Attendances at primership matches

por

I found this Article from The Times and it seems to confirm what I am seeing on TV
From watching the Premiership on RTE and Match of the Day one thing I have noticed since the start of the season is the numbers of empty seats at grounds.

Sunderland - First day back in the premiership and they can't sell out a game, fair enough it was against Charlton but still of a self proclaimed 'big club' they can't fill their ground on the first day back. I was the same last night against fellow relegation candidates West Brom.

West Brom v Birmingham - 4K less than a full house of a local Derby

Charlton v Chelsea - According to Today FM the Charlton chairman said in the program notes that they had trouble selling out the Valley for that game.

They are just a few example but I am sure that if you look at highlights that you will see empty seats at most game excluding the big 4 and possibly Newcastle.

This is coupled with increased attendance at Championship matches

Because the premiership has become so uncompetitive over the past few years fans deserting over priced mid table Premiership games.

I think so, and the wider the gap grows between the top and the rest the worst it will get.

mike65

Yeah, I checked out the Boro game midweek you could hear a thin metallic echo when the crowd cheered it was so empty. That said the Liverpool-Utd game was just sat through by 44,500 and at midday on Sunday too!

I can't figure out why the european nights are not seling out though, you'd think Teesiders would be chomping at the bit. The Real Betis game was packed on Tuesday so maybe its the opposition that matters.

Mike.

KdjaCL

Football fans are fickle, sing when your winning dont show up when your not.



kdjac

Lemlin

Attending matches is becoming too expensive for alot of people. Sure Chelsea doubled the price of tickets for disabled people this Summer, there was an article about it in the paper the other day.

applehunter

Lemlin wrote:

Attending matches is becoming too expensive for alot of people. Sure Chelsea doubled the price of tickets for disabled people this Summer, there was an article about it in the paper the other day.

Only in the Premiership

lol

Slash/ED

The premiership simply bores me to tears now, I can't even watch it on the TV. It is at an SPL like level of uncompetitiveness now, and also, every two bit manager now thinks playing a 4-5-1 makes them tactically clever, which leads to mind blowingly dull and boring games. The atmosphere at matches seems to be getting worse and it's no wonder attendences are not good.

applehunter

Just goes to show how important fans are in football.

Especially for presentation on TV!

por

KdjaC wrote:

Football fans are fickle, sing when your winning dont show up when your not.



kdjac

I think it goes deeper than that, Boro are doing their best in my memory and they still can't fill the place and it's not as if the sadium in falling down.

There was a good atricle on this board before the season started about fans being idiots, the main premis was that fans are so gullible that they are paying ever increased prices for an every decresaing product. Well the tide may be changing. Here is the Article

Slash/ED wrote:

The premiership simply bores me to tears now, I can't even watch it on the TV. It is at an SPL like level of uncompetitiveness now, and also, every two bit manager now thinks playing a 4-5-1 makes them tactically clever, which leads to mind blowingly dull and boring games. The atmosphere at matches seems to be getting worse and it's no wonder attendences are not good.

I agree Liverpool v Utd bored me to ters this afternoon.
Most teams will play 4-5-1 against the bigger clubs at home just to avoid defeat, that is the way we are going..

Chucky the tree

the 12 o'clock starts are also a killer. For a match to be entetaining a crowd needs to be lively to help the players. At 12 o'clock most of the crowd are too busy yawning to cheer.

applehunter

Definately.

12 o'clock on a Sunday morning is an awful time to have a game.

Mind you, I thought the atmosphere was excellent today despite the game and the kick-off time.

Jonny Arson

Just imagine if you're a Man United fan who pays 20% of your weeks wages to go to see them. You're watching a player like Rio Ferdinand (who earns 5 times the amount in a week than you do in a year) doing f**k all on the pitch and who has a far easier job than you could ever imagine. Would you not get tired of that? I certainly would.

The ego's of the players, the agents, the clubs are killing the game.

Slash/ED

I wouldn't mind that so much if the product was good, but the matches themselves are boring me now, both because their very uncompetitive at the moment and because of the negative inferior version of serie a style football that they're trying to employ at most clubs.

Spanish football is simply where it's at for the foreign stuff now. Technically sublime and so entertaining to watch because of how adventours every team is.

Necronomicon

Anyone catch the Blackburn game? The stand behind one of the goals was absolutely bare.

por

Here is another article from teh Guardian that talks about the issue, interesting read.

http://football.guardian.co.uk/Colu...1572820,00.html

Thanks to 'jank' for posting this on another thread

kensutz

applehunter wrote:

Definately.

12 o'clock on a Sunday morning is an awful time to have a game.

Mind you, I thought the atmosphere was excellent today despite the game and the kick-off time.

We played at 12 and had a brilliant away support at portaloo road. And we beat the scummers 1-0 what a day

MrJoeSoap

Necromomicon wrote:

Anyone catch the Blackburn game? The stand behind one of the goals was absolutely bare.

Yeah, the Newcastle fans pointed that out with chants on a number of occasions. Plus the ground was pretty much empty at full-time.

Lemlin

Blackburn is only a small town in England. They've always had problems filling the ground.

mike65

Lemlin wrote:

Blackburn is only a small town in England. They've always had problems filling the ground.

Its got a population of 140,000 nearly as big as Cork. Ewood park has a 31,000 capacity.

Mike.

applehunter

They dont do too bad so.

Cork City only average 4500 a game and they also have the poppulation of the rest of Co. Cork to pull from too.

Lets not be too harsh.

KdjaCL

Lemlin wrote:

Blackburn is only a small town in England. They've always had problems filling the ground.

I recall them filling it every week during at 2 seasons. Wonder why that was.
The big four will never have problems at PL games thanks to Irish fans and the like, only CL games where their fans cant get to games



kdjac

zokrez

I am thinking of going to Fulham v Liverpool next month and tickets are about €75. The other alternative is Arsenal v Man City. Now as paddyirishman that it is fine as i don't get to many games but how is an average working class fan expected to stump up the cash each and every match. Me thinks they would be better putting their money in a SSIA or ISA or Tessa or whatever they are called. I can see the same the crowd situation turning the same way it did in the 80s. Players are way over paid and the gaps are getting bigger between the big sides.

20 Times 20 Times

Spending that amount of money traveling over to england to watch the games is crazy i think , do you go to see your local eircom league team playing ? what about €15 to the game and your supporting soccer at home , now im not trying to be double standards here as some of you know i used to have a celtic season ticket and travel over a lot but i would always support my local team dundalk over them any time

Guy:Incognito

mike65 wrote:

Its got a population of 140,000 nearly as big as Cork. Ewood park has a 31,000 capacity.

Mike.

Yeah but thats assuming 1 in 4 (ish) of everyone in the town likes football enough to pay to see it and likes blackburn. Theres a lot of sports in england to divide the peoples attention.


Liverpool never seem to have a problem selling out the stadium every week.

Guy:Incognito

Zakrze wrote:

I am thinking of going to Fulham v Liverpool next month and tickets are about €75. The other alternative is Arsenal v Man City. Now as paddyirishman that it is fine as i don't get to many games but how is an average working class fan expected to stump up the cash each and every match. Me thinks they would be better putting their money in a SSIA or ISA or Tessa or whatever they are called. I can see the same the crowd situation turning the same way it did in the 80s. Players are way over paid and the gaps are getting bigger between the big sides.

Thats fairly expensive. My tickets for Liverpool v chelsea were only €45 each.

applehunter

£45...£75....lads ye are being taken for suckers.

Guy:Incognito

applehunter wrote:

£45...£75....lads ye are being taken for suckers.

Stekelly wrote:

Thats fairly expensive. My tickets for Liverpool v chelsea were only €45 each.

We use Euro's over here you know. Tickets for the Kop are £30 or 45 euro dollars.

applehunter

Oh ok

Thats better but still very expensive and I dont think i could afford it.

Guy:Incognito

For someone like me going over a couple of times a season its grand. A lot of people pay upwards of €70/€80 going to concerts every couple of months. Personall i'd rather a trip to liverpool

applehunter

ok, to each his own.

SteM

por wrote:

I think it goes deeper than that, Boro are doing their best in my memory and they still can't fill the place and it's not as if the sadium in falling down.

I agree totally. Both Boro and Charlton have had good starts to the season so it's not like people abandoning them because they're not winning. Charlton I'm especially surprised at because over the last few years it's always been very difficult to get tickets for the Valley because they have so many season ticket holders. Blackburn I'm not so surprised about, they even had trouble filling the stadium every week during the Jack Walker years IIRC.

eirebhoy

The cheapest ticket at Stamford Bridge is €70.

zokrez

Stekelly wrote:

Thats fairly expensive. My tickets for Liverpool v chelsea were only €45 each.

I am judging by prices at Fulham Ticket info.

I believe tickets for London matches are difficult for Liverpool matches and I was looking at buying for Fulham end, maybe from a tout. Any other suggestions ? I could save a lot of hassle and go to Arsenal/City match which i think I will be able to get a ticket for, probably another poxy restricted view though.......

bucks73

MrJoeSoap wrote:

Yeah, the Newcastle fans pointed that out with chants on a number of occasions. Plus the ground was pretty much empty at full-time.

They are not in much of a position to be criticising. Its not too long ago when they had crowds of less than 10,000. Same as Chelsea.

The premiership is number two in the average attendances after Germany and the championship comes in at number 6, going on last seasons figures.

MrJoeSoap

bucks73 wrote:

They are not in much of a position to be criticising. Its not too long ago when they had crowds of less than 10,000.

Between 1945 and 1994, Newcastle had an average attendance of 33,133.

A top-flight average in that period of over 35,000 and a second-flight average of 28,000.

I think it is widely accepted that Newcastle fans are and always have been the best supporters of any of the "top" clubs in England. Bar Liverpool perhaps.