Thetownend.com

Thought was really good.........i honestly thought they would struggle to break 7000.
8400 odd was a good turnout in my opinion for a match against a team who are not the biggest draw.

Home crowd this year seems to be bang on 8000 average, which is bloody good and a strong platform to build on if we can somehow climb our way towards the top six.

Yep, it's very encouraging. I expect we'll need to turn things around on the pitch to maintain it but as yo usay Panda, it's a strong platform if we can kick on sometime soon.

our trip to wembley has added an extra 1k to attendances this season

Ha the missus voluntary came to her first ever football match. She was bored to tears by half time. Mind you so was everyone else I think. Needless to say when i asked if she wanted to go again she just gave me 'the look'.

According to FL website our average so far this season is 9294 - know that's skewed slightly this early in the season but still really impressive. Compared to just 5/6 years ago when we weren't even averaging 6k to get a 50% increase shows just how far we've come and that a lot of the fans who drifted away in the post-premiership slide down the divisions are starting to return.

Our support gets slated on this forum regularly to a point where it gets really fucking boring. I personally think it's not that bad though and that was a very respectable turn out on Saturday.

Yep, and sensible pricing initiatives by the Board, too.

I remember, or maybe I don't, that during King's reign we were sometimes getting sub 4k or am I making that up?

I's say the away support is up slightly as well, there is certainly one extra at every game I've noticed, as Rick Wakeman looks to be loved up!

not an owner of a lonely heart anymore then.bless

Its more than likely, certainly recall being at a few games where there can't have been much more than that.

Think it will benefit the club massively going forward as well - Fitton and co have done wonders for the financial situation obviously but as they (wisely imo) are trying to make the club self sufficient rather than just throwing their own money at it too much just to have it come back to bite the club later - so if our attendances increase by 1000 or so on average over a season that's about £400k or so that can go back into the club for transfers/wages etc

Only 4 teams average more than us in this Division. Sheff Wed, Southampton, Charlton and Huddersfield.

Very good I think. If you jump to The Championship though we're small fry. Most clubs there average 15k to 20k.

Our support has been good this season, both in numbers and actual support.

Infact, our support thus far has generally been better than it was last season!

Yeah I was pretty pleased with the gate and the gates in general this season.

Wahay something positive!! I suppose the biggest fear is how quickly this extra 1000 might vanish should we not mount another play off push.

If we manage to pick up some form, there is every chance we could be on for one of our best years for average attendance since 95/96.  Under King it dipped down to the low 4,000's for league games, but we were looking likely relegation candidates by then.

The main reason why crowds dipped so much back then, was the Board ramping up the costs of a ticket...so for example between 03/04 and 04/05 we lost 26.4% of the previous years attendance.

OK we had a slightly disappointing season, but were still in with a shout of the PO's at Easter. With 7 games remaining we went to MKD and Grunt Sniff missed a last minute pen, which would have put us a point from 6th.

I think most would be happy if Wilson could emulate King's success.

I think King's first game V Cambridge on a Tuesday night had about 3500 turn up!

Wasn't that because half the ground was closed because of asbestos though?

we were always going to get decent gates this season off the back of last years promotion push coupled with reasonable season ticket prices.
a shite season this will see plenty not bother next year.

No. Around the time King came back part of the Arkells was shut because of wind damage for a game or 2.

cracking attendance saturday. Im glad that weve got a crowd that comes to watch Swindon play.

Unfortunately we were a dissapointment saturday.

I think the fans are ready for success this season. But the team isnt there at the moment. Whereas it was the other way round last season.

Really pleased that the gates are going up. It's exactly what the board wanted. Steady increases in gates year upon year then coupled with hopefully a redevelopment should get even more people in. We also need to keep challenging at the top end of this league and eventually earn promotion if we want the gates to keep going up though. My only concern is that if we are shite mid-table fodder come May then we will lose the extra 1k we have found this season.

The 2 blocks closest the Townend were closed other than that the rest of the ground was still open. It was just a shit attendance as we were pretty shit at the time.

I think the increased attendances definitely are helping with the ground redevelopment business case as shows that the club is able to move forward and thats why the board want the first spade in the ground asap.

I think the £199 town end season ticket deal last season helped, that was a guarenteed 1000 to start with and also the cheap price of the season tickets has put us at the levels of the average from 2 years ago.

Even the Arkells and DRS season tickets were only £269 if bought before a certain date, which is cracking value.  Also  the under 10's season tickets being free has made it possible to take younger kids without it being an expensive afternoon out.  To be honest I wouldn't have risked paying out for a ST for my 6 year old in case he lost interest after a couple of games and the money was wasted. As it is, he loves it and has only missed the evening kick-offs.

I'll second that! Under 10s for free is fantastic.

The fact that you only need to go to just over half the games to make a season ticket pay for itself also helps.  It means that people (like us) who can't go to every game can still get good value out of a season ticket.

Reg, I was referring to the final season (or handful of games) under King, and Wilson has already achieved more than King ever did as far as I am concerned.  PLay off final, decent football and managed to do it without irritating most fans.

Spot on.

I was bored to tears by half time!! That first half was incredibly boring!!!