Aha but the monorail is going all the way to the big smoke so maybe once that’s completed we will get the tourists in.
At the height of Short’s reign under Bruce we had over 40k but free tickets were a significant part of that, just like the Mags... under Bruce.
All depends if this is tickets sold or actual people through the turnstiles. I reckon the SoL is big enough now. I'd rather have 46k rocking than 50 odd thousand with most being quiet.
The height of that we we're still ****e though.. Only under BSA had confidence but then England came calling
Yeah, looking back we were so close to eclipsing those black and white gobshites. It’s a pity Sam didn’t finish the job and a double pity he couldn’t help himself when the papers set up that sting to get him sacked as England manager.
Was like a totally different Sunderland under BSA. That Everton game and he had Kone looking like a beast. He left and he turned into a wet wipe.
I remember being there and thinking we’d arrived. The whole team looked solid, no idea it would fall apart so quickly.
That's the power and influence of a good manager. What we are seeing now with Wyke, McGeady, Mcglauhlin etc is the new manager putting confidence into them. Long may it continue. Allardyce was a Master at it FWIW. Hopefully Jonhnson is as well.
I would agree mate. Big Sam knows what he's doing. Unfortunately (or fortunately for us) they didn't realize that.
Interesting point mate. Gelsenkirchen, the city where Schalke play, is a similar example only it has a smaller population (around 250,000). They get 61,000 every and the football team is also the main landmark of the city. They have 150,000 members and have won even less success than Dortmund. Hypothetically, do you think we'd pull in 60,000 with a good team, cheap tickets, subsidised travel with your ticket etc like the Bundesliga?
Dortmund have a hook in the form of the south stand. People want to go and stand on the world's largest terrace. I think since German fans adopted the Italian style 'tifos' in the early 90s that has made a difference too. I love the atmosphere at Bundesliga games, its very different to England. Dortmund have had a bit more recent success than us too. I don't see any reason why we couldn't make ourselves stand out from the rest in some way though. So with a Bundesliga ticket pricing system and better transport I think, yes, hypothetically we could get that many.
Jesus, now that must of been some fare it’s 80 miles from my house but takes 2 hours 45 mins, I can get to the M25 quicker
We only got the taxi there which was bad enough. One of the southern lads dropped us off at Guisborough and we got a bus back from there. Seemed to stop a hundred times
It would take time to build up but with a winning team challenging around the top with some silverware mixed in it's definitely possible. Remember the Scum in the early eighties were no different to us before Keegan arrived.
West ham have been able to make use of the tourist's who might just fancy a premier League game when they're visiting, obviously you won't get a boatload of foreign tourists anywhere in the north east.