Whats wrong with football?

[4D]

That includes outlying Towns, and Swindon has a few less to add on - you are probably comparing with close to 250k in the same area for Swindon (before you get too far and start adding in Wiltshire Towns).

Anyway you cut it, their average is impressive as a % of the population, especially given the location of competing teams and their size vs. Swindon.

In our defence, Swindon is very much a suburb of London these days, with the vast majority of population growth having been commuter traffic.

Also, Swindon has to compete with the big clubs on our doorstep like Liverpool, Manchester United etc.

East Anglia always surprises me, smaller places like Ipswich and Norwich get decent home crowds.

[dalumpimunki]

The North East has the advantage being in the far reaches of the country, and having comparatively few league football clubs.

Draw a line across the country through Harrogate and Morecambe and, North of that, there's 2 clubs in the West, Barrow and Carlisle; and in the East, 4, Newcastle, Sunderland, Hartlepool and Boro.

The latter two draw a fair amount of support from North Yorkshire as well as Teeside. Sunderland get support from across Wearside, and scrap with the Toon for supporters in that urban, suburban sprawl that runs down the A194 into County Durham. Newcastle have pretty much the whole of Northumberland as their catchment area as well the urban area of Newcastle, Gateshead and South Shields.

Those two bigger clubs have a history of past glory so there are a good few that travel across from Cumbria as well.

In the same sort of geographical area we have the two Bristol clubs, Forest Green and Cheltenham, Oxford, Reading and Wycombe, and Bournemouth, Southampton and Portsmouth to our South.

So the far north has a population of 4.3m or so and 6 clubs. We have a population from Bristol to Berkshire and down through Hampshire of about 5.5m and 11 league clubs  trying to attract support.

That's without allowing for the fact that half the population in Swindon are descendants of London expats that can follow their family club easily enough from here.

So not surprising they get better support.

[Bob's Orange]

The Champions League draw having to be redrawn! Amateur hour!

Uefa's statement: "Following a technical problem with the software of an external service provider that instructs the officials as to which teams are eligible to play each other, a material error occurred in the draw for the UEFA Champions League Round of 16.

"As a result of this, the draw has been declared void and will be entirely redone at 1500 CET."

[wheretherealredsare]

It's all getting a bit Masi.

[Nemo]

Club lawyers sighing and cancelling their Christmas plans across Europe. Any club that gets a significantly harder draw now is going to be fuming.

[horlock07]

I think this dog had the right idea about the UEFA conference league.

[Bob's Orange]

'ark at this joker moaning about having to play 2 games in 4 days!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/59745954

With the caveat of course that I have no idea how many fit players they have sidelined with Covid, but they have a massive squad of players so i'm sure they could field a half decent line-up with subs.

[bigbobjoylove]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/59797491

Money well spent, City 

[Peter Venkman]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/59797491

Money well spent, City 

Must be about the 10th year in a row Shitty have had a deficit of £10m+.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey]

Yeah, but £38.4m in one season - albeit a Covid season!

I keep thinking if there is a similar kind of club to ourselves in the Championship that appears to be at least half sustainable without an owner propping them up.

Edit: probably Luton

[Legends-Lounge]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/59797491

Money well spent, City 

Be interesting to see how much the rugby club loses also.

[Nemo]

The Union salary cap is £5m a season total, it's a tiny fraction of the football club. Admittedly they supposedly pay Piatau £1m outside the cap, but if you consider that would make him the best paid player in the league, it puts the two sides of Landsdown's sports empire in perspective. Football is crazy expensive.

[Peter Venkman]

Be interesting to see how much the rugby club loses also.

Shitheads forum seem to think he cares way more about rugger than he does about them, I would say that constant £10m+ losses every year, year on year proves the opposite.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey]

They are getting into FFP breach territory, too, and the points deduction that could bring. Noticeable the losses are £600,000 short of the acceptable limit on losses.

Without Derby and Reading already having points deducted they’d be looking at relegation this season.

[Oaksey Moonraker]

City did refund their season ticket holders on a game by game basis though!

Lansdown is getting more bang from his bucks spending the money on Bristol Rugby and raising the Bristol sporting profile than bumbling along in the Championship with City.