Attendance issues

[eastie]

People say its all seaters or the ground but I remember euro 96 at villa park holland v Scotland where the noise levels and atmosphere were incredible - hard to believe it was the same ground.

[olaftab]

I really don't care about win ratio nor the fact that Liverpool apparently have a massive fan base.
Newcastle win no matches or have won  honours in the recent history than we have done  and they have much higher gates than us.
Liverpool may well have a massive worldwide fan base but they live in a city about the 1/3 the size of ours.
So it is shameful that people of Birmingham can not turn up in decent numbers to fill a 40K stadium.

[Nev]

I really don't care about win ratio nor the fact that Liverpool apparently have a massive fan base.
Newcastle win no matches or have won  honours in the recent history than we have done  and they have much higher gates than us.
Liverpool may well have a massive worldwide fan base but they live in a city about the 1/3 the size of ours.
So it is shameful that people of Birmingham can not turn up in decent numbers to fill a 40K stadium.

They do, over three grounds. Newcastle are a one club town, smaller than Birmingham but still with no other club within it's boundaries.

I'd rather have Villa Park half full of Villa fans than full of glory hunters, idiots who swallow any bit of "EPL" hype offered to them and brummies who support teams with which they have no link to other than their Sky subscription.

[Risso]

I really don't care about win ratio nor the fact that Liverpool apparently have a massive fan base.
Newcastle win no matches or have won  honours in the recent history than we have done  and they have much higher gates than us.
Liverpool may well have a massive worldwide fan base but they live in a city about the 1/3 the size of ours.
So it is shameful that people of Birmingham can not turn up in decent numbers to fill a 40K stadium.

Liverpool may be smaller than Brum, but they've got huge support from all over the North West (well, left of the M6 mostly) including places like Runcorn, Widnes, St Helens, Wigan, Warrington, Birkenhead, Southport and even further afield like Chester and Wrexham.  All medium to big towns with traditionally no big football teams in them.  You add up the population of all those and it'll be huge.  Birmingham has big urban areas around it, but they've got their own decent sized teams, eg Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Coventry.  I know we get our fair share of supporters from places like Worcester and Cheltenham etc, but to be fair they don't strike me as being as football mad as run down towns like Widnes etc.

[glasses]

I'm so sorry that I spent the first few weeks of the season in hospital, and earlier in the year decided to start a family. It's really selfish of me to want to spend my money and time on my 7 month old instead of going to the football. I should be ashamed of myself for thinking there is more to life than football.

[Mister E]

I'm so sorry that I spent the first few weeks of the season in hospital, and earlier in the year decided to start a family. It's really selfish of me to want to spend my money and time on my 7 month old instead of going to the football. I should be ashamed of myself for thinking there is more to life than football.

Don't take it personally, Spex.  Many of us have been through the 'nesting' phase; you'll get through it and still be a Villa fan.

I think a large part of the atmosphere issue is simply the poor fare of the last 15 months - 2-3 home wins in that time is bound to grind down the Chosen Few.
Remember the last home game of the GHou / GMac time: with B'ham going down and us beating Redscouse - that was a great atmosphere; on the back of a late surge in form.

We need a turnaround in playing style and fortunes to recover some pride and belief - and that's just the fans.

[Ads]

I think standing is key.

Our away support is great. It has the most dedicated support congregated in the same place.

Bring in a safe standing area (it would be great to see the lower Holte as the location) and you will have all the peop0le that want to stand during a game congregate there and make noise again.

If you really wanted to create atmosphere, then we should stick the away fans next to the Holte.

[WarszaVillan]

I've only been to the Everton game this season. The beginning of the game there was a really decent and encouraging atmosphere, but then we went two nil down. I got the feeling the fans really wanted to get behind the team but there is no belief at the moment. It really has been a painful couple of years. 30 odd thousand against Norwich at home, in our position and during a time of economic difficulties is not bad at all. 

[richardhubbard]

33k is pretty good for a team that been in decline for 3 season.

I think if Lambert sorts things out and we finish mid table gates around 33-35k will be the norm with bigger gates against the " sky big 4", I say that taking the piss.

If we get relegated god forbid we would be best supported side in the championship

[supertom]

On the upside I think if Mcleish was still in charge we'd be hitting the high 20's, low 30's quite regularly.
Too much more of this form and the initial mini buzz of Lambert taking over will be well and truly over though.

[PeterWithesShin]

Our attendances have often been flaky. We dropped under 30K a number of times under JG, had a few under Mr Fickle and even under MON we had 27K against Bolton plus a few others that only just crept past the 30K mark.

[supertom]

We're not cheap, but compared to other top flight sides we're quite reasonable. It makes low turnouts that bit more frustrating.

[myf]

Our attendances have often been flaky. We dropped under 30K a number of times under JG, had a few under Mr Fickle and even under MON we had 27K against Bolton plus a few others that only just crept past the 30K mark.

...but averaged 40k+ I seem to recall one season under MON.  Have Everton come close to that in recent years despite being a consistently good team for the past decade?

[Ad@m]

I really don't care about win ratio nor the fact that Liverpool apparently have a massive fan base.
Newcastle win no matches or have won  honours in the recent history than we have done  and they have much higher gates than us.
Liverpool may well have a massive worldwide fan base but they live in a city about the 1/3 the size of ours.
So it is shameful that people of Birmingham can not turn up in decent numbers to fill a 40K stadium.

Liverpool may be smaller than Brum, but they've got huge support from all over the North West (well, left of the M6 mostly) including places like Runcorn, Widnes, St Helens, Wigan, Warrington, Birkenhead, Southport and even further afield like Chester and Wrexham.  All medium to big towns with traditionally no big football teams in them.  You add up the population of all those and it'll be huge.  Birmingham has big urban areas around it, but they've got their own decent sized teams, eg Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Coventry.  I know we get our fair share of supporters from places like Worcester and Cheltenham etc, but to be fair they don't strike me as being as football mad as run down towns like Widnes etc.

I've heard this argument bandied around a lot and never really believed it so I've just done some research.

The Government splits the country down into regions with populations as follows (taken from Wikipedia):

West Mids - 5.6m
North West - 7.05m
North East - 2.6m

League football clubs covered by the regions above are (from Wikipedia and a bit of common sense):

West Mids - Us, Blues, Cov, Stoke, Vale, Wolves, Baggies, Walsall, Shrewsbury, Burton A, Crewe, Cheltenham and Hereford
North West - Man U, Man City, Liverpool, Everton, Tranmere, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Wigan, Preston, Burnley, Blackpool, Blackburn, Macclesfield and Rotherham
North East - Newcaslte, Sunderland, Middlesborough and Hartlepool

The sum of the average attendances in 2011 for all the clubs listed in each region are (taken from European-Football-Statistics.co.uk:

West Mids - 186,253
North West - 329,221
North East - 106,931

If you then calculate a percentage of local population attending one of the local grounds each game you get:

West Mids - 3.33%
North West - 4.67%
North East - 4.11%

So we're way below those areas in terms of attendance.  If the West Mids could get to the North East level of participation there would be an extra 44,000 people attending each game across all our clubs.

I've said it before, for me the reason for the difference is cultural.  The North West and Newcastle are football mad (although a lot of the clubs in the North West are actually historically rugby league towns so they're changing the culture round there and arguably punching above their weight).  The West Mids however just isn't as fanatical about football.  I've no idea why.  It can't just be down to success as the North East has had no success for years.  Any ideas? 

[PeterWithesShin]

Our attendances have often been flaky. We dropped under 30K a number of times under JG, had a few under Mr Fickle and even under MON we had 27K against Bolton plus a few others that only just crept past the 30K mark.

...but averaged 40k+ I seem to recall one season under MON.  Have Everton come close to that in recent years despite being a consistently good team for the past decade?

Doesn't change that we had 27K for a game under him.
And Everton have a smaller ground which will drag the average attendance down. And about 10% of that is restricted view seats IIRC.