Just wait and see Archers! Our catchment area is a lot bigger than the city of Southampton. Just on this board we have people who regularly go to home games from Northampton, Liverpool, Essex, and no doubt a lot from London. Where do you think the people who regularly fill up Old Trafford come from? I bet most of them come from outside Manchester, so why should we be limited to the area immediately around Southampton? We will never know until it happens, but, as has been pointed out on another thread, we had higher gates in League One than most Championship clubs, and were higher than a lot of Premier League teams last season in the Championship. We are currently 12th in the average gates in the Prem this season. Why should we not be able to fill a 50,000 capacity stadium to 90 or 95%? Especially if we are playing the delicious football we now know we can play, and hitting the top 6 or 8 places in the Prem, and maybe playing in Europe?
Man U have some of the cheapest tickets in the Prem. A 75k ground allows you to let more people see the game not just in terms of numbers but also affordability. I don't think we can fill a 45k ground at the moment but in 10 years? of course we can. If we wait 10 years to build a 45k ground though then we can't. You have to build it and then gradually over seasons with success that attendance will increase. I expect that West Ham will probably nearly sell out the OS in their first season. Novelty and shiny shiny etc but if success doesn't come they will gradually fall backward to the 40k mark and then it will all be wasted. Momentum etc. If we get to the top6 and for 2-3 season stay there allied with a bit of europa success, maybe CL 1 season of the 3 then some people (around the world) will choose us BECAUSE we aren't ManU, Liverpool, Chelsea. Because we are seen as an outsider, because we are the supposed underdog. It belies the truth that we will then be the same as them. It's like the young person who wants to wear Goth clothes because he/she wants to be different. Doesn't want to follow a fashion. Sorry you are not being individual, you've just gone from mainstream, fashion to.....a different mainstream fashion but support your belief if you wish That is the sort of fan we will get. The ones that support us for no reason other than they think they are being different to the sheep, when in fact they aren't they are just following the different breed of sheep. Let them think we are different, let them come. Fill our stadium with an extra 15-20,000 'individuals' every week. We will be happy to agree with you all and say we are different. But we won't be in reality, we will be the same. Shhhh The Don is speaking and you had better all listen: Look into my eyes, you are felling sleepy ((((.)))) ((((.)))) Man I need a smoke 2 days cannot be so hard......Aaaaahhhhhgggg Chappy above. We are massive. I know 3 people from Lincoln that have season tickets
I have a bet with a friend that within 5 years Southampton will be a top four aide and be in the Champions League. This season is the first
No offence intended, but it's a good job the Saints chairman doesn't have the same attitude. Cortese has already done some research on how many people could attend the stadium, in any case. I've read somewhere [please don't ask for a link] he thinks over 50,000 people would attend. Indeed. Let's go back to The Dell for a moment. Top capacity was 30,000, which was occasionally filled when Southampton FC was very new to the top flight, football in this part of the South was far less prominent, and Southampton was a smaller city, in terms of population and relative income. Then came the first of the safety reductions to 22,000. They occasionally filled it, sure. But why, if Saints had no problem occasionally filling 30,000, did they have trouble filling 22,000, especially with Keegan and Co around..? Lastly, the capacity was reduced to 15,275, and still there would be seats occasionally available, though very few. The fact is, you never fill a stadium to the last seat. If you don't build the stadium, your capacity for potential stadium attendance remains limited and it will not grow because it simply can't. Any club that regularly achieves over 90 odd percent of its capacity is operating in too small a stadium. The argument of we'll never fill it, doesn't hold water, at the paltry total of 32,000+, in an area where the immediate surrounding area has a population of a third of a million, and as Chilco says, they don't just come from nearby, and there are 1.7 million people in Hampshire alone. St Mary's was too small when it was built, and remains too small for the future. And it honestly bewilders me how anyone can't see that.
As I said above, we need more seats, especially cheaper seats, to encourage future fans. If it becomes hard to get tickets, people won't even try and that's a shame.
I think some poeople understimate the wages required for a top 6 finish. They are astronomical they blow us completley out of the water. We will have to pay those wages because even if this group of players could take us there they would leave if we couldn't match the wages of clubs around us. Now the question is how can we pay these wages? We're a small club revenue wise, very limited merchendise sales compared to the big clubs, our matchday revenue is also small. We could increase that with a stadium increase but that would be very costly and would take a few years before it payed divedens. The easiest way and the way which most clubs go about it is to let their owner throw silly money at anything that moves. A club down the road tried that, they built a very very good squad and had some success but it wasn't built on anything solid. For us I'd rather punch above our weight but never apart from very ocasionaly reach the top 6 then go all out and pay the top bucks. Because realistically I don't see how that is sustainable. Long long term (at least 10 years) we could have expanded our 'brand' by playing good football and constantly producing top players to the point where we may be able to compete with the top teams but I think thats a long way away. I'll probably get shot down with 'well cortese thinks we can do it' yeh fine but every chairman in the league wants to do it you have to think what about our club makes it realistic.
Don't want to start a thead on this but does anyone think Phil Neville do a job for us next season? Not as a starter but back up for Cork, Morgan and Clyne? I know it goes against the buying young philisophy but he is a very good profesional with experience at the level we want to get to, which could be valuable. I think he would have been perfect to bring on in games like Stoke away and others where we were getting a lead and starting to panic a little bit.
In a word, "no". That said, I know what you mean. Sometimes you just want someone to clam things down etc. I just don't think he is that person.
If Phil Nevill was prepared to come for 20k a week I would take it. years ago I would've said no but where we are at the moment, with a very young squad that has the potential to go far his experience of football and success, his mentality of winning would be superb as an influence. Not as a starter, as a back up as someone who can tell everybody what it is like to be a winner, what it is like to be hated and loved, what it is like to be great. Would be a bargain addition just for his passion and experience and winning mentality to help our team push forward.
Neville would do well to start his coaching or media career, whatever he wants to do. Playing another season for something else is not going to do much for him long term.
The few Everton fans I've spoken to regard Neville as a complete liability, despite being a good servant. I certainly wouldn't take him and think for him he'd be better off following in his brother's footsteps.
For us He's done everything that our players haven't......yet. Only Pochettino can match him. 2 characters with that kind of experience to guide our youngsters along.
Yeah Imp Saint those were my thoughts behind the question. If there is one thing lacking from our team it is top flight experience. If no Nevile, maybe Scholes, Giggs. Lamprd or Pirlo could do a job for a season.
As said earlier, it is very important to have strength in depth if you're a top team, so that's a player for every position. IMO, current players good enough to start for a side going for a top six finish in a few seasons time are: Boruc Clyne Shaw Cork Schneiderlin Ramirez Lallana Rodriguez Good enough for back up: Gazzaniga (depends on how he develops) Yoshida Forren? Targett? JWP Puncheon Lambert (he'll still be a key part of our team though). So that's 7 players needed, maybe a few extra who can play in a variety of positions moving it up to 10.
Yes exactly, Fran. This is the kind of lateral thinking we'll need to see from the club. As for the "we have fans from" argument, I did read once that we have a higher proportion of fans travelling to home games than almost any other club. However, I would bet my mortgage, if I had one, on the fact that the vast majority of those travelling have a strong link to Southamption. In the case of Man U and Liverpool, for example, this is not always true. Achieving a fan base as strong as that of United is not an easy task, but it has to be the aim. Admittedly we had no TV distraction when i was nipper, but the fact that my dad could afford to take me to The Dell meant I was saddled with being a Saint for life - isn't this child abuse
I never thought i'd see the day that our fans didnt think a 45-50k stadium is big enough. One step at a time lads! There are very few clubs across the world who manage that feat, and they are from much bigger population centres than our own, this includes those who commute distances, which is probably the minority? We would have to have I would imagine atleast 10+ years of regular European football and atleast 10,000 on a season ticket waiting list, before we even considered building a ground bigger than the max capacity St Mary's can hold, and even then it would be touch and go! I think that 45,000 would be as big as the city of Southampton could ever really need! Barring some kind of mass population migration or the building of newtowns on the outskirts of the City! Which probably won't happen in this area anyway! 45,000 will be more than enough! For now and probably atleast the next 5 years, our current capacity is enough!
I went to the Man United - Crawley fixture in the FA cup a few years back, there were United fans driving up the motorway along side us from about the High Wycombe area, I couldn't tell you how often they go, but wow thats a long day out for a 'home game'!
It did cross my mind when I saw the news, but really. no. Good professional. Excellent player in his prime, but if he's decided he isn't quite upto Everton's mark then he shouldn't be upto ours either.
Talk is cheap, increasing the Capacity of St Mary's isn't. I think most economists would say if you are running a business to near capacity week in week out you need to expand and quickly. As others have said if you don't have the room to move you won't. I'm told that St Marys can be expanded to a maximum of 52000. Chelsea and Spurs have survived on a lot less Capacity. So perhaps an expansion of between 3/5000 per season for a couple of years could be achievable. It would have to be gradual though.
And if it makes sense economically, it's also a good way to show to players (both current and prospective) that the talk of ambition isn't fluff. Would not be at all surprised if we saw the first movement in that direction this summer...not an immediate expansion, but an attempt to get everything lined up to start building after next season.
