In the paper today: Southampton China trip Southampton will demonstrate the growing influence of their new majority owner, Gao Jisheng, by holding a training camp and promotional tour in China this summer in an attempt to increase their fan base. The trip will take place irrespective of whether Southampton start next season in the Premier League or the Championship, with the club in the process of arranging two fixtures, one against a Bundesliga side and the other against a team from the Chinese Super League. Southampton plan to base themselves in Hangzhou, 110 miles south of Shanghai, and play the games in two different cities to maximise their exposure to the Chinese market.
I'll be there with all the butterflies churning, unless it's too late by then when I'll just enjoy the match.
Seems pretty pointless to me. From my experience from travelling fans from the far east are only interested in the top teams as a general rule, so wouldn't think our profile would be too high over there, even less so if we were in the championship. If they think they can break the market over there then I'm all for it as anything to create additional revenue streams is obviously a good thing
Well yeah, they must think they can break the market over there. I don't. I assume they have done more research into it than I have which is just based on my experiences and people I met whilst in south east Asia
we seem to have been quite good at creating additional revenue streams recently - just not so good at creating additional goals!
Not sure what your experience of Chinese football is but mine would tell me they'll love us. Probably more than we do at the moment. Depends when it is but might try and see em.
Way I see it, the more exposure we get in China, the more Gao is likely to want us to do well. If he is planning to asset strip us, he wouldn't be showing us off in his homeland. Also, Hangzhou is a nice place, and has produced more billionaires than any other city in the world. Maybe Gao is trying to garner some wealthy backing.
Your final paragraph is the one I am excited about and the one good reason I can see as a reason to go there. However our possible relegation would be a challenge to getting additional support
I'm not sure how many of you were around in 76 after beating the mighty united in the FA cup. However we got quite a response and following from Asian countries after we won the cup and it continued for quite a while. It even increased a bit more after our promotion to the then Div 1. When we got demoted with Man United that support dwindled quite a bit then picked up a little when we eventually got back into what was then still Div 1. It increased again especially in the year we got to make 2nd but began to dwindle during our latter struggling years. Before pretty well disappearing when we went broke and down the leagues. I have been lucky enough to have visited quite a few of those countries during the 60's, 70's and 80's and it was not unusual to see a Saints shirt even in Japan would you believe. The most unexpected time I saw a Saints shirt though was in the middle of nowhere in Kenya (as Ive mentioned before). The chap apparently had supported Saints since a small boy (76 cup final) and a Southampton tourist heard this and would you believe sent him a shirt from here. Trust me he treasured that shirt and Ive never been so proud to be a Saints fan!!
