Swindon Town Vs Crawley Official Matchday Thread

[Batch]

Anatomy lecture:

You may think DiCanio is a bit of a cock, but Evans is a big fat crooked cunt. HTH.

I think the Crawley fans posts have been pretty good. But I'd like to point out that I think the majority of people calling them tin pot probably do so because 3500 crowds are nowhere near enough to sustain a league 1 club on merit.

I guess you could point to our own loss making, but I think that whilst we are spending big that if we needed to scale right back to break even we'd have a good chance to remain a league club, whereas Crawley wouldn't.

Does that give us the right to call them tinpot. Well I don't really have an opinion on them now fat boy is gone.

[herthab]

While I have not affection for crawley, to say low crowds will be unable to sustain a league one place is factually incorrect. You only have to look at Yeovil; while we have visited the basement twice in the last few years, they've maintained third tier football and reached the playoff final.

The fucking wurzel cunts.

[The Grim Reaper]

Personally (based on nothing but a gut feeling), i think a town of our size including the surrounding places such as Chippenham, Devizes, Westbury etc. should be attracting more than we do.

Our problem is the floating fans who have no afinaty for a particular team so just go to watch the games of whichever club is doing best at the time. I'm pretty certain people in say Chippenham and Bath are more likely to travel to Ashton Gate to watch Bristol City while they are in The Championship. This also applies to Hungerford and Newbury where people will be more likely to travel to Reading especially as they have reached The Premier League. I remember saying to a mate last season that having both Reading and Southampton reaching the Premier League was not going to do our attendance figures any good. A lot of northern teams in League One this season so I personally think home crowds will be down on last season. Until we reach The Chamionship I doubt very much we could achieve an average attendance in excess of 10K.

[Batch]

Yeovil's average attendance 2011-2012 = 3984
Crawley's = 3211

Good point Herthab, didn't realise Yeovil had such low attendances. In fact Colchester, Stevenage, Bury and Rochdale had even lower attendances.

[Peter Venkman]

The thing is a fair few clubs at this level have small crowds like Crawley but they live to their means and although they don't run massive profits each season but all just stay above the breadline.

Crawley are not like this, they have got promoted by paying inflated signing on fees instead of wages, which was not taken into account with the wage/salary cap.

The last 2 seasons its well documented that they have got around the wage cap by unusual sponsorships deals and signing on fees such as when they signed Sergio Torres for a minimal weekly wage but with an excessive signing on fee and massive transfer fees for the level...getting over the wage cap but still paying him more that others could afford.

This is what is unsustainable and will have to stop, currently it has been got around by the mystery owners investing large sums in one off sponsorship deals, much in the same way that Notts County did a couple of years ago to get around the wage cap.

Some of this is stated in this article from last year addressing some of the financial oddities.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2011/feb/18/crawley-town-manchester-united-fa-cup

[Ardiles]

Crawley bought their Football League place, pure & simple.  I don't dislike them for being 'tinpot', because that would be daft.  'Tinpot' is a relative term that could, equally, be applied to us by bigger clubs.  'Tinpot' also implies that you are punching above your weight, which is something to be applauded, not ridiculed.  But I dislike Crawley because there was no achievement to be proud of in their ascent up the leagues.  It was purchased.  They financially bulldozed their opponents.  Promotion was a dull inevitability.

Of course, we might also have the same charge levelled at us.  We also spent more than we earned last season and will probably do so again - but scale is everything.  In the long run, every club will return to its natural level, and last season's spending simply returned us to the division that we have spent most of our history in anyway.  Our spending was also sustainable to the extent that on crowds of 8,000 we could probably sustain League 1 football in the long run anyway (without any further cash injections), and that promotion to the Championship would significantly add to those crowds.  Crawley does not have that growth potential.  They're already maxxed out financially and their crowds of 3,000 are never likely to improve materially...especially with Brighton's resurgence just up the road.

As others have said, consoldation in League 2 is probably the best they could hope for longer term...but I wouldn't personally bet on that happening.  I see another Rushden, to be honest.  A star that shines brightly for a short period of time, before burning itself out to nothing.

[Peter Venkman]

Thats just about how I see it Ardiles.