That and fudging the attendances. Last time they were in the championship they had about 5 thousand empty seats at their home games and the attendance always flashed up as around 51k. Ashley was starting to look for investors then… The time before in the Championship they had an average of 43k which looked spot on.
My first visit there the crowd was 41k ish iirc. 2018. Generally speaking though there support is very good numbers wise, just exaggerated hugely by the media.
Yeah. As Haslam said they’ve never won anything since 1955 so fair play for turning up but I also agree with you. It’s massively exaggerated how passionate and proud they’re.
TD;DR a) What i said was factually correct b) What Peej said was, to my knowledge, incorrect. As well you know that was the 2009 season, the last time we were in the Championship is this one: As regards to Peej, I'm pretty sure the tickets issue wasn't during our time in the Championship it was in his final year or two of tenure when the fanbase finally started doing what everyone was complaining about us not doing "if you don't like it then don't go". There were indeed up to 10,000 season ticket holders who refused their tickets as a mark of protest after 12+ years of his stewardship. The club then sold off half-season tickets and finally in the second half of the season I think - and I could check this but relly cannot be bothered so feel free to - gave away half-season tickets to previous ST holders if they agreed to buy new season tickets the following year. That'll have been around 2021-ish though, not the above. Don't know about the 5,000 empty seats and numbers given, I'll be honest I'm more likely to attend Tranmere games nowadays (my local club to where I live), it wouldn't surprise me at all either if Ashley was playing some shenanigans to promote the club to sellers. I am aware that there were fans that stopped attending but had already bought tickets - not really sure who that hurts though other than themselves - nothing would surprise me regarding the club and the fans at that times, relations were strained to say the least. We weren't getting directors in headlocks or chasing star players cars down the street smacking their windows though.
Ashley 100% fudged the attendance the last time you were in the Championship. That came from my mate who has had his season ticket at SJP for a quarter of a century. My point about the media blowing smoke up your arse about support is 100% correct. You were relegated from the championship and averaged 43k the time before. Last time I’d have said it really would have been about 45/46k, which is still nothing to laugh at. We were relegated from the premier league and then the championship, spent 4 or 5 years in the turd division and now into our 2nd season in the championship and we are averaging approximately 42k. I’m not so sure your support could match that going through the same as what we just done. The media have made the narrative that you’re far more well supported than your little (we have the better history) neighbours. I’m not sure that’s true, in all honesty.
I think there's an element of "the happy poor" narrative. In the North-East everyone has to be poor and real "salt of the earth" supporters who only live for football as the rest of their lives are presumably bleak. I actually think it's a London-based press concoction which sets of football fans kind of latched on to and that it isn't just Newcastle fans who get depicted in that way. Sunderland too and many other "working class" areas. When the press report about it I always get the impression of "Oh look at them, let them enjoy their football as it's probably all they have".
You might be right. It's not always about the division itself so much as the direction it feels like your club is going and if the people in charge are trying to amend things. I think if we were in the turd division and were bought out by billionaire owners who talked of climbing leagues and winning things we'd get big attendances but that's the easy bit. Being down there and being a year or so into the tenure of the two clowns who had you at the time (Madrox, etc) would test any set of supporters. If Ashley was still in charge of us it would have dropped further and I think sat at 40k-ish. There were fans who had simply had enough of him and were willing to put support on hold until he was gone. ps. No issues at all with Sunderland support, pretty sure you hold the record for attendance between the two clubs. These things ebb and flow and it's just we've generally done better for the past 20 years... without troubling any of the engravers...
