Our Crowds

We would all like an extra couple of thousand coming through the turnstiles for every home game but tbf to our supporters we are a loyal bunch who understand the high's and low's of our football club. Whether we are Championship or LG 1 our home support as pretty much been the same which is a credit to the fans, it's always going to be hard in our catchment area, for example where I live in pompey the nearest team taking aside from Southampton are about 60 Miles away ( Reading and Brighton) 60 Miles in all direction around Barnsley we have loads and not just Yorkshire, are we punching above our weight, absolutely not we are where we deserve to be COYR

 

Our home crowds, even without taking away fans into account, have been comfortably above 10,000 in the last few years and will only go up next season following success this season. I find it hard to imagine how sparse the ground must have been before the 1990s, and am glad I'm living in an era where we have plenty of fans at every game.

 

In the dark days of the 60s when me and my mates went to the game we could have had a stand each.
Then a bit of good marketing around Barry Thomas and Johnny Evans caused a few thousand to turn up.
They had to put proper drainage int West Stand bogs and everything

 

We seem to have a very consistent core support these days and whilst that’s pleasing it does mean that because it doesn’t seem to fluctuate as much as previously - regardless of success - then it’s quite difficult to drive an increase in crowds.

For example I was genuinely surprised at how low the crowd was for the game v Blackpool. Less than 15k. A few years ago we would have expected double that for a game that important (yes I know the capacity doesn’t allow that now).
I suppose it’s down to the fact that the age profile has radically altered. Most of the crowd now look to be middle aged (like me!). When I started following the Reds in the 70/80s we were a very young crowd. You don’t hear fans ever singing ‘ back to school on Monday’ these days!

What it shows to me is that the Club need to do a lot more to encourage younger fans into the ground to capture their attention before it goes elsewhere.

 

What they need to do is 2 or 3 years sustained investment and build the squad up so it’s fit for purpose.

 

It's a strange one with the crowds. After the Clarke and Hunter era and miners strike they dropped off, but we could still attract a fair few extra for the bigger games.

Nowadays we have a larger regular fanbase, but not as many seem to want to jump on the bandwagon.

 

I wonder what a certain foookin bird watcher thinks of this.

 

Plenty of youngsters in the Ponty. I know of 2 under 16s getting season tickets without parents. I think having to have reserved seating stops people spontaneously going to the match and meeting up with mates

 

Oddly enough our average crowd during our last Championship season was very similar to QPR and Preston. Just checked and these are the averages this year:

15 Reading FC 327.539 22 14.888
16 Bolton Wanderers 322.002 22 14.636
17 Blackburn Rovers 318.415 22 14.473
18 Preston North End 325.674 23 14.160
19 Queens Park Rangers 318.912 23 13.866
20 Millwall FC 313.352 23 13.624
21 Hull City 267.627 22 12.165
22 Wigan Athletic 257.384 22 11.699
23 Brentford FC 224.622 22 10.210
24 Rotherham United 216.193 22 9

I think we underplay ourself at times - we are more than capable of matching Reading. For the size of the the town and considering the number of clubs with a 30min drive we don't do too badly at all.

 

Or, instead of acting like an eleven year old girl, you could tell us what you think.

 

We have quite a few young 'uns sat round us in the Ponty End (nezbfc's two are a good example). They're the long term future of our club and long may they continue with their support. They're far more knowledgeable than us old fogies, too!

 

The challenge to the club is to lure youngsters away from their xboxes where they play as Man U or Barcelona and away from match of the day being entranced by the greed league.
They seem to be making that effort. To me it's absolutely key.

 

So, the moral of the story is......

Us old fogies (ok, I can accept the beginning of that label seeing as I have surpassed 40), need to ensure that we have at least 2 kids each.

Turn them into die-hard reds. And when we gracefully fall off this gods earth in later years, we will have done our duty by doubling the reds following, but temporarily whilst we are still active enough, even treble it.

I think...

 

Every time I've had a grandson born, we win automatic promotion by the end of the month. EVERY TIME!

 

Triplets due for the prem promotion ? That’ll dent your wallet

 

Theres plenty of young fans.
However, as with most teenagers they tend to be daft. Meet other teenagers as daft.
Sup a few shandies and get into mischeif.

Sometimes its high jinx sometimes its something different all together.

They end up banned for 3 years. Time its up the majority have found something else to do on a saturday afternoon.

 

Took me 10 years to get youngest hooked but hopefully I've provided 2 die hard and one so so

 

Steady on James.

I think we will slightly increase our average home attendance next season and also increase our combined attendance including considerably larger away followings.

How's that?

 

I think we should have a bbs whip around and pay your young un for next season then to knock another one out

 

Hull's support seems to be rapidly collapsing after the novelty of the new stadium started wearing off.