Swindon Town FC v Preston North End FC Official Matchday Thread

[RobertT]

But 94/95 were on the downslope of the STFC pinnacle, the premier league. I think we did well to get near that this year after a decade in the third tier (with dips into the 4th).

Not sure how we get to make the step up in crowd numbers though, except sustained championship football.

It's tough, we haven't shown the capability in the past 40 years to sustain decent crowds consistently above 5 figures, even under Hoddle.

The rel question is does that matter a great deal in the short term?  I don't think so.  Somehow you have to boost the commercial revenue, within which I include hospitality, and that does come with a new/revamped ground.  The past 2/3 years have been an eye opener that we really could push that more because we boosted revenue by over a million in commercial terms alone.  Way more than we can muster by adding a couple of thousand on the gate, and that was with the restrictions the current ground had.  Look at Rugby, games with 10k crowds but also with people paying nearly £200 for matchday hospitality.

[Batch]

Fair point re: commercials. Wonder if the increase is just better/harder sell, or whether (like it or not) PDC brought in extra cash

I guess you could argue it doesn't really matter short term.

[RobertT]

It was pre PDC, so something the new guys brought with them.  Sponsorships were a key part fo this I think, and we did that without a big name Manager as well.  I can't remember a time when we had so many match day hospitality options, and that is with a small area available.

[kerry red]

The Championship is always going to be stuffed with big clubs, with big away followings - this is where average attendance will go up.

I really don't think STFC as an average Championship side would really attract much of an increase in home support - maybe 1000.

When Peterborough play one of the smaller Championship sides they get less than 8000.

I'm not really convinced that a new, or revamped, stadium would per se be enough to attract more fans - it's always going to be down to what is happening on the pitch

[Jimmy Glass is an Alien]

It's a difficult one. What were Readings average attendance pre madjeski move?

I think it would have to be a combination of a winning team and good facilities to attract the floating fans and make them regulars. Who's to say if we went up and we were hovering around the bottom of the league that the attendances would go down as we're not winning.

[tans]

It's a difficult one. What were Readings average attendance pre madjeski move?

About 3k

[Reg Smeeton]

It's a difficult one. What were Readings average attendance pre madjeski move?

I think it would have to be a combination of a winning team and good facilities to attract the floating fans and make them regulars. Who's to say if we went up and we were hovering around the bottom of the league that the attendances would go down as we're not winning.

The last season at Elm Park...both us and Reading were in the second tier, we averaged 9,917 Reading 9,160, they finished a place above us.

[Ardiles]

Championship football and a properly redeveloped stadium would see a step change in our (by League 1 standards) already respectable attendances.  It's there for the taking.  We have had nearly a generation of under-achievement...and we're one of the very last clubs to look at doing something with their ground.  (Millwall, Middlesbrough etc. were leading the way there 20 years ago, post-Hillsborough.)  I've never once heard an explanation as to why Reading, Swansea, Hull etc. can move to the next level and multiply their attendances, and we supposedly cannot.  Of course we can.

[pumbaa]

Regarding hospitality, the whole non-matchday hospitality thing was being pushed very hard during the recent ground tour I attended. The club has a full time events organiser, whose role is to fill those three suites Monday to Friday (and non match day Saturday's), and it seems to be working somewhat.

The big down side is that all the suites face away from the pitch, so while they are used heavily on match days, there is a recognition that there needs to be more, and facing the pitch, in any re-development to maximise revenue.

[fatbasher]

Championship football and a properly redeveloped stadium would see a step change in our (by League 1 standards) already respectable attendances.  It's there for the taking.  We have had nearly a generation of under-achievement...and we're one of the very last clubs to look at doing something with their ground.  (Millwall, Middlesbrough etc. were leading the way there 20 years ago, post-Hillsborough.)  I've never once heard an explanation as to why Reading, Swansea, Hull etc. can move to the next level and multiply their attendances, and we supposedly cannot.  Of course we can.

Well at a guess I'd say that most of these clubs if not all owned their grounds. Furthermore they were able to move because the old grounds were developed for housing/job creation schemes, councils love these. Also there was plenty money sloshing around the ecconoy to afford these changes of use, development of the old ground and building the new ground. In short....money.

[Ardiles]

Simply not true...on several counts.  Swansea and Hull, for example, have both developed new stadia in partnership with their local authorities.  (A lesson there for Swindon?)  And not that this bit makes a lot of difference, but we do own our ground; just not the freehold.

[mrverve]

I think people under-estimate our potential fan base, since 2002 we've doubled our attendence and we're in the same league. It goes to show what a few exciting seasons can potentially do. We're averaging about the same now as we did in the late 90's and I think the return to the 2nd tier might re-kindle a bit of excitement amongst the fans again. I reckon we could average in and around 11k-13k, taking into account that most weeks we would sell our away allocation too.

However, to take it to the next level a redevelopement/ new stadium has to happen. It's blindingly obvious that without the types of facilities that will come with it we'll always find it hard to compete in the long term.

[sonicyouth]

I made this a couple of months ago, seems relevant again.

[url width=900 height=371]http://i.imgur.com/dIHYNNC.jpg[/url]

[mrverve]

Just realised we averaged more last year than we did in the PO season under Wilson in a higher division.

[Benzel]

This will also be the 4th consecutive year we've averaged over 8k. Time to push on.