Thetownend.com

is there any news on the new ground

No.

yeah

Have a look here http://thetownend.com/index.php/topic,38773.0.html

Anything that's been made public so far is in there

can we please assemble a team that would grace a new stadiuM :-[

Seeing last season we competed with the likes of Norwich, Leeds, Charlton and Millwall shouldnt we be assembling the support that would grace a new stadium?

Exactly.

Very well said!

Totally agree but how would you go about it? 180k + swindon residents wiltshire population of 430k + and not forgeting fans from outside the county Newbury way etc... and our average on a promotion challenging season was 8k. Personally i think we have a catchment of around 500k people... its trying to convinvce them to come and support the club thats the problem. Would love to see 10k average back at the county ground.

Like maybe support that doesn't write the team off after two games? FFS! (not aimed at you Spencer)

I think we're doing OK in terms of attendances.  The two events that will really see our crowds take off are the move to a new ground and promotion to the Championship.  For a club that has spent all of the last decade in the lower leagues, there is no disgrace at all in averaging 8,000 or thereabouts.

On the demographics point, the clubs we compare ourselves to are invariably from bigger towns/cities (Southampton, Millwall) or have had more success in the past (Norwich etc.) and have therefore built a bigger fan base over the years.  Even Reading has an advantage over us in that the town is bigger (and I'm talking about the built up area, not the local authority boundary...which is largely irrelevant).  But the other area that Reading and other towns in the south east have over us is that their hinterlands are more densely populated.  Around Swindon, it's basically fields for miles on end.  We have a smattering of villages and very small towns, but otherwise it's open tracts of countryside.  Around Reading (for example), they draw support from places like Wokingham, Bracknell, Henley, Marlow and many. many smaller places in between.

We shouldn't beat ourselves up too much about the crowds.  Our part of the world is very sparsely populated, with Swindon as the only sizeable place for some distance around.

As we are talking about attendances, and influences thereof, I was reading 4-4-2 and note that we are the seventh (7th) cheapest club in the entire football league (and cheapest in league 1) to support given the early bird top price of £299.

Wigan at £295 was probably best value, other than being Wigan...

The Real Madrid of league 1 were charging near £500 for a top seat at the San Withdeano. I assume it came with a rain condom thrown in.

We've never had it so good!

On the OS the club are requesting old/historical pics of the County Ground.

A pre-cursor to an announcement on redevelopment?

http://www.swindontownfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10341~2118842,00.html

I remember somebody on TEF posting pics of the demolition of the Shrivenham Rd Stand
and the construction of the new Intel/Don Rogers Stand.Perhaps whoever has those pics
can get in touch with the club?

Bedford Red posted some pics showing the construction of the North Stand,that he found in
an old programme or an old copy of the Adver.

They were in an old programme, i have contacted the club to see if they want copies of those. Thanks for the PM to let me know about this AM

It will be interesting to see what happens at Brighton next season. When If they don't get promoted I can still see them getting respectable crowds at their new place. You can sense the buzz it has created when you visit their forum.

I think Swansea are a pretty good example of what can happen when things go right. Pretty much a success from the off after moving from the shitty hell hole Vetch. I think Brighton will be a similar story.

Brighton are big enough to make it a success.  Also they are moving from a shitty non football stadium as opposed to a ground that holds 100 yrs of memories.