Staring into the abyss?

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!
I don't have your expertise in human geography but if we got 24,000 in League 2, I'm sure we can get 30,000+ as a Premier League side.
I know; it's bizarre. I often think back to that time and wonder how it happened. Those were the start of the feelgood years, but it's almost like the novelty has worn off. Personally, I don't think those days are the best measure of potential; something unusual was happening, and it feels an unreliable way to assess our potential now, somehow.
 
I don't have your expertise in human geography but if we got 24,000 in League 2, I'm sure we can get 30,000+ as a Premier League side.

I know we'll never know but, if you think that, I'll have a glass of what you're having PLT ......... we'd get 30k, or close to, for the likes of L'pool, Chelsea, Man Utd etc, but for Stoke, WB, Palace etc ............ don't see it mate.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Edelman and Polly13
It seems quite clear that the momentum created by the opening of the stadium and the climb up the divisions (along with Pearson knowing his Commercial( ie us the fans) stuff has now been totally reversed by lunatic owners and high pricing. Hence falling attendances which will be around 12k next year or approx 20 if we shock the football world in a bigger way than Leicester and win the playoffs. How did it all get so bad.
 
Oh, how I miss those days, with Elliott scoring for fun and an atmosphere that felt good...

In a way, playing in the Prem ruined us. It did something to the fanbase (not everyone, just a general feeling), though what exactly I am not quite sure. Having ****s in charge never helps too obviously.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: dennisboothstash
I wish we could have won the league and not get promoted. Bruce lost interest ages ago, as did a few of the players. I'm dreading us going up and looking at the fixture list thinking we'll get tonked week in week out. I'm also dreading us slowly sliding down the leagues. We as fans deserve better.
 
Oh, how I miss those days, with Elliott scoring for fun and an atmosphere that felt good...

In a way, playing in the Prem ruined us. It did something to the fanbase, though what exactly I am not quite sure. Having ****s in charge never helps too obviously.

Beating Walsall and Gillingham was certainly much more enjoyable than losing to them, as we had been doing for a few years.
But we should never have been playing as low in the pyramid as that, so those feelgood wins were deceptive.
Being in the PL was all about fulfilling our potential as a club, not being able to see Steve G.
Some people - too many- merely saw the latter. Ever since the days of Duffen, the club has prostituted itself to attract these shallow and transient fans....at the expense of long established ones. To that extent, the club reaps what its sows.
 
I hear you, but - speaking as someone with a background in human geography - I still have doubts about the potential for support. I'm not convinced that the regional support base is something to rely on, and I'd rather look at the support potential in a more immediate catchment area. When you look at it in this way, there are getting on for THIRTY English clubs with a bigger immediate catchment areas than us.

I don't think there are, Polly. Few other teams have as many people where they are the nearest club.
 
I don't have your expertise in human geography but if we got 24,000 in League 2, I'm sure we can get 30,000+ as a Premier League side.

Attendances since we moved to the KC. Don't think we ever got 24,000 in League 2. Could have done once against Swansea but the segregation problems caused by the poor design of the KC and the intransigence of the plod prevented that.

League Attendance
2014–15 Premier League 23,557[26]
2013–14 Premier League 24,116[27]
2012–13 Championship 17,368[28]
2011–12 Championship 18,790[29]
2010–11 Championship 21,168[30]
2009–10 Premier League 24,390[31]
2008–09 Premier League 24,816[31]
2007–08 Championship 18,024[32]
2006–07 Championship 18,583[33]
2005–06 Championship 19,841[34]
2004–05 League One 18,027[35]
2003–04 Third Division 16,846[36]
 
I watched the Bolton game in pub and bumped into a couple of old timers who sat on the row behind us in north stand last season. We never renewed but they did. But neither of them are joining the membership scheme and said they would rather us go into admin and drop down the leagues than go back up into premier league with Allams still in charge. How has it come to this?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Polly13
Attendances since we moved to the KC. Don't think we ever got 24,000 in League 2. Could have done once against Swansea but the segregation problems caused by the poor design of the KC and the intransigence of the plod prevented that.

League Attendance
2014–15 Premier League 23,557[26]
2013–14 Premier League 24,116[27]
2012–13 Championship 17,368[28]
2011–12 Championship 18,790[29]
2010–11 Championship 21,168[30]
2009–10 Premier League 24,390[31]
2008–09 Premier League 24,816[31]
2007–08 Championship 18,024[32]
2006–07 Championship 18,583[33]
2005–06 Championship 19,841[34]
2004–05 League One 18,027[35]
2003–04 Third Division 16,846[36]

Average for this season is 17,132 with one game left. Lowest since the old 4th division season.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Polly13
I'm trying to look at it in a different way, CC. I'm not convinced that a large, largely rural, catchment area necessarily equates to massive potential support. I think people like yourself, travelling in from places like Brid, will always be quite few and far between, and that the more immediate urban population is the main factor in the size of a football club's support.

FWIW, these are the clubs who have larger immediate, urban catchment areas than us.

Arsenal
Chelsea
Spurs
West Ham
Palace
Villa
Birmingham City
WBA
possibly Wolves?
Man U
Man C
Liverpool
Everton
Newcastle
Leeds
Sheff Weds
Sheff United
Nottingham Forest (Notts Couty?!)
Bradford City
Bristol City (Bristol Rovers?!)
Leicester City
Portsmouth
Middlesbrough
Coventry City
Cardiff City
Stoke City
Hull City

Then there are clubs with smaller, or similar-sized, immediate catchment areas but who have better support than us right now:

Brighton
Southampton
Derby
Sunderland
 
I wish we could have won the league and not get promoted. Bruce lost interest ages ago, as did a few of the players. I'm dreading us going up and looking at the fixture list thinking we'll get tonked week in week out. I'm also dreading us slowly sliding down the leagues. We as fans deserve better.
I don't care how much he defends his chairman; if Bruce 'lost interest', it was down to having to put up with that ****, rather than for footballing reasons.
 
I'm trying to look at it in a different way, CC. I'm not convinced that a large, largely rural, catchment area necessarily equates to massive potential support. I think people like yourself, travelling in from places like Brid, will always be quite few and far between, and that the more immediate urban population is the main factor in the size of a football club's support.

FWIW, these are the clubs who have larger immediate, urban catchment areas than us.

Arsenal
Chelsea
Spurs
West Ham
Palace
Villa
Birmingham City
WBA
possibly Wolves?
Man U
Man C
Liverpool
Everton
Newcastle
Leeds
Sheff Weds
Sheff United
Nottingham Forest (Notts Couty?!)
Bradford City
Bristol City (Bristol Rovers?!)
Leicester City
Portsmouth
Middlesbrough
Coventry City
Cardiff City
Stoke City
Hull City

Then there are clubs with smaller, or similar-sized, immediate catchment areas but who have better support than us right now:

Brighton
Southampton
Derby
Sunderland

Interesting data but surely some of these catchment areas overlap
 
I haven't posted much for a while, cos I've been too busy with other stuff and then the way the wheels fell off our promotion push just knocked the stuffing out of me.

I am worried about the future.

I've been a big supporter of Steve Bruce, and I still contend that he's the best manager the club has ever had, followed closely by Brownie, but something has failed this year, and failed badly. With the squad we've got, we should have ****ing walked this league, but the prospects for getting past derby in the play-offs, never mind whoever else makes it to the final, look bleak, given our current form. To be honest, I'm pinning our hopes on Derby being complacent, having beaten us home and away, 6-0 on aggregate. Sadly, I don't think they will be.

Where does that then leave us? The reason I say our squad should have walked this league is because we hung on to so many of our players after last year's relegation; we pretty much still had a Premier League squad, plus Premier League parachute payments. There should've been no excuse. If we don't go up this year, we can expect an exodus, and mid-table status at best next season. To be honest, being an established mid-table side in the second tier wouldn't be such a disaster; traditionally, it's been our natural environment, and all of those silly claims about us being a 'sleeping giant' have been made to look ridiculous by our piss-poor attendances this year. Even when we were in great form at the top of the league, we were only pulling in 15-16k, and it's clear that we are not, and never will be, as 'big' as the likes of Leeds United, Sheffield Wednesday, Middlesbrough, or even two League One clubs with bigger average attendances than us this year, in Sheffield United and Bradford City.

I could just about live with all of this, were it not for the fact that we are owned by complete ****ing arseholes who continue to ride roughshod over supporters, caring little about the divisions they have created; I fear that, rather than finding ourselves in steady, mid-table, tier 2 status, the uncertainty our owners have caused, and the resulting lack of faith many people have in them, will result in our decline being considerably more severe.


Is anyone else as worried as I am?
I know what you've been up to . dirty bastard.
 
I know we'll never know but, if you think that, I'll have a glass of what you're having PLT ......... we'd get 30k, or close to, for the likes of L'pool, Chelsea, Man Utd etc, but for Stoke, WB, Palace etc ............ don't see it mate.

If we got only a few thousand less for Swansea in Division 3, there's absolutely no reason we shouldn't get 30,000 for the PL whoever the opponent is.

We're not some little backwater we're a major City with a much bigger population than some teams which get excellent crowds. Sunderland used to get 15,000 at one point. They turned that round and Hull is a bigger City. Brighton is a relatively small place with a large proportion of non-local residents yet they get incredible crowds because they look after their fans and make them welcome. That's after having no ground for about 10 years only a few years ago.
 
Attendances since we moved to the KC. Don't think we ever got 24,000 in League 2. Could have done once against Swansea but the segregation problems caused by the poor design of the KC and the intransigence of the plod prevented that.

League Attendance
2014–15 Premier League 23,557[26]
2013–14 Premier League 24,116[27]
2012–13 Championship 17,368[28]
2011–12 Championship 18,790[29]
2010–11 Championship 21,168[30]
2009–10 Premier League 24,390[31]
2008–09 Premier League 24,816[31]
2007–08 Championship 18,024[32]
2006–07 Championship 18,583[33]
2005–06 Championship 19,841[34]
2004–05 League One 18,027[35]
2003–04 Third Division 16,846[36]

Plastic glory hunting ****ers is the only possible conclusion..
 
  • Like
Reactions: ZenArcade