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by InvaderOfPitches127/1 17:04Sat Jan 27 17:04:29 2024
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The Championship
Views: 1061
It's so good to think/dream about the Championship instead of EFL survival so out of interest let's continue...
I know that clubs’ income, expenditure and therefore profit aren’t reliant solely on home attendances but looking on footballwebpages.co.uk at the numbers makes interesting reading.
League 1 current average appears to be around 10,000 with Derby and Bolton 20k plus.
We are 21st with about 4,700 so, as we all know, we are clearly punching well above our weight and long may that last.
The Championship average is about 22,500 with Sunderland and Leeds 35k plus.
The lowest attendance (Rotherham) is around 10,500.
PW’s aim has always been the Championship, so how do folks see how we might achieve a reasonably sustained place there in say a 3-5 year term?
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Re: The Championship
Views: 781
Someone should superimpose Bournemouth's ground on our footprint, to show how much room we'd need to go to 12-14k (6,000 of which would be empty most weeks).
Edited by BALDOCKBORO at 14:12:32 on 15th March 2024
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Re: The Championship
Views: 787
If we were to gain promotion would it be sensible to start with stadium improvements? We seem to be a bit obsessed with it on here at the moment.
Surely that could leave us at risk of playing lower league football in a bigger, emptier stadium in the near future?
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Re: The Championship
Views: 731
With more fans come more who are obsessed with crowd numbers.
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Re: The Championship
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I didn't mean it in the short term. If we happened to get promoted to the Championship this season, I wouldn't advocate immediately expanding the stadium, as there is no need for it. I was talking about the medium to long term (5-10 years +) as we, hopefully, slowly build the regular fan base to the level where it would be necessary. The figure of 10,000 by the OP was a reference to the smallest club currently in the Championship as a fair comparison.
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Re: The Championship
Views: 771
There is zero percent chance of us being a sustainable club in the 2nd tier in our lifetime.
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Re: The Championship
Views: 677
Inclined to believe this but Wigan had similar attendances 25 years ago. There's no way it happens whilst we're at Broadhall Way and it's not like Wigan are a sustainable Champ club now either.
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Re: The Championship
Views: 774
If PW has had eyes on the Championship since he took the club over and being the astute business man that he is, I would imagine he has a plan. When you consider how close we are to achieving his ambition, he will have all of his ducks in a row. As soon as we are there he will launch all the ground improvements necessary. The Lamex, Broadhall Way and surrounding area will be adapted to cope. I could be wrong but doubt it very much.
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Re: The Championship
Views: 721
once all the grants are in place then the improvements may be done, if required
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Re: The Championship
Views: 849
The only way to do it is very slowly. For example, a 10,000 average gate will take many more years to build up, although we've done well to get it up to 5,000-ish, not to mention stadium expansions or moving stadiums.
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Re: The Championship
Views: 744
Absolutely. It’s taken over a decade to establish ourselves as a league club and that included an almost immediate flirt with the Championship.
PW will know our limitations and we seem to be good at finding other revenue streams. Arguably I’d say the further up the pyramid you go the less it’s about matchday revenue and more money from other sources.
If we go up the place is likely to be sold out for most home fixtures regardless of results for most of the first season at least. Be that from the excitement of the Championship and that we’ll be a new away day for lots of fans of clubs with big followings.
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Re: The Championship
Views: 812
Yes I take your point.
That presumably includes having the space for the much higher numbers of away fans that Championship status brings - something I think others have commented on before
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Re: The Championship
Views: 769
In rough numbers, we'll have capacity for 5500 home fans. As per Luton in the Prem, the only guarantee of getting in will be to buy a season ticket. There will be sell outs nearly every home game. For some, the only way of watching us will be away from home.
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Re: The Championship
Views: 764
Simplest but no means cheapest option in my mind is to fill the 2 corners between the south and the west and the west and the north.
Away fans can then have the whole of the south plus the corner and maybe even part of the west. Ok would push some of the west more towards the north and that corner but will increase the capacity steadily which is what we need.
Infrastructure around the ground mentality needs to change as well, allowing the circus and the fair ground to absorb the car park opposite the ground for a 1 off money spinner in football season is stupid in my mind. The council need to support the club help with what it needs not talking money but infrastructure around the ground. Even if they charged £1 to park on match days and provided traffic control at full time. Simple investment that makes the club/town much better run
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Re: The Championship
Views: 726
We’re lucky to have free parking in Fairlands Valley really. And it’s nothing to do with the club so we can’t object to the council letting the circus/fair etc. use the land.
I also believe that it’s an old bylaw that fair (and possibly circus) operators have the right to operate on certain sites so long as they turn up once a year and the council can’t stop them unless they find another suitable site.
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Re: The Championship
Views: 709
The bye law tho k only applies to the fair in the old town which is charter fair and has to be on same days every yr or it lapses. Even in COVID they put one stool/tent out ithink to meet ths .Re Fairlands they just hired it out with prob a max number of times a yr eg there are normally only 2 circuses each yr.
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Re: The Championship
Views: 738
You can't do that due to the stupid way we built the south and north stands. If they had access from undernearth you could but the turnstiles/ access points are on the side, which screws everything up. There's a reason clubs build stands in a certain way and we choose to ignore that.
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Re: The Championship
Views: 687
They then perhaps could redevelop EF by adding seated tier and the give away team an allocation of seats in the West ? In fact not sure why we done the latter this season given we rarely full it ourselves.
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Re: The Championship
Views: 644
The east terrace is never full either, shall we give the away fans tickets there too and a few in the North Stand whilst the club are trying to get a safety certificate for it
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Re: The Championship
Views: 591
Stupid comments West Stand was not full last season but we still gave some away teams some of West Stand to maximise income and it obviously wax within safety cert. Plus ironically may reduce number of away fans who might try to get on to EG or North.
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Re: The Championship
Views: 654
This is a hilarious thread.
We don't even average 5k fans (and never have done in our entire history) and have only ever had six league matches with an attendance higher than 6k!
And this is only the fourth season we have ever spent in League One!
Edited by Chuds at 13:09:17 on 15th March 2024
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Re: The Championship
Views: 593
Hilarious, Bewildering, same as some of the comments when we lose a couple of matches!! the comments after the Fleetwood game and how shit it was, some people have such a short memory or haven't been going for that long, i find it staggering i really do
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Re: The Championship
Views: 587
When we are in the bottom half of League 1 next Autumn we will have sub 3k crowds every week
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Re: The Championship
Views: 565
What % of our newer fans do you expect to hang about if we go on a long run of poor form and spend next season struggling in L1.
I dont expect it to happen, but if it does, people who've only recently got on the Boro bus will get off.
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Re: The Championship
Views: 259
Will be interesting to see. Worth noting that our average attendance is more than 1,000 higher than in 2011-12, our closest comparable season in terms of level and results. To me, that suggests the ‘baseline’ level of support has increased now, but to what extent we’ll only find out when we do see a significant drop off in form/level.
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Re: The Championship
Views: 749
Re final point but the the mentality of some no footy residents would be the other way round , why allow a match on days when a circus is on etc .
There was also an uproar a few yrs back if I remember when SBC were going to charge to park on match days only
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Re: The Championship
Views: 649
My argument to that is what brings the bigger revenue stream a championship/league 1 football stream with crowds of upwards of 8/9k every other week or a circus and a fun fair? One/twice a year.
If we are to be taken seriously and not follow the “punching above our weight” tag year in year out the mentality of the town, club and council needs to change.
All of which takes money and time but I guess the main point is where do we see ourselves in 2/3 years time? If we have a true belief that we can make the championship and sustain it we need to change the mindset and a club first mentality but agree that’s a big big task
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Re: The Championship
Views: 439
I’d hope the council would be amenable to opening Fairlands field to parking as they currently do now on occasion, should the circus be in town etc and space were needed.
And my yardstick for whether we’d ‘sustain’ in the Championship is Wycombe. They couldn’t do it so I really don’t see much how we could. Two seasons maybe, 3 or up would be fantasy.
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Re: The Championship
Views: 403
Yeah couldn't see us sustaining it at all. The dream is to get there for a season, then I'd assume we would get relegated straight away, or if we have momentum, perhaps stay up and do one more season.
The worry in that scenario is after going back down to League One would we keep falling!
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Re: The Championship
Views: 409
I'd love to go up for one season, just to do all the new grounds.
Agree though a freefall like Yeovil's would be a concern.
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Re: The Championship
Views: 400
It’s the run before you can walk scenario. I’ll get shot down in flames for saying promotion no matter how great long term might not be the best for the club now. It’s a tough one to be honest.
You see so many clubs hit the Championship then spiral due to wages loosing players once they get relegated they struggle to come back.
It’s tough enough to be a top end League 1 side consistently and maybe that is the next step, know one knows what the future holds but enjoy it while we can as 2 years ago we certainly where not
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Re: The Championship
Views: 387
Absolutely, Championship would be amazing even if it's at a cost. YOLO!
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Re: The Championship
Views: 408
Wr$xham could do it.
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Re: The Championship
Views: 286
No point expanding if we arent going to fill the seats. The money would be better spent on players than can compete at a higher level. Then, if we survive in the Championship for a few years you can look at expanding. Only problem is paying the wage bill? Imagine we would have to rely a lot on loans?
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