Football Will Die Without The Fans

??? These teams have a full stadium for basically every prem game, Arsenal, Spurs, Man Utd, Chelsea, West Ham, Liverpool, Newcastle, Portsmouth, Everton, Charlton. So how did Bolton manage to come 3rd in having the least amount of seating not taken?

I don't get criticism of Wigan's crowds. They've been in the lower divisions their entire history in a town where the few people who like football generally support other teams, why would you suddenly expect a massive increase just because they're promoted to the Premiership? Believe it or not the Premiership isn't the big attraction some people think it is.

supply and demand. At some grounds the only way you'll get in is to have a season ticket. If everyone has a season ticket then the ground will be full for every game.

At some grounds you know you don't need a season ticket, so people pick and choose their games.

It's also much easier to sell out a 19,000 capacity Fratton Park than a 28,000 capacity Reebok. Portsmouth are not a small club. They averaged 16,000 when they climbed out of the 4th division in the early 80s, when crowds were a fair bit lower than now.

This thread gives me an idea. I'm going to keep an eye on the schedule (which keeps changing due to Europe and Cups) and find a week where I can pop over to England (from Boston, US) and get to see 4 or 5 games. All of them will be at grounds that usually have empty seats, so I should be able to get good ones.

And, I really like to watch mid-table teams play each other. When they play one of the top teams, they tend to play too defensively.

Having done a last minute trip to Manchester last year, I liked the experience of taking the tram out to Old Trafford, rather than having to have a rental car to drive out to Bolton. I did walk to the Man City game (much longer than everyone told me), but that stadium has no personality.

And, not being able to drink beer at the game is a real downer.

Dick.

It's funny, whenever I make basically the same point in the MLS forums about why MLS' attendance problems are NOT caused by our league structure, but by the basic lack of popularity of soccer in the US, a large portion of posters bash me.

What you've said, indirectly, is what I often say...way too many Prem matches are meaningless. I know that's a statement often made about MLS, but I honestly, honestly believe that a higher percentage of MLS matches are meaningful.

I readily concede that the Prem matches that ARE meaningful are way, way, way MORE meaningful, so that "total meaningfulness per match" is higher in the Prem. But if the question is just counting, how many matches are meaningful, well, the number of people who attend UEFA Cup matches pretty much tells the story, doesn't it?

Winning the league matters, making the CL matters, and avoiding the drop matters. What odds are the bookies giving right now on the Prem's CL teams for next year to be the big four? I doubt a $100 bet would make you $50.

Still, I think the article that opened this thread is missing something. There's no reason that Newcastle and Aston Villa, in particular, and maybe Spurs and Middlesborough, can't be what Arsenal were when they were in Highbury and saving up for Emirates Stadium. But I don't know it that's good enough to compete with Chelsea. Maybe when Mourinho and SAF leave the Prem will get more interesting.

I got it, but anecdotally, it sure looks like alot of the midtable teams are playing in front of more empty seats than last year. And the attendance at UEFA Cup matches don't lie...the Yank Eurosnobs who bash MLS may think Eurofans care about making the UEFA Cup, but it's hard to square that with the attendance at those matches.

Of course the fans of smaller prem clubs would like to make the Uefa cup, however it depends on a lot more than that, i.e. i am sure many fans are paying plenty for their season tickets, any 'extra' games they may not have the spare cash to splash out on.

That's weak.

If it's important, they'll spend the money.

My local hockey team, the Hurricanes, didn't average a sellout. But they sold out every playoff game, despite jacking up the prices. Seats that sold for $10.29 in the regular season went for $50 in the semifinal playoff round, and $70 in the finals.

People paid for them, because the playoffs are important.

And yet you still can't square the circle that matches in the EPL cannot be defined as meaningless because people don't attend matches in the UEFA Cup. That's an obvious non-sequitur.

Good example: Spurs get more at league matches than they do at UEFA Cup matches. Blackburn do, too (although they're now getting into the spirit of the thing, with Hughes this week complaining about the allocation Bayer Leverkusen gave them for their away tie in the next round of the UEFA Cup).

In other words, the logic "people care more about the league than the UEFA Cup = league matches are meaningless" is obviously nonsensical.

Believe it or not, fans imbue each and every match with meaning irrespective of whether or not it directly contributes to some tangible achievement or outcome. Because they're fans.

Well if people don't care about the Uefa cup, then they don't care about qualifying for it, and as they can't afford to qualify for the CL, what are they there for?

Oh please. Don't be obtuse. For their club. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people, every week, throughout the land, go to watch football for their club, for their support, for all the usual things. This bee in your bonnet is beyond boring now. You know it's bollocks, you know we know it's bollocks. Get a hobby, or something.

To the extent this is directed at me and not legbreaker, um, yeah.

Just to be clear, I'm talking about an argument we have at least once a month during the season in the MLS forums. You're buttressing my view, which is that MLS' problem is NOT its structure. And that's all I was trying to say.

Matt, you didn't really address his point. I think what he's saying is that if a fan of a team believes the Big Four have locked up the CL places, and he thinks his team won't get relegated, then the only passion he'll have for his team is self-generated. Casual fans and non-fans who live near the team aren't going to be interested in the team.

Now, my understanding is that this effect is fairly marginal. I usually compare Eurosoccer to US college sports. Most teams' attendance is not affected that much by their fortunes, unless a team goes from good to horrible, or bad to great. The change has to be pretty extreme to really show up in the attendance.

But for a few teams, that's not true. Miami University is one of the strongest tackleball programs, but their attendance very quickly drops off if the team is only average. It's like a pro team. Basketball attendance for the colleges that are strong in football is usually more sensitive to results.

OK, I digressed a little too far there. Hope y'all get the point.

I wouldn't assume that qualification for the UEFA Cup is such a non-event as you are making out. The group stages are a bit of a crock - lots of meaningless matches on a Thurs night - but in general it is a relatively competitive tournament in its later stages. Additionally, fans can think whatever they like, but results are settled on the field of play. And on that field, there are plenty of examples of teams that have qualified for the UEFA CUp one season only to get themselves in a relagation fight the next - Blackburn being the latest example.

Yeah, which is what I said and, in so doing, addressed his point. Never mind what leg_breaker says, he's a well-established kook of the first order. I know quite a few Bolton fans and they're delighted with where they are now. Few hanker after the "good old days" when they used to stand in the rain at Burnden Park with 8,000 other hardy souls watching the "derby" against Macclesfield.

T'was ever thus. And besides, we're not talking about casual fans, by definition. Casual fans don't imbue their support with anything much by way of meaning and, as such, are not particularly relevant to this discussion. But nonetheless - Bolton's support now is bigger than it was. Indisputably. So clearly something about their ascent from minor league bogtrotters to Premiership stalwarts has had an impact. Whether or not they can kick on from where they are now is doubtful, but that's hardly the point. Just sustaining it season-in, season-out is enough of a challenge to maintain the interest of those that are already on board. And Bolton are now, perhaps for the first time in three generations, in a position where they can assert their presence within their own catchment area, rather than having Bolton residents wandering around in United or Liverpool shirts.

This does digress from "meaning" though. Fact is, that to a fan - a real, honest fan - every match has meaning because the matchday experience and the result are woven into your perception of daily existence.

Miami's attendence is always shit. People dont care down there. Thats why Miami and Atlanta are rated as the two worst fan bases going, people only show up for championships, off topic yes, but had to be said.

And yes I think that the MLS format is ridiculous as is any league would rewards a team who can get hot for two weeks and win a championship, when they have a better possible alternative.

The money of a casual fan is still legal tender. The problem with the current system is that the middle-teams generally only have the hardcores turning up, whereas the consistently successful teams have their numbers padded out by the same number again in daytrippers, thereby filling the club's coffers and sustaining their dominance.

And yet despite that, our crowds are now lower than they have been for years, and from what I see the fans at the Reebok are generally very old. The fact that we need to overperform and be in the top half of the Premiership for several seasons just to have people from our own town actually supporting us just shows how the system is flawed.

It's very easy to jump on the bandwagon of a big team when you know they're going to be at the top of the table year after year in perpetuity, and everyone else is going to be miles behind. The way it's set up means that if you choose to support your local non-big team, you're accepting that you're always going to be following a second tier team, and can never dream of winning the league. Whereas if instead you follow a big team you're guaranteed a trophy at least every other year at a minimum.

So the lower-caste teams are only ever going to be able to attract masochist supporters, putting them at a massive disadvantage. Of course this is self-perpetuating. The crap teams are crap because they've always been crap, and vice versa. Do you consider this a desirable situation?

Unfortuanately, mere real honest fans aren't enough to compete when your local big teams down the road have not only real honest fans, but another 30,000 casual fans with megastore bags, and sponsorship deals worth more than your ticket revenue.

Even allowing for the obvious and obviously stupid overstatement on figures, what's your point? Like I said - t'was ever thus. United's catchment area has always reached beyond metropolitan Manchester, Liverpool's always beyond Merseyside. Your describing a situation that has existed for as long as football has and pretending it's new and awful. Change the record, no one with half a brain buys your clapped out tunes anymore.

How many years? Exactly? I'll guess and say two. Which again renders your entire point, well - pointless, given that I was drawing parallels to a time long before that when you really did struggle to escape from the shadow of bigger relatively local clubs like United.

And yet here are little old Bolton, pushing for the Champions' League. And yet there are Nottingham Forest and Leeds, either already in or soon to be in the third tier of English football.

The present day reality and every second of football' history in this country and every other country on earth contradicts you.

I find it absolutely amazing how much whining you do given how successful your side has been for the past few years. You'd think you supported QPR or Milwall.

But as Matt so eloquently put it just above your post, that's irrelevant to MLS' popularity.

MLS would draw more fans if it was more popular.

You may think that's tautological to the point of fatuousness (yeah, I'm showin' off my vocabulary today ), but honestly, it is a point that gets argued in the MLS forums.

Matt, if you could...is there any contradiction between most of what you posted on this topic, and your assertion about Bolton being in a position to lock down its own catchment area from 'Pool and ManU?

One last thing...Matt, you seem to be agreeing that merely qualifying for the UEFA Cup through league position is not important to fans, but advancing to the late stages, especially for clubs like Middlesborough and (I hope!!) Blackburn, *IS* a big deal. If I'm reading you right, that doesn't eliminate, but does diminish, the "meaning" of coming in 6th or 7th place.