Thetownend.com

Thought some of you might be intereted in this

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/sports/premiership+season+ticket+sales/2357367

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/sports/championship+season+ticket+sales/2357467

Going to see if I can find anything on League 1 and 2.

Only figures I could find for League 1 are:

Carlisle: 2479
Huddersfield: 16123
Northampton: 2056
Peterborough: 3100

I dont know what date there figures are all from mind.

I find it interesting reading the figures of the promoted and relegated teams

Stoke City
No official response. Ticket Office said: "About 8,500 sold last season, 17,500 for this season."

Reading lost only 3,000 (I use the word 'only' loosely).

It shows that there is a big gap from our L1 to Championship av. season ticket sales . I wonder how many we would sell in the Championship?

Southampton
Official response: "We are at 9,800 right now, and at this time last year we had an approx 11,000."

Good lord they're going downwards fast. They were getting 30,000 during 2006/07.

Yes they are. Is it true they have shut the corner sections of St Mary's to save money whilst Lowe sorts out the financial mess.

It is a good example of showing how having a new ground is no good if the other bits and pieces aren't run properly (though Oxford still win 1st place on this).

Yup, they have. Time to rely on all of those youth players they pinched across the Wessex boundaries over the years.

You didn't have a childhood in West Wiltshire without knowing someone who had trials or had played for Southampton kids.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/s/southampton/7452330.stm

Haha, so true. I remember Tom Evans walking around school with his Southampton tracksuit on.

Hull are an interesting one.  Up from 11k to 20,500. 

10 years back they were averaging 4,682 to our 9,500(ish) per game. 

As are Reading.  There are plenty of examples out there that show that small clubs can grow with the right off field set up.  There is hope for us.

I always take Hull as a good example I was working for Kingston on a short term contract when the KC was going up and although there isn't a great deal of to be proud of in Hull even the old dears were raving about it.

It would be interesting to see how the new stadium/major renovation factor has effected clubs.

the norwich case study is worth reading thats the way we should go

We're an interesting case when it looks to ground development, as compared to a lot of other clubs who've built big shiny stadiums, our current ground isn't too bad; at least compared to our current and near-mid future needs, even if we do well.

It's probably more relevant to look at clubs who have had new owners which sorted out the finances and put down a solid basis for the club to be run from without spending more than they can afford. Which is what the new board have done for us, whether we get a new stadium or not.

Doing that is an advantage now, but it will soon get to a point where clubs will have to sort out there finances or basically die. We're already getting that with all the deducted points last season and the one coming. Hopefully we can ride the surf of being ahead of lots of clubs.

If/when all the other clubs have sorted out all there finances then it'll be nice that things are about the football and the fans. I don't mind if it means we tend to consistently gravitate towards are natural league position (wherever it may be), the idea of football with out financial struggles hanging from clubs neck seems a bit utopian at the moment.

That's definitely more of the utopian than real football future though.

Wasn't just Wiltshire, in Berkshire if you didn't go to Charlton or Crystal Palace, then Southampton was the team for youth players 'Dell'