They have had big support for years, and despite us being more successful for the last 10/15 years they have had better (?) support.
Newcastle have only dropped out of the Premier League for two seasons out of the last fifteen and played in a Europa League quarter final and an FA Cup semi final, I'm not sure there's any measure that we could have been considered more successful (other than us making an FA Cup Final). They've also averaged 50,000 attendances for pretty much the last twenty years, despite not winning anything.
Hull City, a club a third of the size of Newcastle and from a standing start of bottom of the old Div 4 on New Years Eve 1999 ( look it up, it's true) have won back to back promotions from League 1 and 2, won a Championship Play off Final at Wembley twice, won automatic promotion to the Premier League once, won an FA Cup Semi Final at Wembley, appeared in an FA Cup Final at Wembley ( and turned up, unlike Newcastle) qualified for the Europa League and appeared in a League Cup Semi Final. Which is far more than Newcastle have done over a similar time scale, we have also beat them at Sid James Park in the PL twice and once in the FA Cup over that period, and our gates are down to under 10,000. They average 50,000, which proves my point.
Was your point The Allams are bigger ****s than Mike Ashley, and their actions have driven away fans?
With success on the pitch there was a chance to build a strong passionate fan base for years to come, the Allams blew it all way.
Agreed they did only have about 10,000 at that point. Many other teams also struggled with support at that time. However as you know they have enjoyed big support for the majority of their history and certainly including the last '10/15' seasons. As for being reasonably successful - I am not suggesting they are Barcelona, Manchester United or Liverpool, etc. but they have certainly had more success than HCAFC over the years. Even over the last 10 to 15 years I'm not convinced HCAFC have been more successful than NUFC. They finished 5th in the Premier League about 8 years ago, have only dropped out of the Premier League twice and both times they then won the Championship to guarantee an immediate return. I always enjoy beating them though!
The worst part of all is until they actually sell up f’off the chance to prove that argument once and for all may now have gone.
Don't think anyone, except possibly members of the Allam family, would argue that they blew the biggest blank cheque of goodwill and opportunity that any Hull City chairman or owner has ever had, A truly calamitous missed chance that we are all still bitterly regretting, and always will do. Not sure that Aseem and Ehab Allam have any concept of what they squandered. That said, we have some very fickle people in this city and to blame the Allams 100% for our low gates is disingenuous.
During City's existence in the Top 4 professional leagues of English football, that is 113/114 seasons, they have only been higher in the pyramid than Newcastle United for 3 of those seasons ('08-'09 - City 35 points, Newcastle (relegated) on 34 points),( '09-'10 - City in Prem(relegated), NUFC in Championship- promoted ), and ('16-'17 - City in PL - relegated, NUFC in Championship - promoted.). The balance by simply defining success as overall standing in the League Pyramid is overwhelmingly in favour of NUFC. Even in the last 15 seasons. I agree with your position on this.
Success on the pitch always brings more support just as failure and relegation turn people off, always been like that. That's everywhere not just Hull.
And our away following doesn't seem to have increased much if at all despite all these die hard fans saying they will only attend away games from now on because they don't want to give Allams their money.
Here's an idea. Wouldn't it be good to have a cardboard cut-out of yourself made then donate £10 per home match to Dove House in exchange for Ehab agreeing to put them up in the stadium. If Ehab will I will, that way I get to be in the stadium, spiritually, without adding to 'the gift'.