Who used to struggle to get a ticket at St Marys?

[dune]

I thought that it was against forum rules to start multiple threads like this. There is already one that was started by this poster within a few minutes of this one and the same debate is being covered by both. Isn't it time to close one of them and tell the OP to behave himself?

 

[Matthew Le God]

I assume this is aimed at MLG and not me. He is the one quoting what we did in 2004 as reason we need to expand. As i have said many time, if we get back up to top flight and sell out game after game, season after season then we might need to look at expanding. Until then it's utterly moronic to suggest SMS is not big enough.

 

St Mary's sold out recently for a game in the Championship. It was an an all time club record crowd!

 

Do you not consider that relevant? A game in the Premier League against a number of clubs is more appealing than a Championship game with 22 Championship players on a Tuesday, Champions League evening. Yes, West Ham in a top of the 2nd tier clash are a big draw, but not as much of a draw as Saints with Premier League players, internationals etc of their own playing against some the biggest sides in the world.

[Turkish]

St Mary's sold out recently for a game in the Championship. It was an an all time club record crowd!

 

Do you not consider that relevant? A game in the Premier League against a number of clubs is more appealing than a Championship game with 22 Championship players on a Tuesday, Champions League evening. Yes, West Ham in a top of the 2nd tier clash are a big draw, but not as much of a draw as Saints with Premier League players, internationals etc of their own playing against some the biggest sides in the world.

 

I guess that'll be those "casual fans" coming out of the woodwork. Now do you think that the same 10,000 "casual fans" that were there that night but wont be tomorrow, plus another 6,000 would turn out for a midtable clash against Stoke on a tuesday night, once the premier league novelty has worn off, say in about 4 season after promotion? this is only to give us 36,000-38,000 by the way, still 6,000 empty seats but bigger average crowds than Villa, Everton, Tottenham (due to capacity) Sunderland and be the 7th biggest average in the country.

[CB Fry]

I don't understand why there is such a strong defence about why these "casual fans" don't turn up now (children, work commitments, money worries, location, travel time etc etc) but the same people are arguing that these "casual fans" are suddenly going to turn up in droves entirely because we've spent £xxx million on 10,000 new seats. Why does having a bigger stadium make all these work commitments go away?

 

Unfortunately, here in the real world, we don't build or extend stadiums for casual fans, we build them for regular fans, or potential regular fans that can't get in - hence why season ticket waiting lists is a good measure of potential return on investment and every single measure that Matthew Le God suggests (cherry picked random games, made up demand, something about Chelsea in 1983, "look at Wolves", something about Roker Park) isn't.

 

And anyway, we've all read Matthew Le God's grand plan for kids for a quid, pensioner discounts and cut price family tickets, in which he proves us human beings right with his own cock eyed strategy - if the only way to fill 10,000 new seats is to sell them cheaper than now, there aint the demand old son.

[Micky]

I don't understand why there is such a strong defence about why these "casual fans" don't turn up now (children, work commitments, money worries, location, travel time etc etc) but the same people are arguing that these "casual fans" are suddenly going to turn up in droves entirely because we've spent £xxx million on 10,000 new seats. Why does having a bigger stadium make all these work commitments go away?

 

Unfortunately, here in the real world, we don't build or extend stadiums for casual fans, we build them for regular fans, or potential regular fans that can't get in - hence why season ticket waiting lists is a good measure of potential return on investment and every single measure that Matthew Le God suggests (cherry picked random games, made up demand, something about Chelsea in 1983, "look at Wolves", something about Roker Park) isn't.

 

And anyway, we've all read Matthew Le God's grand plan for kids for a quid, pensioner discounts and cut price family tickets, in which he proves us human beings right with his own cock eyed strategy - if the only way to fill 10,000 new seats is to sell them cheaper than now, there aint the demand old son.

 

At last, hallelujah to that. Yeah the Turks got his winding gear out but for me he makes sence. Sit and talk about individual games all you want, speculate about the 'thousands' of fans who have been disappointed each week because they have failed (again) to get a ticket for the game. But, if this was the reality, especially in this day and age - it would be all over these boards.

 

We just don't know how many are being turned away at this point.

 

But one of the biggest indicators available right now is our season ticket waiting list. Do we have one, how many people are on it?

 

In my view, expanding a stadium and expecting it to be regularly filled by 'casuals' and 'jcl's' is toutamount to a business plan disaster.

[IFHP]

Did we regularly sell out a home game after the 1^st day of sales? 2^nd day? 1 week? Were fans queued outside the ticket office overnight? Were they continually pressing redial? How many home games went to a “ballot”?

No one ever struggled to get a ticket for home games, back in our premier days you knew well in advance when tickets went on sale, if you wanted one you could have got one. Struggle does not mean tickets were on sale for over a week but I didn’t know I could go to the game until after they had sold out.

Also to go from average crowds of 30,000 to 40,000 it’s probably another 20,000 fans we would need as normally it’s not the same fans who go week in week out.

 

We are years away from that.

[wild-saint]

Did 12,000 not bother trying to get tickets for this one?

 

i have 9998 friends in southampton that struggled to get tickets last time we were in the prem.

[Ado]

I can imagine there are many fans like myself, with other commitments on Saturdays (playing football, kids, money etc). Being in the Championship/League 1 is fantastic for us as you can buy on the day so can the decision to go to the game is left to the last minute. Last time in the Prem if you were organised you got a ticket no problem and i dont see this changing. I would rather have to make an effort to get a ticket in a full St Marys than make no effort in an expanded St Marys with a few thousand empty seats each week. The atmosphere of a full ground makes all the difference for me.