I personally can't see us ever increasing the capacity to 40,000. I think if we were going to go to the effort of expanding the stadium, we'd wait until 45,000 - 55,000 becomes a viable option (if indeed it ever does).
Not sure about that Beddy. Ones that I remember, probably up to the last 10 years: PL Clubs who have recently moved grounds: Arsenal, Man City PL Clubs who have recently improved their existing grounds: Fulham, Man United, Norwich, Newcastle, West Brom, Blackpool, Wolves (Blackpool and Wolves were in the PL when they did the work) Have I missed any?
Depends if you only look at the last 10 years, or the whole of the PL era. Quite a few moved grounds in the 90s and early 00s. And it's obviously not just PL clubs either.
Yeah, that wasn't "recent" by my definition though, probably wasn't clear enough. Pretty clear at least that over a given period (at least in recent times) more clubs improve their existing stadium than move.
Kids and floaters will always be attracted to the Man Utd's, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenals of this world. Its the reason why those clubs have millions of fans. You are simply deluded if you think an area of this population can sustain a stadium of 40-50,000 at the prices they will charge to fill it. Those bigger clubs are in bigger cities, much bigger cities, much larger populations. It's simply bloody maths really.
As is well known, CBK, huge numbers of people travel from all over the country to watch Man U at home. By no means do most of them come from Greater Manchester. My point is that we could attract fans from all over the south of England, not just from Hampshire.
True but if you want to follow a premier league side in the south outside Southampton you probably have to go to London and you wont get a ticket for a lot of the bigger clubs so I think our catchment area is probably potentially bigger than it would appear
The other thing would be that if the ticket prices were so high the stadium wasn't selling out and there were regularly 5,000 or more empty seats the club would probably end up doing some kind of special offer. Whether that be lowering the price of some tickets, letting kids in for free for games against less prestigious opposition or some other scheme.
Indeed, with the relegation of Reading, our catchment area is now absolutely enormous. With the exception of London and the Welsh clubs, we are the only premier league club South of Birmingham!
This was my point a couple hours ago. With a decent rail link from Bristol (and neither Bristol club in the top two divisions), there is a huge population centre with no top flight football to watch. Would you rather they went to Cardiff?
Well due to the Welsh identity of Cardiff it would surprise me if fans from not just Bristol but the whole South West of England (over 5 million people) were attracted to them, even if Cardiff is geographically closer to a large proportion of it.
You also have to factor in all the potential people in the surrounding area's who wont travel long distances to watch their favourite team. They wont come as saints fans but come as fans of other premiership clubs etc but we can then convert them in to saints fans Some people just like to come and watch a top class football match. This would be doubled 10 fold if we were in europe. If NC wants us in European cup competitions it would be crazy if he didn't us playing our matches in a top European stadium? If we want to show our selves as a top international club then a stadium is an important way to show people this.
Don't be silly. Brizzle City fans hate Cardiff City as much as or possibly even more so than Swansea City fans do. I have friends who are supporters of Brizzle and others of Swansea and they all hate Cardiff as much as we dislike our dear near neighbours who have fallen on such hard times of late.
Exactly. As long as the majority of, say, a 50,000 crowd are Saints fans, it doesn't matter who the others support. Just like some of those on this board, Fran for example, as soon as they witness the Southampton style, they'll be hooked for life.
I know Godders, that was the point I was making. There is nothing at all to stop trainloads of Bristolians making the trip to Southampton and having their world reinvented.
I think this might be missing the point. Down in League 1 there weren't just 18,000 hardy souls, in fact the number of people who called themselves Saints fans was probably similar to now (and before). But if we have success on the pitch, the people who go to five games a season might go to ten, and the people who go to ten might just decide to get a season ticket. So attendances go up. Last summer there were 180,000 people on the database so plainly it's not impossible. Of course the financial argument is seperate and one that the club will have to run the numbers on over expansion cost v increased ticket income. But given what we have seen I suspect he is in favour of the idea, at some time in the future.
Very good point. My dad is from Coventry originally and wasn't ever a particularly fanatical Southampton fan but he had a season ticket for 15 years, largely just so he could watch Premier League football.
