Biggest catchment area - anyone know?

[nwgull]

That's been around for years, I love it.

I think Sussex has a population of 1.6m. Disregarding the fact that people love big clubs elsewhere, because that applies to other contenders too, shirley the 1.6m is ours. Do folk in Bognor, Chichester, Crowborough or Rye have another nearby club they naturally support in significant numbers?

Yeh, and worth pointing out the map above is distorted by Crawley being in the Football League. This means that the BHA area won't include large townds like Horsham and Haywards Heath, both of which have always been BHA towns.

 

[GT49er]

Kent fans have a choice of Gillingham , Dover and now Maidstone .

They had the choice of Maidstone, in division 4m abut 50 years ago!

If it was by area, not population, the greatest catchment area would be Ross County, surely!

 

[Hovegull]

That's been around for years, I love it.

I think Sussex has a population of 1.6m. Disregarding the fact that people love big clubs elsewhere, because that applies to other contenders too, shirley the 1.6m is ours. Do folk in Bognor, Chichester, Crowborough or Rye have another nearby club they naturally support in significant numbers?

Man United usually.

 

[HalfaSeatOn]

The Rob and Ryan show at Wrexham has a sizeable catchment area. According to this article “Wrexham has a huge catchment area of around 900,000 – there’s a whole region that has nothing else and it’s an area that is football mad. Their vision is why can’t we go on this journey and why can’t we share this with an audience around the world? We’ve had the astronaut Chris Hadfield tweeting about us for a while and wearing a Wrexham kit and on Monday Russell Crowe was tweeting about how his grandfather came from the town. People are coming out of the woodwork everywhere.”

'A wild few months': the inside story of Wrexham's Hollywood takeover

A club director on the talks that brought actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney to town – and what lies ahead

www.theguardian.com

 

[Anger]

Plymouth.

Whenever this question has been raised over the years, the answer was always Plymouth.

The only thing stopping Plymouth having a dominant team when they have such a massive potential fan base is purely because their stadium is in Plymouth and that means that for people to support them they have to travel to Plymouth. For many people this seems to have been a step too far.

(with apologies to the good people of Plymouth for my jesting about their good city; I’ve been their many times and I actually always liked the place)

 

[Swimboy64]

I am trying to find out what football club has the biggest catchment area. Tried on google but no answer

I'm just a sad git who wants to know where Brighton are. I think we'll be quite high being the only club in sussex in the 4 divisions, and the nearest club 2 hours away.

Can anyone either post on here or inform me where I can get such information?

Thanking you in advance x

Crawley are in Sussex

 

[raymondo]

Amazon Basin Academicals!

 

[Weststander]

I would say so regarding Kent -on the way from Hastings to Charing Cross for both semi finals, I was amazed at how many got on the train at T/Wells and Tonbridge. As to our catchment area, I recall reading that Brighton to Worthing is the 11th biggest conurbation in the UK with a population of 500,000. Add 100,00 for Eastbourne and a similar figure for the whole of mid Sussex, then at the very least 700.000. And then there is still more within relatively close proximity (Newhaven and Seaford for example) and Hastings/ Bexhill has a combined population of 130,000.

Littlehampton to Brighton 622,000
Lewes District 100,000
Mid Sussex 153,000
Eastbourne 104,000
Bexhill/Hastings 136,000
Horsham district (extends down to Upper Beeding) 142,000

 

[mikeyjh]

The Rob and Ryan show at Wrexham has a sizeable catchment area. According to this article “Wrexham has a huge catchment area of around 900,000 – there’s a whole region that has nothing else and it’s an area that is football mad. Their vision is why can’t we go on this journey and why can’t we share this with an audience around the world? We’ve had the astronaut Chris Hadfield tweeting about us for a while and wearing a Wrexham kit and on Monday Russell Crowe was tweeting about how his grandfather came from the town. People are coming out of the woodwork everywhere.”

'A wild few months': the inside story of Wrexham's Hollywood takeover

A club director on the talks that brought actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney to town – and what lies ahead

www.theguardian.com

The problem with this catchment area calculation is that it's bollocks. There's probably some attachment within 15 miles or so of a city/club but beyond that, not really. I'm within this Wrexham catchment area and I know of 0 Wrexham fans. I know loads of Man U & Liverpool and a few Swansea, Leeds and Everton fans but nobody gives a crap about Wrexham.

 

[heathgate]

Plymouth surely, they have most of Cornwall and half of Devon to pick from.

On the other hand maybe Sussex is more densely populated so it may be a smaller area but with more people.

What about Newcastle?.... everything north up to the border, plus it's share of the land west towards Cumbria.

 

[heathgate]

Plymouth.

Whenever this question has been raised over the years, the answer was always Plymouth.

The only thing stopping Plymouth having a dominant team when they have such a massive potential fan base is purely because their stadium is in Plymouth and that means that for people to support them they have to travel to Plymouth. For many people this seems to have been a step too far.

(with apologies to the good people of Plymouth for my jesting about their good city; I’ve been their many times and I actually always liked the place)

Plus a decent proportion of folk west from Plymouth are rugby mad.

 

[Zeus]

Me and a mate were looking at the amount of teams close to Sheffield on the map on the way up on Saturday. It really hits home how much better our support should probably be when you see Doncaster, two Sheffield teams, Rotherham, Leeds, Bradford, and Huddersfield all getting decent support and all within an hour or less of each other.

 

[Baldseagull]

Crawley are in Sussex

But in 2003, they were not in the league.

 

[mile oak]

I am trying to find out what football club has the biggest catchment area. Tried on google but no answer

I'm just a sad git who wants to know where Brighton are. I think we'll be quite high being the only club in sussex in the 4 divisions, and the nearest club 2 hours away.

Can anyone either post on here or inform me where I can get such information?

Thanking you in advance x

Crawley Town are in Sussex.

 

[The Fits]

Me and a mate were looking at the amount of teams close to Sheffield on the map on the way up on Saturday. It really hits home how much better our support should probably be when you see Doncaster, two Sheffield teams, Rotherham, Leeds, Bradford, and Huddersfield all getting decent support and all within an hour or less of each other.

Different though isn't it. Former industrial heartlands have always been sport mad.
Sussex is hardly a hotbed of primal sporting passion.

 

[Happy Exile]

My old next door neighbour grew up in Crawley and was a Palace fan. He claimed they were geographically closer than Brighton and a more natural team for Crawley-ites to support. I guess it might depend where in Crawley someone lives but Google reckons Brighton is marginally closer (couple of miles).

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

My old next door neighbour grew up in Crawley and was a Palace fan. He claimed they were geographically closer than Brighton and a more natural team for Crawley-ites to support. I guess it might depend where in Crawley someone lives but Google reckons Brighton is marginally closer (couple of miles).

Crawley just feels more Palace than Brighton though

 

[mile oak]

I seem to recall years ago a map of where Albion fans came from and we had a very large following from Horsham.

 

[Zeus]

Crawley just feels more Palace than Brighton though

Having worked in Crawley for several years the most supported team seemed to be Chelsea.

 

[BN41Albion]

Different though isn't it. Former industrial heartlands have always been sport mad.
Sussex is hardly a hotbed of primal sporting passion.

Me and a mate were looking at the amount of teams close to Sheffield on the map on the way up on Saturday. It really hits home how much better our support should probably be when you see Doncaster, two Sheffield teams, Rotherham, Leeds, Bradford, and Huddersfield all getting decent support and all within an hour or less of each other.

Yeah but don't forget the pull of the big London clubs just up the road, and the influence they have down around Sussex etc, especially considering how many people move out of London down here, and considering how shit/down and out we were for a few decades meaning lost support and all that in those years.

The towns you mention are all sizeable towns/cities in their own right anyway - all much bigger than anywhere in sussex bar B&H, and some far bigger than B&H! Of course they've all got decent-ish or very decent support. Not sure it's really to do with 'primal passion', not these days anyway, more just simply the size the places and pull from elsewhere!