when the sleeping giant awakes...

[SJ's Love Monkey]

There are ten-odd thousand waiting in the wings to come back and watch a competitive Brighton team playing in a decent stadium in the Championship, where we can hopefully match Premiership-chasing Palace's woeful 15k for their last home game. And if we ever make the Premiership ourselves the ground will sell out for most games (certainly at 22k capacity!), if for no other reason than that a significant proportion of home seats will be filled by fans of the visiting teams (although why Wigan don't sell out in this regard is a mystery, unless they make it virtually impossible for away fans to buy sly tickets in the home stands)

Like a lot of club's Palace's attendances are down this season and the main reason for it isn't too hard to work out. For the casual fan these days football is out of a fair amount of people's reach, if you are a Palace fan and want to turn up on the day it is £30 minimum. Now if you take a couple of kids along, travelling, food, drink, programme and you are not getting any change out of £100 for a home game! Ludicrous

 

[algie]

Like a lot of club's Palace's attendances are down this season and the main reason for it isn't too hard to work out. For the casual fan these days football is out of a fair amount of people's reach, if you are a Palace fan and want to turn up on the day it is £30 minimum. Now if you take a couple of kids along, travelling, food, drink, programme and you are not getting any change out of £100 for a home game! Ludicrous

Can you explain why Charlton have a much bigger average then you and they are rock bottom? They got 24k the other day.

 

[SJ's Love Monkey]

And lets get some perspective here, you are calling 15k woeful and i agree for Palace it is, but Brighton can't even sell out for Leeds who like it or not are the biggest name in League 1 and they would have brought a healthy number with them. It is affecting every league club

 

[SJ's Love Monkey]

Can you explain why Charlton have a much bigger average then you and they are rock bottom? They got 24k the other day.

Don't quote me here but i think it has to do with a long term S/T offer that they enticed their fans with when they got relegated. However i was reading their messageboard the other day and they were saying what a joke the attendance figures were. A couple of them were saying they reckoned no more than 13k were actually in the ground but the club still count S/T sales in their attendance figures whether or not they show up or not. As i say don't quote me on this.

 

[algie]

Fair enough mate.

 

[SJ's Love Monkey]

How's things Spence?

 

[algie]

Crap mate.Spend all my time now watching shit on the box.Oh well it's cosy anyway.

 

[Bevendean Hillbilly]

Charlton do count S/Ts as attenders whether or not they show up. Sure I read it in the paper a couple of weeks back.

 

[SJ's Love Monkey]

Charlton do count S/Ts as attenders whether or not they show up. Sure I read it in the paper a couple of weeks back.

I thought they had to i mean with all the will in the world no Championship club is going to attract 24k when the team haven't won for 19 matches are they?

 

[portlock seagull]

To call us a sleeping giant is frankly, risible. We went into a coma in the early 90's and haven't had a pulse since.

 

[pasty]

but Brighton can't even sell out for Leeds

The fact that we're utter gash at the moment probably doesn't help much

 

[Simster]

We could be a big ish club. but it's going to take YEARS - much more than just the tonic a new stadium would provide. But I do think it could be done - it's worth remembering that in the late '70s when we were a real force, our average gate was something like the 10th highest in the whole league for half a season!

 

[Biscuit]

I think our biggest problem might be thinking "Oh Falmers here now.." and just EXPECT fans to flock back and money to be spent on wages.. we have huge debts to pay back first and if the crowds aren't there revenue will be a problem.. all the Stadium realistically offers us in the first 5 or so years of its existence is as something to borrow against thus saddling ourselves with even greater debts.. we need it, of course, but don't expect things to change overnight and lets be honest, Brighton fans are hardly known for their patience.

 

[SJ's Love Monkey]

The fact that we're utter gash at the moment probably doesn't help much

Fair point beautifully made

 

[Marshy]

you would think, but then it is £10 to get in for the JPT area FINAL tomorrow, which could see us go to Wembley and we have only sold 5400 tickets.


I think if we get to Wembley we would struggle to sell more tickets than the capicity of Falmer

Come on.....we took 30,000 to Cardiff for a play off final game.
We would take that easy to the NEW Wembley, its only an hour and a half on a train.

 

[Uter]

Given the large population in our catchment area we should, in theory at least, be able to attract decent crowds to Falmer on a regular basis.

That said I think it would be folly for the club to think that once it is built the fans will automatically flock back. They will have to work hard to build up and maintain a loyal support once the initial interest dies down, particularly if success isn't immediate.

However, I'm confident they haven't taken a surge in support for granted and will implement schemes to encourage new/lapsed supporters when the time is right.

 

[seagull_special]

There are only a few giants in football these days and they are the top four plus the McDonald style clubs like Man City who will try and buy their way to success like Chelsea and Blackburn in the past. There is a second tier with Spurs, Villa and Newcastle and Leeds. We are not a sleeping giant but a club who should look to emulate Bolton, Reading, Preston and Plymouth who have established themselves and are well run and have realistic ambitions. We shouldn't dismiss this club because of our abysmal season so far but look at the whole picture - we have had promotions, relegations, play off finals. We have made a start on Falmer which at some points was beyond my wildest dreams, we could be relegated this year and it would be a disaster for the fans after the progress made under Wilkins or we could survive by the skin of pour teeth and have a fantastic season the next year, The credit crunch will bite and too attract the fans to Falmer they will need a realistic pricing policy. The most important fans are not the Diehards but the fairweather fans who don't love Brighton but go because Spurs or Arsenal are away - success on the field will always attract fans whatever the economy so I appreciate we need a successful team and hope we can turn this season around

 

[SULLY COULDNT SHOOT]

There are only a few giants in football these days and they are the top four plus the McDonald style clubs like Man City who will try and buy their way to success like Chelsea and Blackburn in the past. There is a second tier with Spurs, Villa and Newcastle and Leeds. We are not a sleeping giant but a club who should look to emulate Bolton, Reading, Preston and Plymouth who have established themselves and are well run and have realistic ambitions. We shouldn't dismiss this club because of our abysmal season so far but look at the whole picture - we have had promotions, relegations, play off finals. We have made a start on Falmer which at some points was beyond my wildest dreams, we could be relegated this year and it would be a disaster for the fans after the progress made under Wilkins or we could survive by the skin of pour teeth and have a fantastic season the next year, The credit crunch will bite and too attract the fans to Falmer they will need a realistic pricing policy. The most important fans are not the Diehards but the fairweather fans who don't love Brighton but go because Spurs or Arsenal are away - success on the field will always attract fans whatever the economy so I appreciate we need a successful team and hope we can turn this season around

So... we are a sleeping quite large person then?

TBH I think you're right. Can't see us being in the last 8 of the Champions League in the next 20 years but who knows?