Where have the crowds gone?

[Dr. Furface]

Take the Arse V Chelsea match at the weekend.
The match was so 'interesting' according to the radio commentators that they began discussing a phone in prize by phoning a number on a big screen at the ground ffs!.
I assume the ground was packed for that match? Wht would it cost a family of four to watch that cack? Did you go and did you feel cheated by the quality of the game against the price you paid?

Well I didn't go and I'm not a Chelsea fan, but I doubt that you'd get much/any change for your hypothetical family of four out of £150 (and that's just the match tix). My team - Villa - are away there in a few weeks, and I was thinking of going. The prices are £45 for the lower tier (crap view, been there before) and £48 for the upper tier. Now I can well afford that, but I figured that as we'll probably only lose there anyway, and going to Stamford Bridge is hardly a novelty for me, I might as well use that money on something else that'll give me more pleasure than seeing my team get stuffed, rather than give it to a Russian billionaire (I mean, with him owning the club, they should be charging LESS than anyone else, not more!) And I'll be just as happy if Villa somehow manage to win there, whether I go or not.

 

[Murdoch]

£175 for my Gravesend season ticket.

And for that I get to work in the club shop for free!

 

[Rocket Romano]

Sunderland notch up 33,000 for home game with Man City. Assuming 3,000 of those were Man City fans thats a Sunderland turn up of 30,000

Nearly 20,000 empty seats. They might not even fill it for the Newcastle game at this rate

Even Charlton notched up more fans than Sunderland (The apparant Centre for English Media Studies)

 

[mod]

The premiership is an over priced and over rated product and fans are finally fed up with it and protesting in the only way its every gonna hurt clubs by not turning up as often.

I support Fulham and getting to the top flight used to seem pure fantasy but now we are a regular fixture there I have never been so bored going to football. I didn't get a season ticket this year as last season was the least enjoyable (but most expensive) in my 16 years following the club.

The atmosphere in stadiums is pathetic these days cause the normal working class punter is being priced out.

Part of me would actually welcome relegation.

 

[jiggajagga]

The atmosphere in stadiums is pathetic these days cause the normal working class punter is being priced out.

When I joined U75 many moons ago I said the same thing as you mod and I got tanked for it, many calling me an old fashioned thinker.
I think I was right then and I think you are right now mate!
Football WAS about passion, anger, tribalism.
Now its about shareholders, money, and image.
Its become civilised and middle class and its lost its real reason for existing which was a way for the working classes to let off steam instead of rioting about their horrible lives in the factories and mines.

 

[JTG]

Part of me would actually welcome relegation.

Some Fulham fans we met on a train coming back from Rochdale the other year (they were coming back from Leeds), said exactly that to us. They'd rather be playing us than be in the Prem.

 

[mod]

We also used to dream about playing Chelsea in a league game but after 3 visits to to Bridge I'm never going back. £49 a ticket (its gone up again this season), shit view, shit atmos and (wait for this) fulham fans ejected for celebrating a goal. Fuck that. Give me Brentford away anyday.

 

[jiggajagga]

(wait for this) fulham fans ejected for celebrating a goal. Fuck that.

Really sad that mod but why am I not surprised?
Footie is that quiet these days on TV you can here people coughing and asking for someone to pass the cucumber sandwiches!!!

 

[flimsier]

The money involved in football has gone up at an exponential rate since the 80s. The bubble was always going to 'burst', though I'd argue it's slowly deflating. I think it started to around the time of the collapse of the ITV Digital deal.

It's not just attendances at the games... Sky thought their Pay-per-View channel would change the way football is sold to people and set the tone, but they were soon selling access to it for £50, or sometimes less, because no-one buys their games as Pay-per-view.

 

[jiggajagga]

Sky thought their Pay-per-View channel would change the way football is sold to people and set the tone, but they were soon selling access to it for £50, or sometimes less, because no-one buys their games as Pay-per-view.

The question flimsier is...WHY?
If you were a businessman and you had a product that wasn't selling as it should you would make changes to your product, advertising, revenue streams, etc surely?
The premier league and Sky seem to live so far from reality that they wouldn't realise something was wrong if Manu played Man City and no-one turned up!
Unbelievable!
The really sad thing is that football was once a passionate game, possibly the best in the world, and the money men are slowly strangling the life out of it!

 

[mrkikiet]

here you go, we were there first.

 

[flimsier]

One child, one adult: Crawley Town £24
Bayern Munich: £13.60.

From the Guardian iirc

 

[WasGeri]

I was amazed to discover that you can get a season ticket for an adult & child at Watford for only £90. It's about £300 for a single adult.

It's almost worth kidnapping a child for.

 

[Stobart Stopper]

So, we wanted to take the kid to watch the Hammers for his birthday......£90 they want for the 3 of us. Fucking rip off.

 

[Cerberus]

Well done Urban75!

Where U75 treads first....the media follow.

Dwindling attendances and high prices have eventually become major issues this season. The Indy, Grauniad, Evening Standard and even the Hate Mail have all run pieces along these lines. Unsurprisingly the Murdoch press has declined to comment.......but they do have a "product" to sell.

Rather than see my team relegated i think i`d rather see the bottom fall out of the game and start from scratch.

I`d be lying if i said i had`nt enjoyed some of the benefits of the PL/Sky years. These are exclusively on the pitch.....Klinnsmann, Zola, even Bergkamp . However, overkill in terms of marketing, exorbitant ticket prices, plastic staduims, megastores, blanket coverage (of mediocre teams and games) and bizarre kick-off times/dates now far outweigh any possible plusses.

What now then...is this a mere blip, a result of the "cricket effect"? or something deeper? Perhaps a slump in the economy in general?

Having discussed this at length at work and in the pub with Spurs, Arsenal, West Ham and Palace fans the consensus seems to be for a mass desertion...after all, the middle class/corporate types won`t want to sit in an empty stadium.... they were only there for the "atmosphere" anyway. The money men will generate the usual spin...about clubs going to the wall, talent staying away from english leagues and the national team suffering (as if i care).

One of the papers did a comparison with the first division 21 years ago. Arsenal were at home against Stoke and drew 26,000. Sunderland 16,000; West Ham 17,000 and Leicester 11,000!! So attendances have to fall pretty hard to match the 80's but i beleive we have witnessed the beginning of a slump....and perhaps a return to watching football on OUR terms and not those of shareholders, the City, sponsors, international corporations, not to mention oligarchs too!!!

 

[poet]

Well, can you blame mackems for not feeling too thrilled about spending the best part of thirty quid to watch that shower of shite? Sunderland have been the biggest victims of the gulf between first division and premiership football - a great first division team but lacking the class (and the bankroll) to compete in the premiership. Yo-yoing between disastrous and triumphant seasons is inevitable. The management have rather successfully made the stadium of light 'family friendly' and therefore drained all too much of the traditional atmosphere and priced a lot of the faithful out of the game. The hardcore of away supporters are still fantastic, but the SoL is a big place to fill. Every time I go over to Italy I realise how sad the current state of british football has become - the Ultras can make a nil-nil draw spectacular, but you'd never get away with their theatrics in most british grounds. I want to stand, I want to shout like a nutter, I want to be stood next to teenage lads who got in for a fiver, I want pride and passion. Give me second-division awaydays against tranmere in the pissing rain any day. I miss the smell of Bovril and Old Holburn, I miss feeling a part of a club rather than a customer of a PLC. Maybe It's nostalgia, I dunno.

 

[J77]

Now the Premier League cheifs have taken U75's lead: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/4264936.stm