Pat Cryne......(Barnsley) does lack a local population the size of a city.

Thats true, there's only about 220,000 in the Barnsley district.
But then again the Barnsley district is in the middle of a very highly populated area

We are not an isolated town for example like Scnuthorpe, Hull and to a certain extent Donny
And also other towns further afield such as Norwich or Ipswich

If you work clockwise round the perimeter of Barnsley there is only the part on the moors that borders Derbyshire (towards Manchester) where there isn't hundreds of thousands of people living right on Barnsleys boundary

Clockwise..........Wakefield, Donny, Rotherham, Sheffield, Derbyshire, Huddersfield.

If you put villages and towns into the equation surrounding Barnsley such as Hemsworth/South Hemsall (Wakefield), Mexboro/Denaby (Donny), Wath/Thorpe Hesley (Rotherham) Stocksbridge/Chapeltown (Sheffield), Flockton/Horbury (Huddersfield) then the potential catchment area for Barnsley football club is absolutly MASSIVE !!!

 

There was 'Plenty of Population' at Wembley

Last season was it 30 plus thousand and could have been more if the seats were available. Provide winning attractive football theres nothing to stop Oakwell attracting 25,000.

But we are far from reaching that stage at this moment in time.

 

the problem is

not just the size of the town, it's that there's other clubs very close by that 20 to 30 (and more) years ago were very successful. Such as Leeds, weds and utd. Whereas we were not! Therefore young uns of that time went to see those clubs, they now take their young uns, regardless of where they came from. I wouldn't have thought that we lose many supporters to donny for example.

 

These might be 'potential' fans but you're stretching the catchment area some what;

Hemsworth/South Emsall is Wakefield there number is reduced by the fact there is a Rugby side plus it's West Yorkshire so closer to Leeds.
Mexboro/Denaby in competition with both Donny and Sheffield for those fans
Wath/Thorpe Hesley both nearer to either Rotherham or Donny
Stocksbridge/Chapeltown both have closer ties to Sheffield
Flockton/Horbury both Wakefield not Huddersfield so same as top

It's interesting if you type places into Google Earth as it ties them to the nearest city, none of the ones you've suggested do.

The simple fact is that we would be lucky to average 20,000 even in we were in the Premiership. People will turn up to one off games like Wembley and pay the money but not week in week out. Only 13 teams in the Premiership get more than 25,000.

 

and Arthur Scargills. nt

 

Is there a line on a map?

I dont think its as clear as that.
However, I lived in Wath but went to school in Swinton and always felt that Wath was a Barnsley Town. But the kids in Swinton at the time were mostly Rotherham fans. I did not know any other Barnsley fans at school.

 

I know it's not clear but just trying to make the point we can't just simply add them into our catchment area. They are potential fans but the chance of getting them is very small. Our local media is either centred around crap stories or things happening in Leeds and Sheffield, the Wakefield express has more info on Leeds than any other team, the Wildcats find it difficult to get more coverage.

 

which is also what I was struggling to say nt

 

South Elmsall is probably nearer to Donny

Just

 

As someone said, people in places such as Wath think of Barnsley as their local town

And others around the boundary of Barnsley are the same.
For example, if you have an accident at Stocksbridge..........the ambulance is likely to take you to Barnsley hospital

But to say we would only get 20,000 crowds if we were in the Premeirship is just plane daft
We had one year in the premeirship and you couldn't get in the home end of the ground unless you had a season ticket.
If the ground held 30,000 and there was 6000 allocated for the away fans in the North Stand, you can nearly quarentee that Barnsley FC would get near on 24,000, plus the number of away fans.
Teams visiting such as Liverpool or Man united there would be 30,000 in the ground
Maybe playing teams like Fulham, Wigan and Blackburn there maybe only 20,000 in the ground

Which brings me to another point.............we need a new West Stand and we need some of the gaps filling in between the stands to get to a capacity of around 30,000
Ok, we may only be getting 12, 13 or 14 thousand right now
But...............if Pat Cryne gets his wish and we are succesfull, then we need the capacity of the ground there waiting when we are succesfull

 

I reckon there might be about 20 Wakefield Rugby League fans at most in Hemsworth,

Do actually know where Hemsworth is?

 

Here are the boundaries....

http://www.transformsouthyorkshire.co.uk/documents/main_tsy_map_la_2.pdf</p>

ignore the blue, its the grey whats real</p>

 

RE: As someone said, people in places such as Wath think of Barnsley as their local town

I haven't really been looking , but I thought we were getting less than 10K home fans per game.

 

If you compare Barnsley with say Newcastle

Population-wise and teritorially, South and West Yorkshire must be similar to the Tyne and Tees area, however, they have clubs Newcastle, Sunderland, Middlesbro and Hartlepool, where we have Barnsley, Huddersfield, Bradford, Leeds, Rotherham, Doncaster, and the Sheffields not forgetting that Manchester is only 30-odd miles away.

 

rotherhams town population (not council) is 117 000, to barnsleys 71 000, yet even when rotherham have been in the same division as us they had much lower crowds. rotherhams council population is 248 000 to barnsleys 218 000, so higher again. i wouldnt think that people in dunford bridge for example, despite being under bmbc, would have much affinity with the reds. barnsley do well support wise considering the size of the town population.

 

RE: I reckon there might be about 20 Wakefield Rugby League fans at most in Hemsworth,

Yes it's in West Yorkshire and run by Wakefield MDC. I'm not saying there not in our catchment but rather reasons why they look at other clubs.