All true, but I also wish the club would make an effort to grow its fanbase. For years they've ve not done that and more recently they've made a conscious effort to put fans off. The people running the club seem to have no belief in the City to have a big fanbase. They just think we'll never be a big club cos we're only "Hull".
That would be a sensible approach then. We are only "Hull" and we will never be a "big" club - and long may that continue..
If only we'd bought some 'success' at a time that coincided with wider TV coverage, maybe we could have attracted out of towners to latch onto us too...Leeds football hasn't caught on in Leeds itself. Apart from ones where billions have been pumped in to buy success, how many Clubs can 'grow' a decent fan base from a lowly start like we've had?
Clubs like Forest, Southampton, Norwich, Wolves, Wednesday, Leeds & Leicester have been in the lower echelons of the football league since we last graced them and got to a cup final, Europe, Wembley for the first time & got promoted to the Premier league, I think civic pride should've kicked in by now. And to be fair, not everyone who goes to those grounds remember their successful eras. You could probably discount Leicester. I think PLT is right. The club needs to endorse themselves better & gain support of the community again.
At certain times we do. At others we don't. TWS in the Premier League would get 39,000 and Leeds rugby get about 15,000 so total 55,000. City in the PL 24,000 and the two rugby clubs about 20,000 total 44,000. Yes, Leeds is bigger. However we probably have more people whose nearest league club is City than they do. The other question is how many would a successful Leeds side get if they had a bigger ground? They sold out for all their PL games. A couple of seasons ago they had over 70,000 applications for tickets for a league cup game. They also have large numbers of those despicable types, fans who from elsewhere who support them instead of their local team, one reason for their impressive away following. None of the above alters the fact that I despise TWS and long may their decline continue BTW.
The words "City had trouble establishing themselves in a place which had been a rugby league stronghold for years" come from a book about the establishment of a football club in Leeds. I worked in Leeds in the late 1960s and it was a constant refrain in the YEP (a paper which promoted the local football club far better than our local rag) about why the crowds were low compared to the likes of Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool, Everton and others, especially in a one team city. I remember one week when Leeds were top of the league and in quarter finals of the Fairs Cup, league cup and FA Cup and the crowd for their league game was just over 20,000. " Where were you on Saturday?" rang out from the Kop End on the Wednesday as an much larger crowd went to the European game.
^^This sums up football support perfectly - apart from the ''golden age'' of football Citys gates have never been huge, I've stood at BP many times and been one of less than 2k; during the Dolan/Hateley years our average gates were mostly less than 6k, indeed the year Dolan was sacked the seasons average didn't even reach 3.5k ........... as we've become more successful our average gates have increased quite dramatically, but we're still decades behind established PL, and a number of Championship teams. Our steadily increasing support growth, I feel, is quite fragile; name change issues, price increases, seat moves have all had a negative impact on hard-core support. Without PL football our gates, and more importantly, the hard-core support diminishes, and as Dutch writes, it's really difficult to grow a decent fan base.
Which backs up the point I was making. However I can't think of anyone born in Leeds or West Riding who have chosen to support City (thankfully).
Add in the fact that its the lowest average wage in the country with the highest amount of people in debt adds to it a lot. Sheff Wed at home on Sky at £33 ??? I dont think so
Yes. However a fair amount of our support comes from the East Riding. That place where all those supposedly rich toffs live a life of sybaritic luxury. If you look on that list of low wage areas other places with relatively low wages, Sunderland, Middlesbrough and others get decent support, especially away. Funny, not that long ago the view was deprived areas had larger, more fanatical crowds to compensate for other areas of life. This was given as the reason for the fanaticism in the ten deprived Liverpool, Glasgow, Naples and various South American cities. Now it appears that is not the case.
Can't they organise their own like others do? Or take the risk of not being ferried door to door and go in cars?
Theres still a few mate A couple at work + their mates n brothers go. Mind you thats not as many has go to Man Utd n Liverpool
