But who is looking at relegation ? We are not wolves at the foot of the table, we are in the top half of the table and are safe for next season. We must expand whether it's an extra 5k or 15k seats whatever the clubs and the council decide to do, not to so while we are in the top league would be foolish. We should be looking at the future and hope we can emulate Stoke or Fulham both small clubs who are regulars in the premier league, I am convinced we are in this league to do big things, this year to stay up, next season to consolidate that and the following season qualify for Europe.
You're forgetting one crucial thing: fans are notoriously fickle round these parts. Expecting more people to jump on the Premiership bandwagon and crucially stay on it in a small city like ours is cloud cuckoo. Expand yes, but 25,000 about right. 30,000 absolute max imo. I too remember the 1,000 days down the Vetch when most people in this city didn't give a flying **** whether we died or not.
Agree with kj here, we need to sustain prem football for a few years yet, we have some of the most fickle fans in football, and we Arnt exactly an affluent area either, There is a market for 30k here but we need to make sure its not a Flash in the pan by the team first. Lucky for us the local pubs healing in swans games keeps the mass market on the boil,that should buy us some time,if it was me id be looking at season 3 to expand but of course i understand striking when the iron is hot. The other point is about the partnership in the stadium,Will the ospreys enjoy playing in an Even more smått stadium, they Are equal partners with us so have as much of a say as we do . A very difficult situation but priority must be training ground and accadamy i can wait for the stadium expansion though thats easy for me to say because i spend alot of time in another country.
proper facilities and an academy will give the club a better chance of staying in the premiership and not a few thousand on the gate that may be filled or may not depending how we do next season, even thenwe will only fill it with the big games. the minute we find ourselves in the bottom 4 or 5 you will then see who the true fans are and they wont be the plastics who only come when we play the big games. 30-35,000 you are having a laugh if you think we can attract that every home game. we have been at the top of the old 1st division before and our average was 18,000 + keep it simple and in proportion for the size we are and should we expand then 25,000 is plenty enough. so what the plastics cant get a ticket, where was these plastics when we were averaging 15,000 in the championship and we were crying out for them to support the club then. they should support the club in the bad times as well, most of us do and have been doing so for years. 5,000 extra seats is ample for the part timers.
The thing is 5k extra seats even possible on its own ? I am trying to get my head around this expansion thing and am wondering if it's possible with the structure of the stadium, I think that it's all or nothing with it. The reasoning is that as its built up the other parts of the expansion actually holds it all together. I will ask some colleagues in work about it as they are structural engineers, though not on stadiums.
99 I disagree, I'm not a plastic fan, I've been going to games since I was a kid. I can't justify buying a season ticket for me and my boy as he plays football most Saturday morning's for Portsmouth. I have to plan what games I can attend with his fixtures. Last season we managed 10 games home and away. This season I have only managed to get to one home game and that was because a mate of mine gave me his season tickets to use. Other that I have had no chance of getting tickets. Now I only go to away games, and these are the one's nobody wants to go to Newcastle, Sunderland & West Brom. So I feel we need to expand everybody is saying wait for a couple of years, but we have to strike while the irons hot. People are seeing how good a team we are and say "Hey lets go and watch the Swans" We have to embrace new supporters into the club as these can be the future lifeblood of the club. Theres an article in todays People about tickets at the moment we lose £117,391 per home game that equates to £8 per ticket and £145 per season ticket. The interesting facts are excluding Man City & Chelsea. Wolves actually make money per ticket sold. I've attached the link below, not sure if it will work. But I feel this does say we need to expand as a club as a whole, ground, training ground & academy. http://www.people.co.uk/sport/2012/...ing-161-on-every-ticket-sold-102039-23801406/
who is on about season tickets???? im certainly not. where were these fans when we were at the top in the championship for most of the season, there was plenty of seats available then. the clubs future and making the club viable with a new desperatly needed training facilities and an acadamy comes top priority and not this fantasy world of 30-35,000 fans that are not there, we have about 100,000 fans around the world and even though they are fans of the club does not mean they will come to the stadium because the majority of every football clubs fans dont go to matches. where the hell are we going to find an extra !5,000 fans who will turn up every home game. we have only filled the stadium a few times this season so where were they when there was seats available, the game was not big enough i suppose. you have fans like myself and thousands of others will go to the game whether we are playing manchester united or hereford on a cold winters evening. lets get our priorities in order first....
Superswan I saw on the club website that we have sold our allocation on every home game of the season, so there is a need , but whether 15k extra is viable I have no idea and it could be a white elephant down the line. Asking where the fans were last season is an interesting one, like where were they when we were down the vetch playing the Herefords , success will always have this effect. Are the people waiting for season tickets not worthy of watching the swans then? I notice some on here can't get tickets some of my friends cannot, what does that tell you ?
its all down to the way the ticket operators dealt with season tickets at the end of last season, there are syndicates around the country and ireland who bought hundreds of season tickets between then for the soul purpose of selling individual tickets for the big games to make money. until swansea ticket office get their act together and make sure they are dealing with genuine swans fans then some regular supporters will suffer and lose out.
You've got that right Valley with the ticket office but sometimes there's not a lot they can do. Last season I went in to buy tickets for an away game (cant remember which one). In there was two lads who were trying to buy four tickets for our home game v Leeds and they had Welsh accents. Whilst I was paying for my tickets I heard them ask to see a seating plan. They would have got tickets too if it hadn't have been for me telling the staff there and then that a car was parked outside, two lads sat in the back seats and a Leeds united sticker on the back window. They tried denying that they were in fact Leeds fans but fair play to the girl serving she stopped what she was doing and asked why they needed a seating plan if they were Swans fans and wouldn't sell them tickets. That was just pot luck I spotted the car but you're right something needs to be done and quickly.
I've done that this season at away games, haven't been able to get tickets at certain games and went in the home end, ok naughty thing to do but I really wanted to go, have a few mates who live in other parts.
"I miss Hereford on a cold Tuesday night..." Many moons ago,I went to watch The Swans' in a Welsh Cup Tie,at Porthmadoc. The ground,Y Traeth,is very exposed to the elements,and the entire match was played in a gale force wind. The wind was so strong that both goalkeepers had to work overtime trying to prevent their goal kicks being blown back into the net. It was a real nightmare,and for days afterward,I was still walking at 45 degrees to the vertical. The memory of that trip makes Hereford, on any kind of day, seem like paradise.
We definitely need to expand as there are potentially thousands more fans out there waiting to spend their money on watching us if given the opportunity. It did iritate me last week serving a local kid wearing a Chelsea shirt, when asked if he'd ever been to watch the Swans his Mum did say that they would like a chance to go to the Liberty but they couldn't ever get tickets so he has no allegiance. We used to encourage youngsters with the kids for a quid scheme and if we had another 10,000 seats then we would be able to re-introduce this and encourage new support. With limited numbers of tickets available at the moment it does seem unfair to me that the club give season ticket holders like myself the right to buy an extra home ticket, some are taking advantage of this to sell them on to others who are not necessarily Swans fans. This means that for some who have followed us for years it is now almost impossible to get the chance to watch us at the highest level.
I dont really know what the answer is TBH, but i do know that without prem status There Will be no problem what so ever getting tickets!
excellent comment Liberty, i was willing to fly from australia for the everton match but could i get a ticket - NO
the thing is you know the fixture list in advance musty and if you made your plans properly then you could have easily got a ticket, if you decided on the spur of the moment then what do you expect at short notice. im not being horrible here but as soon as i see the fixture list i plan two away games that i can organise for me and my family to spend a long weekend away.
