Potential

[Avenue Saint]

This is another mistake that many seem to make when talking about "potenital" support. Yes, there is more geographical space around us than clubs in other parts of the country, but rural Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire aren't footballing areas in the same way that Lancashire, the North-East or even London is. Its why people rattling on about Plymouth's potential is pointless - yes they have a big "catchment area", but that's not much good if most of them don't give a f**k about Plymouth or football.

 

Maybe, but to assume this is the case is an assumption itself. We'll see, I think I'm right.

[Sour Mash]

Maybe, but to assume this is the case is an assumption itself. We'll see, I think I'm right.

 

Well obviously the fact that we are not as closely surrounded by other comparable sized clubs is a bonus for the likelihood of us having bigger support. We already pull lots of support from across the south of England. My point is that it is not comparable to other parts of the country as it is less of a footballing area, us having a large bit of southern England to pull support from wouldn't be the same as say Newcastle ahving the whole of teh North-East.

[Turkish]

Well obviously the fact that we are not as closely surrounded by other comparable sized clubs is a bonus for the likelihood of us having bigger support. We already pull lots of support from across the south of England. My point is that it is not comparable to other parts of the country as it is less of a footballing area, us having a large bit of southern England to pull support from wouldn't be the same as say Newcastle ahving the whole of teh North-East.

 

Plus the areas around Southampton are not as densely populated, Southampton really only has Winchester, Eastleigh and parts of Fareham as other towns in our catchment area of any note, none of them are particularly big. Newcastle, although being only slightly larger than Southampton as a city itself has Gateshead, South Shields etc which are large densley populated areas. Leeds is a large city and has Wakefield next door which is a very large town and a Leeds strong hold. In fact most northern and midlands clubs have large towns near them to draw support from, although it terms of size might be quite a big area, in terms of population it's probably not that great, plus the area isn't exactly renowned for its passion in football.

[Graffito]

OP - you've probably got it generally about right but two jump out as underestimates - Spurs and Chelsea. A couple of years ago Spurs had 22k on their season ticket waiting list and over 70,000 members. For all I know they've gone up since then with their recent relative success. Someone said Chelsea have been known always as the glamour club. That may be so but there is a major part of Chelsea's fanbase that has been priced out of going. They, like Tottenham, are also restricted by ground capacity.

[View From The Top]

I live in Staffordshire and work in the Black Country and Saints are viewed as a large provincial club as the same ilk as Forest, Derby, Leicester, Wolves etc.

 

Our reputation has certainly grown in the last two seasons and the size of our crowds have certainly raised eyebrows.

[Sour Mash]

I live in Staffordshire and work in the Black Country and Saints are viewed as a large provincial club as the same ilk as Forest, Derby, Leicester, Wolves etc.

 

Our reputation has certainly grown in the last two seasons and the size of our crowds have certainly raised eyebrows.

 

Agreed. In a weird way we're now a "bigger" club than when we were in the Prem.

[dune]

I think i'm right in saying that Saints used to have the highest season ticket holder numbers from outside of the main catchment area during our premiership days.

[CLOTH EARS]

I think that if Saints were to get back to the Premier League and were pushing for the Champions League places we could DEFINATELY attract 45.000-55000 and i genuinely believe that! However, If we were to get back to the Prem and just try to stay in it, then i think we could get 28.000-38.000 depending on the opposition. The latter was more or less proven when we were last in the Prem. If we had Fulham or Birmingham at home then 28.000 was the sort of crowd we got. When we played Arsenal, Man Utd etc, we'd sell out quickly and on many occasions the box office said that they could have sold thousands more.

[View From The Top]

Agreed. In a weird way we're now a "bigger" club than when we were in the Prem.

 

I get that impression as well. Everytime I've had a Wolves, West Brom, Brum, Villa or Stoke fan say "we'll you're a big club" I kinda double take and check to see if they are actually talking about Saints!

 

Our away numbers have certainly been noticed. The morning after Charlton away a number of staff and students mentioned to me the 3.5K away fans for a mid-week L1 away game. They couldn't believe it. The same after Orient.

[StVince1966]

how can saints have a world fan base of 100.000? southampton city alone has a population of 238.000 then if you include major towns connected to the city and county such as winchester salisbury lymington IOW romsey ringwood salisbury new forest area eastleigh and certainn areas of dorset etc etc believe saints catchment area being this large in comparision to many city clubs gives us massive potential to be as big as most clubs in england i believe

[NickG]

so is this what potential do clubs have, if they achieve their max over next few years, with current owner, fanbase and stadium (as I thought!)

 

or what potential do clubs have if they but new stadiums, have more fans and new owners??? As some seem to be discussing! If its the latter then most clubs have potential to be great!

[david in sweden]

OK, so I've been thinking this for a while now but I wondered exactly just how big a club can Saints be - and what exactly is there current size in comparison to other clubs?

 

As we all know, if we ever do return to the Premier League then we are likely to see the ground near-capacity, even possibly at capacity for many of the fixtures but how far can we go beyond that? What is our real potential?

 

So, I've comprised a tiered list of the clubs in the country which take into account recent and historic attendances. In brackets are my estimations of their potential to reach a particular tier (for example, West Ham has the growth potential, if successful for a continued period, to reach Tier 3 and so on.) Also worth taking into account the catchment area and the local competition.

 

If there is no significant potential to be a "bigger club" then I have omitted the bracketed areas. From my estimation, I cannot see us ever being as big as Tier 4 clubs, though assuming we do return to the PL, we will maintain our Tier 5 status.

 

I hope this makes sense... and would be interested to here other peoples perspectives/perceptions on this!

 

Tier 1

Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool.

 

Tier 2

Man City, Newcastle.

 

Tier 3

Chelsea, Spurs.

 

Tier 4

Everton (3), Aston Villa (3), West Ham (3), Sunderland, Nottm Forest (3), Leeds (3).

 

Tier 5

Wolves (4), West Brom, Southampton, Sheff Utd (4), Leicester, Norwich, Ipswich, Sheff Wed (4), Derby.

 

Tier 6

Birmingham (5), Fulham, Stoke, Cardiff (5).

 

Tier 7

Coventry, Middlesbrough (5), Crystal Palace, Bolton (6), Blackburn (6), Reading, Portsmouth (6), Bristol City (6), Hull, Huddersfield (5), Brighton (6).

 

Tier 8

Swansea (6), Watford, Millwall (7), QPR (6), Burnley, Charlton (6).

 

Tier 9

Doncaster, Barnsley, Blackpool (8 ), Wigan (8 ), Preston (7), MK Dons (7), Carlisle (7), Plymouth (7), Bradford (7).

 

Tier 10

Notts County (8 ), Peterborough (9), Swindon, Gillingham, Oxford (8 ).

 

Tier 11

Bournemouth, Bristol Rovers (10), Exeter, Brentford, Leyton Orient, Tranmere, Oldham (10), Walsall, Chesterfield, Port Vale (9), Rotherham (9), Southend (10).

 

Tier 12

S****horpe (11), Colchester (11), Yeovil (11), Bury (11), Crewe, Lincoln, Northampton (11), Shrewsbury (11), Stockport, Wycombe.

 

Tier 13

Hartlepool (12), Rochdale, Aldershot (11).

 

Tier 14

Dag & Red, Burton Albion, Cheltenham (13), Hereford, Morecambe, Stevenage (12), Torquay (12).

 

Tier 15

Accrington, Barnet, Macclesfield.

 

 

Honestly speaking, I'm really not impressed with the " Euro-hype " surrounding the same " big " clubs every season.

I'd let them go off and play in their own ocean, cream off the top four and let the rest of the country get on with some real football.