexorable rise to the top.

 

The site frrehold is owned by the City Council but presumably we own the stadium itself.

 

I thought I read somewhere that you didn't own it as well, perhaps not.

 

I'll tackle a few comments quickly (meant to be putting the kids to bed but I'll have a breather...).

Agreed no expansion necessary, there was a fabled "waiting list" in the mid 90's which was clearly over-exaggerated. Back then we held around 36k and now we hold 53k and consistently sell out so there were clearly some waiting to get in but not the figured often quoted. Honestly think we'd get 60k every week but only more than that for a handful of games and I'd prefer the idea of us selling out every week to be honest.

We can't really expand now, Ashley (in one of his many FU moves) sold off the only land we could have tried to use but that probably wouldn't have been for extra capacity, it would have been for other money making objectives.

As for why we're supported in such a manner I think you're correct Jak. I grew up in Newcastle (then Gateshead) and there isn't really a choice. You follow football (there was literally one year when Newcastle won the Rugby Union title and people followed that but it was soon forgotten to the extent that Jonny Wilkinson used to say in interviews that he liked living in Newcastle because no-one knew who he was, even when he was well established as an England star), there's very little proper competition. I think the fact the stadium is in the City itself shouldn't be forgotten either, if you are walking around on matchdays you know when Newcastle score even in the town centre.

Every club sells its brand as being unique. It's nonsense of course but in the North we properly buy into it. That Bobby Robson quote is amazing and says it better than anyone else could.