I call BS on that. 16k easily. The ticket office person said the only tickets available were north stand upper, but I managed to find a very good empty seat in the North Lower stand. There were a few empty seats in the South stand (a few hundred maybe) and most of the Milton End (which is what, 3k, it's probably about double the size of the Prospekt Road End at Farnborough, which is somewhere around 1250-1500)? As for the match itself, it was good fun. It wasn't the absolute slaughter that the Sheffield game was at the end of last season and in the second half we definitely turned down the gas, but still could have scored a couple and we seemed just content to pass it around defence, especially East who nearly gave away a goal. We could have scored on a few occasions but it was fairly comfortable. Shame we didn't score another one to get a positive goal difference. Our goals were awesome though. Great finish by Jed for the first and the sweeping, blistering counter-attack of the second was pretty spectacular and just like watching Man U. The last goal was a good finish as well. The stupidly quiet music over the tannoy is quite annoying. It seemed to be quite loud when they played Jessie J after the game though. But what music they did play was quite good.... Mumford & Sons, Adele, Florence & The Machine, the one Jessie J song which is quite good (well, one of two). For someone who's obsessed with music and usually associates good games with songs (Vitoria: That's Not My Name - The Ting Tings, Sunderland: Halo - Beyonce, etc). I'm tempted to e-mail Mica Hall about it.
Perhaps they could have some sort of Jukebox system, the highest bidder leading up to each game, gets to play their favourite music.
I actually suggested that at Farnborough once. I'd love that. Make a huge bid then troll Fratton Park with all sorts of horrendously cheesy music. Spice Girls, B*Witched, Jason Donovan, Right Said Fred, Rick Astley, it would be delicious.
Good win today. At the half-time whistle, I was looking forward to at least another 3 goals in the second half, but it wasn't to be. Thought Padovani was excellent in midfield, but Simon Ferry disappointed me. Like the look of our new left back - Marcos Painter - appeared to be a very solid no frills defender. Delighted for Jed Wallace, good performance, and a nicely taken goal - that should get the "doubters" off his back. He is definitely playing out of position, on the right wing, much better in central midfield, to my mind. Thought Sonny Bradley improves with every game. Morcambe struggled to compete with us in the first half, and were quite an aggressive, dare I say, dirty side. Their keeper was so poor, he made John Sullivan look like Peter Shilton......... Fair play to their 100 + supporters, and I must say their drum was far better than the one we have in the Fratton End ! Perhaps we should have "mugged them" after the game and swopped it for ours.
I think the attendance was incredible for League Two. You would have forgiven many fans not to have bothered with watching a team like Morecambe but the attendance would have done many Championship clubs proud and , from recollection, was better than the figures we sometimes achieved in Div One. Quite staggering but for the fact that Portsmouth have some of the best support in English football. To put this in context, this is nearly twice as many fans as turned our at St Mary's for Real Sociedad last weekend. A home win was the only real option on the cards and a quick glance at the table sees you pushing for the play-off positions. This can only be improved upon in the coming weeks.
Either your memory is a bit rusty or you didn't attend many games Ian...the actual figures of our stay in League One are... Highest gate 31,653 Lowest gate 16,402 Average gate 21,572 I don't have an issue with you praising Pompey's attendances, which I agree are very good, but I don't like you talking ours down...Last weeks "friendly" was an overpriced meaningless match...Saints fans do turn up for competitive matches.
Saints alive Thanks for digging out the statistics. I must admit that I thought that some of the match attendances in Div One were very low and seemed to recall that the Dagenham & Redbridge match was particularly bad. (Certainly the worse league opposition I've seen us play against since my first match in 1974/5.) It might have been an FA cup tie that I went to where the ground was about 1/3rd full but a figure of 13k has stuck in my mind for some reason. Apologies if I am wrong in this respect. For what it is worth, I have had a season ticket since the early 90's and have probably missed only about 10 league matches at home since 83/84 so I'm not an armchair supporter even if away games are difficult due to other commitments. I must admit to previously being a bit of a mug for friendlies and have tended to attend these up until last season where the pricing seemed over the top for a match that mean't little. From this point onwards, it seems to be down to a matter of principle as the pricing does seem a bit cynical ableit no where like as cynical as £50 for the shirt! It didn't seem good value for money. This year I wasn't sure to go to watch Saints or attend the first competitive match Winchester played at home. In the end I got stuck in Stockbridge and ran out of time to get in to town so I ended up going for the second option and watched an uninspiring 0-0 draw. (Attendance 178, from recollection.) It would be an interesting scenario to see how many Saints fans would turn up to watch Morecambe if we were in the same situation. I actually liked seeing clubs I had never watched before when were were in Div one but there was a downside insofar that Div One seemed to be 50% teams who could probably cut in in the Championship and another 50% who seemed to be absolutely hopeless. I was amazed at how poor some clubs were. In Div Two this must be even worse with some teams probably being markedly inferior to some Conference sides. I'm not convinced that a community-run Southampton club would muster the same level of support against clubs like Morecambe as we have seen this weekend and I would be equally sceptical that Portsmouth would achive the same next seaon should they fail to get promoted. Should this happen, I think there would be a drop in attendances at Fratton Park. My point is just how far will fans loyalty go if the standard of football watched diminishes - I would anticipate that non-league football might offer a more attractive alternative if the standard of football was not too inferior. Some of the goals I've seen in the Wessex League this season have been surprisingly good . I have noticed that many football fans are starting to reject the four , main leagues and watch the non-league game and ,having started to follow football at this level myself, it is fascinating that the attitude of fans is so vastly different. Talking to other fans at non-league grounds there is a sense that people feel that football at this level is more "genuine." On Friday I went to watch Alresford play Winchester in a preliminary round of the F A this must have attracted around 200-300 fans for what was a local derby. I think that non-league football does now look a more attractive proposition with clubs like Eastleigh having redeveloped their ground and Winchester endeavouring to significantly improve the Den Plan. Basingstoke are supposed to be building a new ground and even Alresford expect to have a 100-capacity stand built before Christmas. so, there does seem to be an effort for non-league football to compete against the professional game. Against this background, I would have to take my hat off to Pompey fans to sticking with the club and turning out in numbers that would not disgrace Championship teams. The Pompey renaissance is a story that is good for all football even if I obviously wouldn't like to see Saints dominance threatened too seriously! The path Saints have taken over the last few seasons has been nothing short of staggering yet I think we have effectively ridden on the shirt tails of someone else's largesse. Portsmouth, on the other hand, has been "saved" by it's fan base who have themselves invested in the club. This obviously lies at the heart of the attedances at Fratton park (which, given the woeful state of the ground, cannot be said to provide a good, "modern" match day experience) and coupled with the fact that this season is likely to end in promotion, most Saints fans can appreciate the attraction irrespective of how they feel about Portsmouth. It should also be noted that Morecambe seemed to forget to bring any serious support and about 14,200 of the people crammed in to Fratton Park would have been Portsmouth fans. No mean achievement and given the level of away support at St. marys during our sojourn in Div One, on aggregate a far greater level of support than our most poorly attended game if not matching the average based on the statistics quoted above. Cheers Ian
Morecambe attendance was 113. But then Morecambe is a small club in an area where there are a lot of bigger clubs around so their normal home attendance is under 2k. I don't get this hang-up about attendance numbers - apart from how much money is going into the clubs coffers, which for us in terms of budgets available, is important.
3rd Eye I don't think that it is a matter of how big the crowd attendance is but the slightly different issue of how you are loyal to a "brand" when the quality of football diminshes and there are other alternatives available. I suppose what I am getting at is that the current situation with the supporters owning the club means that Portsmouth have a great loyalty for their club and one that is substantially greater than you would anticipate in the circumstances from other teams. This would especially be the case as I am not convinced that the gap in quality between Morecambe and Havant & Waterlooville would be too great. Compare with Aldershot who were in your league last year and are in dire circumstances following relegation / points deductions.
My earlier reply was in response to SAs post about attendances - we've had this debate before.............. The debate about loyalty was taking place between Pompey fans over the last few years - between those who would turn up to support the team no matter what, and those who, if they could, would go to away matches but had walked away from Fratton Park as they wouldn't fund the shysters who had taken ownership. Our gates were pretty low for a few years during the troubles - why they were low was clear to see when Chanrai withdrew his bid last year, attendance at the next match was over 18k - a week later he was back in the bidding and attendances dropped even further. Such was the antipathy to the old regime that even when the PST were named preferred bidders those supporters stayed away, just in case it went tits-up. Despite them not attending matches I think it's fair to say that there was still a great deal of loyalty to Pompey, just no appetite to fuel Chanrai's demand for 'his' money. The number of people who contributed to the shares is way higher than the number of shares issued as there are quite a few syndicate shares. As for league 2 - a very high proportion of fans are enjoying starting again - we have a good team, for this league, and David Connolly (who now has his own chant!)
found some brief highlights [video=youtube;kKvpPRdJ6gs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKvpPRdJ6gs[/video]
