Written by Garbo and tindalls_hairband
..if you look at the clubs who have built new stadiums since the start of The Premier League, more have struggled to stay there?
Swansea City
Bolton Wanderers
Wigan Athletic
Reading
Sunderland
Middlesbrough
Hull City
Derby County
we also have a few who may struggle to survive:
Brighton & Hove Albion
Cardiff City
Southampton
We may suffer the same fate…personally The Championship would satisfy me in a new stadium, but would we really require it then?
tindalls_hairband added…
The most meaningful comparison* here is Swansea, who went from 11k to 21k. In their promotion season, the average attendance was 15,507. This season (back in the second tier), they sold 15,000 season tickets. I’m sure plenty of people in the area never dreamed they’d see Premier League football in Swansea. That might be what convinced them to go, but it’s not what’s making them stay.
That’s discounting two factors that make us very different:
1 – we haven’t been able to issue new season tickets to anyone since promotion
2 – even in the Championship, we could sell plenty more away tickets than we had room for
We stand a much better chance of getting 11k fans in the Championship if we provide a means for those who didn’t show an interest before 2015 to actually watch a game. If we’re relegated in 2022, that 10yr old kid who wanted a season ticket will be a 17yr old who isn’t used to watching live football.
*The others already had what we might consider sizeable grounds and their development occurred largely as a result of the Taylor Report and subsequent demand of safer, seated stadia (much like the ground we’re in today)
Derby: 18k to 33k
Boro: 26k to 34k
Sunderland: 22k to 49k
Hull: 15k to 25k
Reading: 15k to 25k
Your say…
billythekid wrote…
You mention Brighton. As I mentioned on the club statement thread, look how long it took them to get into the Premier League since the Amex was built.
Brighton had a new stadium since the days of the Goldstone, but they didn’t have a team to take them into it.
We have our smaller stadium, but we had the team to take us into the Premier League.
That’s what the history books will say. – Join the conversation, click here.
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