Our catchment area and the potential

[felbridgeseagull]

Most people in East Grinstead, Horsham don't want to be associated with Crawley and don't really have an interest in their football team.
I reckon at least 50% of Crawley fans who attend support Chelsea, Man U or another premiership team. They are doing well and good luck but we are a different prospect at the moment and certianly attracting new younger fans from the EG area all the time. In my sons football team (UNDER 10'S) at least 8 have been down to the Amex more than once this season and three of them have season tickets, until last year NONE of them had even really heard of Brighton! The Amex is a huge draw for dads wanting to take their sons to watch good football in a great family environment. One of the dads who takes is son is a dam Palace fan but loves the Amex now and wants to get a season ticket for both of them because his son loves it, amazing really! We have an wonderful opportunity to grow an outstanding fan base and at the moment Crawley is way behind, even with a new stand going in. The whole experience is on a different level.
Good luck to Crawley and I hope they prosper but in my opinion they wont damage our fan base.

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

Had no idea they'd started calling the uckfield line BML2! great stuff.

Bloody hell, is someone still advocating the Lewes-Uckfield line! If you wanted to increase capacity it would cheaper and easier to build new tunnel and viaducts and make the main line 4 tracks.

 

[Brovion]

this thread jcl's or genuine I've got my doubts, when push come to shove they'll all f*** off

Indeed. That'll be the true test, when we have a bad season (not just a bad month) will all these new 'hotbeds' suddenly freeze over? The answer is probably 'yes', and that's not really a criticism, it's just human nature - a lot of people want to watch successful clubs and can't be arsed to turn up if they reckon the performance will be poor. In the Mullery/Bamber era we were getting fans from all over Sussex, Surrey, Kent, and even a few dozen who used to come over from France! When we started to struggle, even though we were in the top division, crowds started to fall. The current era proves that the support never really went away though, it just lay dormant.

Two other points: Firstly, yes, Littlehampton has always been Albion and has always been the traditional western border town. Even in the late 1970s if you wore a blue and white scarf in somewhere like Chichester or Bognor it was assumed you were a Portsmouth fan. Secondly we shouldn't automatically assume that 'large conurbation' equals 'large fanbase'. That's almost the same argument that says that countries with the biggest populations should produce the best national sides. In the population of our fair city there are quite a few 'immigrants' who've kept their old alliegances, and of course quite a few museli-munchers who think football's a dreadful sport for dreadful people.

 

[kingcole]

Where exactly is this extra capacity going to go when we have filled the extra 8k seats at Falmer. It is impossible to increase the capacity anymore without taking the entire roof off. We have a stadium that cost £70m to build so we won't be building a bigger one somewhere else anytime within the next 15/20 years at least, probably longer! Personally, whilst the Amex is a terrific stadium, the design has limitations with regard to future expansion above the 30k. There,fore, if you can't increase capacity, then the only way to increase revenue to help sustain Premiership football will be hikes in prices, with possibly the adverse effect of putting people off.

Not exactly what the point of this thread is. We are expanding the stadium and only need to find an extra 8k regular supporters. Make that an extra 15k to compensate for floaters so this talk of potential is pretty delusional.

The North and South Stands to be made 'safe standing' would add nearly 5000

 

[sebtucknott]

The North and South Stands to be made 'safe standing' would add nearly 5000

Wasn't the Amex built to be expandable to 30k without structural changes to the stadium. But potential to increase further with structural changes.
It would be feasible to put a 3rd tier on the east and bigger teirs on north/south.

Maybe I'm wrong.

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

Wasn't the Amex built to be expandable to 30k without structural changes to the stadium. But potential to increase further with structural changes. Maybe I'm wrong.

This is what I understood to be the case.

 

[JJB]

Southampton, Eastleigh & Winchester has a combined pop'n of only 405,000.

Are are squeezed by the Pompey conurbation of Gosport, Fareham, Portsmouth, Havant, Porchester & Waterlooville of 552,000.

and on the other side by the Bournemouth, Poole & Christchuch conurbation of 400,000.


On the other hand Sussex is 1,600,000; and even if a deduction is made for Chichester/Bognor being Pompey allegedly, and Crawley having some Crawley and plastic Palace/Millwall followers, the Albion potential is vast.

In addition, Brighton (other than the Priestfield/Withdean years) have for 55 years had an underlying massive support, unlike non-football towns like Reading & Bournemouth.

Leeds is a far bigger city with massive football history.

Cardiff is a genuinely large city & national focal point.But even if you said the entire South & Mid Glamorgan was their catchment, that's 860,000, but with Rugby Union a massive competitor. Hence Cardiff City FC have never had a mass following.

I agree, unless they have wealthy benefactors, the old cotton & woollen towns of Lancs & Yorks, have much much smaller populations & wealth thesedays, and have been & will continue to gradually slide down a divison or 2.

The future for the Albion under the right owner & manager, is immense.

Failing to realise that there are a lot more saints fans in B'mouth than B'mouth fans. Then there's Romsey, Romsey Extra, Salisbury... A large proportion of the New Forrest (Lymington, New Milton...) Then North to Andover as well. I come from bristol and see a large amount of Saints get on at Westbury and Warminster as well. Due to us being the top club in the south for so long, our catchment far surpasses all the other south coast teams.

 

[Digweeds Trousers]

Probably 30 or so fans in Cassidys watching the game in T Wells - support in this neck of the woods is growing. A few liverpool fans in there took terrible stick after singing Steve Gerrard songs in fake scouse accents. I know of around 20 or so who are season ticket holders now and at Withdean. Hopefully this will continue to grow.

 

[withdeanwombat]

In our wonder years between 1976-7 and 1982-3 our best average attendance was 25,000 in 76-7.In 82-3,whilst a relegation year, we were in the old first division,we reached a cup final and averaged 14,676.

Obviously there were very high gates in all these seasons,but a 31,000 Amex seems about right to me,and we may wish if we reach the Premier league for a larger capacity,but should the worst happen and we go back to league one and crowds of 6000 it'll look like the Riverside or whatever they're calling Coventry's ground these days.

Meanwhile,my part of Taunton is 100% Albion. My capacity will never exceed 7 pints of Harveys.

 

[Simster]

Absolute total nonsense. Littlehampton is a strong hold BHA town. BHA always have and always will own this

Littlehampton = BHA, Bognor/Chichester = Pompey


I'm not sure that our catchment area genuinely extends as far north as Redhill on the Surrey side (North West of Brighton) to be honest. It does on the Kent side (North East of Brighton), as Tunbridge Wells has a lot of BHA support. Once upon a time, Redhill was a solid Palace area, but that really isn't the case any more.

I'm a mile away from Redhill in Reigate and Redhill is a bit of a no mans land as far as I can see, although you do see a lot more Albion around here. Ultimately, those without a club to support can either choose Palace (shit stadium, club in decline), a team in London (mostly plastics, but there are quite a lot of new Fulham fans in these parts), or Brighton. And with the Amex that has become a whole lot more appealing. In terms of time taken to get to the stadium, it's probably only 15 minutes further than Palace.