We get it we're not a massive club...

[SaintBitterne]

Look I'm under no illusion that we are a massive club and every player has their own agenda about wanting to play at the top. But what is with our players and chairman in recent days coming out and publicy discussing how small we are and that everyone wants to leave to bigger things.

Following on from Semmens interview, Bednarek had this to say today "Jan Bednarek on Ralph Hasenhuttl: "Hopefully, I keep my fingers crossed, that he will become, one day, the manager of some bigger team in the world.".

Like it's obvious were not an end goal for anyone, but let's maybe dress it up a bit ffs.

[Saint_clark]

Sounds to me like it was probably lost in translation a little bit. I'd wager he meant one of the biggest teams in the world as opposed to saying bigger.

 

[notnowcato]

As a fan I’d recommend staying in the present. We can’t change the past and can’t control the future. 
 

Enjoy the football whilst we are performing well, everything else is just noise. 

[Nordic Saint]

15 minutes ago, SaintBitterne said:

Look I'm under no illusion that we are a massive club and every player has their own agenda about wanting to play at the top. But what is with our players and chairman in recent days coming out and publicy discussing how small we are and that everyone wants to leave to bigger things.

Following on from Semmens interview, Bednarek had this to say today "Jan Bednarek on Ralph Hasenhuttl: "Hopefully, I keep my fingers crossed, that he will become, one day, the manager of some bigger team in the world.".

Like it's obvious were not an end goal for anyone, but let's maybe dress it up a bit ffs.

It's amazing what a difference stadium size makes. It's a pity we didn't start St Mary's with a 40,000 capacity. The difference in cost would have been minimal back then: maybe less than £10 mill. Nobody would ever have called West Ham a big club when they were at Upton Park. In fact, there were seasons when our average home gate was bigger than theirs. But, now they've moved to a big stadium, they've suddenly grown in size as a club in the eyes of the football public and are perceived as a club that could poach any one of our players if they wanted to.

Premier League clubs with 30,000 capacity stadiums, even teams that have won major trophies recently, like Leicester, will always be regarded as small by Premier League standards. In fact, I can envisage a time in the futiure, when we follow the American sports model and insist that teams require a minimum stadium capacity of 40,000 or more to even compete in in the Premier League.

Edited 16 February, 2022 by Nordic Saint

[Turkish]

7 minutes ago, SaintBitterne said:

Look I'm under no illusion that we are a massive club and every player has their own agenda about wanting to play at the top. But what is with our players and chairman in recent days coming out and publicy discussing how small we are and that everyone wants to leave to bigger things.

Following on from Semmens interview, Bednarek had this to say today "Jan Bednarek on Ralph Hasenhuttl: "Hopefully, I keep my fingers crossed, that he will become, one day, the manager of some bigger team in the world.".

Like it's obvious were not an end goal for anyone, but let's maybe dress it up a bit ffs.

that isnt what they said.

[Toussaint]

25 minutes ago, Nordic Saint said:

It's amazing what a difference stadium size makes. It's a pity we didn't start St Mary's with a 40,000 capacity. The difference in cost would have been minimal back then: maybe less than £10 mill. Nobody would ever have called West Ham a big club when they were at Upton Park. In fact, there were seasons when our average home gate was bigger than theirs. But, now they've moved to a big stadium, they've suddenly grown in size as a club in the eyes of the football public and are perceived as a club that could poach any one of our players if they wanted to.

Premier League clubs with 30,000 capacity stadiums, even teams that have won major trophies recently, like Leicester, will always be regarded as small by Premier League standards. In fact, I can envisage a time in the futiure, when we follow the American sports model and insist that teams require a minimum stadium capacity of 40,000 or more to even compete in in the Premier League.

I think your right, I recall SMS was £1000 per seat, presumably there would have been some economy of scale adding another 10000 seats.  But, what do people want?  I'm pretty happy to be entertained, compete and maybe win a cup here and there.  Europe is very exciting, but the bloated squad of averageness we assembled for a Europa campaign negatively affected us for some time. Some of the bigger clubs have lost their identity, atmosphere and are generally toxic environments. I'm happy to sit where we are (right now that is) and watch them implode. 

[Saint Matty 76]

35 minutes ago, notnowcato said:

As a fan I’d recommend staying in the present. We can’t change the past and can’t control the future. 
 

Enjoy the football whilst we are performing well, everything else is just noise. 

I do agree with this completely. However I do also agree with the OP that it's strange timing to be putting all these quotes out. Let the fans have fun and get carried away a little bit whilst we're actually good.

[Roger]

Mad comments by Bednarek. We know what we are but maybe humour is a bit.

[sad saints fan]

23 minutes ago, Nordic Saint said:

It's amazing what a difference stadium size makes. It's a pity we didn't start St Mary's with a 40,000 capacity. The difference in cost would have been minimal back then: maybe less than £10 mill. Nobody would ever have called West Ham a big club when they were at Upton Park. In fact, there were seasons when our average home gate was bigger than theirs. But, now they've moved to a big stadium, they've suddenly grown in size as a club in the eyes of the football public and are perceived as a club that could poach any one of our players if they wanted to.

Premier League clubs with 30,000 capacity stadiums, even teams that have won major trophies recently, like Leicester, will always be regarded as small by Premier League standards. In fact, I can envisage a time in the futiure, when we follow the American sports model and insist that teams require a minimum stadium capacity of 40,000 or more to even compete in in the Premier League.

It would be pointless having a larger capacity stadium because even if we won the champions league 10 years running Southampton does not have the population to increase fan numbers significantly. There only just over 300k people in Southampton and about the same number in Eastleigh and Winchester combined . So you would need about 6% of the population to be a) a football fan b) a Southampton fan c) Not be an armchair fan d) be able to afford the price of admission. You would get a few tourist but not a significant amount .

[Turkish]

8 minutes ago, Toussaint said:

I think your right, I recall SMS was £1000 per seat, presumably there would have been some economy of scale adding another 10000 seats.  But, what do people want?  I'm pretty happy to be entertained, compete and maybe win a cup here and there.  Europe is very exciting, but the bloated squad of averageness we assembled for a Europa campaign negatively affected us for some time. Some of the bigger clubs have lost their identity, atmosphere and are generally toxic environments. I'm happy to sit where we are (right now that is) and watch them implode. 

Yes it was something like that, then a few years later they said to expand to 42k it would cost almost the same as the stadium again at £3k a seat. Hindsight is a great thing and maybe we should have gone 40k then. However I do remember at the time though most people thoughts 32k was about right and we might struggle to fill it. 

Edited 16 February, 2022 by Turkish

[Noodles34]

44 minutes ago, Nordic Saint said:

It's amazing what a difference stadium size makes. It's a pity we didn't start St Mary's with a 40,000 capacity. The difference in cost would have been minimal back then: maybe less than £10 mill. Nobody would ever have called West Ham a big club when they were at Upton Park. In fact, there were seasons when our average home gate was bigger than theirs. But, now they've moved to a big stadium, they've suddenly grown in size as a club in the eyes of the football public and are perceived as a club that could poach any one of our players if they wanted to.

Premier League clubs with 30,000 capacity stadiums, even teams that have won major trophies recently, like Leicester, will always be regarded as small by Premier League standards. In fact, I can envisage a time in the futiure, when we follow the American sports model and insist that teams require a minimum stadium capacity of 40,000 or more to even compete in in the Premier League.

are you seriously suggesting that West Ham are a bigger club than us because they moved to a bigger stadium? They're bigger than us anyway mate, always have been and probably always will be. Clearly a lot comes down to definition, but the name of West Ham FC is certainly more well known than the name of Southampton FC. 

[Nordic Saint]

26 minutes ago, sad saints fan said:

It would be pointless having a larger capacity stadium because even if we won the champions league 10 years running Southampton does not have the population to increase fan numbers significantly. There only just over 300k people in Southampton and about the same number in Eastleigh and Winchester combined . So you would need about 6% of the population to be a) a football fan b) a Southampton fan c) Not be an armchair fan d) be able to afford the price of admission. You would get a few tourist but not a significant amount .

You obviously don't follow football very closely or you'd know that fans who go to games at big clubs don't all come from within a few miles of the stadium or even from the same city. The bigger the stadium, the wider the area you attract fans from. Travelling distances are so small in England that you could develop a big club just about anywhere other than perhaps the extreme south west. You could draw a line diagonally across the country just south of Liverpool, Birmingham and London and see that Saints don't have a lot of competition in the Premier League in our half of the country.

I've heard it said that our fans have a 'small club mentality' which is hard to change,  but there is really no reason why our club can't grow much bigger.

Edited 16 February, 2022 by Nordic Saint

[tajjuk]

24 minutes ago, sad saints fan said:

It would be pointless having a larger capacity stadium because even if we won the champions league 10 years running Southampton does not have the population to increase fan numbers significantly. There only just over 300k people in Southampton and about the same number in Eastleigh and Winchester combined . So you would need about 6% of the population to be a) a football fan b) a Southampton fan c) Not be an armchair fan d) be able to afford the price of admission. You would get a few tourist but not a significant amount .

If we were a bigger club we'd fill a much bigger stadium, the population of Hampshire alone is like 1 million and aside London there is no top flight club in like the entire south west and Bristol area, if got 'Man City'd' then I think we'd easily be filling 45k-50k.  It takes like an hour on the train to get from Bristol to Southampton pretty much, and much less than that in most other directions. There are loads of fans from here who regularly travel to multiple London clubs. 

[trousers]

I'm with Bednarek on this, in principle. If Ralph goes on to manage one of the biggest/bigger teams in world football then it'll be due, in part, to him ending up doing a great job here. I'd rather that than him having done a poor job overall by the end of his tenure and thus not attracting the attention of said big clubs.

Edited 16 February, 2022 by trousers

[CB Fry]

1 hour ago, Nordic Saint said:

It's amazing what a difference stadium size makes. It's a pity we didn't start St Mary's with a 40,000 capacity. The difference in cost would have been minimal back then: maybe less than £10 mill. Nobody would ever have called West Ham a big club when they were at Upton Park. In fact, there were seasons when our average home gate was bigger than theirs. But, now they've moved to a big stadium, they've suddenly grown in size as a club in the eyes of the football public and are perceived as a club that could poach any one of our players if they wanted to.

Premier League clubs with 30,000 capacity stadiums, even teams that have won major trophies recently, like Leicester, will always be regarded as small by Premier League standards. In fact, I can envisage a time in the futiure, when we follow the American sports model and insist that teams require a minimum stadium capacity of 40,000 or more to even compete in in the Premier League.

Jesus wept.

 

[CB Fry]

10 minutes ago, tajjuk said:

If we were a bigger club we'd fill a much bigger stadium, the population of Hampshire alone is like 1 million and aside London there is no top flight club in like the entire south west and Bristol area, if got 'Man City'd' then I think we'd easily be filling 45k-50k.  It takes like an hour on the train to get from Bristol to Southampton pretty much, and much less than that in most other directions. There are loads of fans from here who regularly travel to multiple London clubs. 

This is like slipping into a familiar pair of comfy shoes after a long break.

#catchment

[Whitey Grandad]

11 minutes ago, tajjuk said:

If we were a bigger club we'd fill a much bigger stadium, the population of Hampshire alone is like 1 million and aside London there is no top flight club in like the entire south west and Bristol area, if got 'Man City'd' then I think we'd easily be filling 45k-50k.  It takes like an hour on the train to get from Bristol to Southampton pretty much, and much less than that in most other directions. There are loads of fans from here who regularly travel to multiple London clubs. 

Around 1.4 million for Hampshire alone.

[LuckyNumber7]

1 hour ago, Nordic Saint said:

It's amazing what a difference stadium size makes. It's a pity we didn't start St Mary's with a 40,000 capacity. The difference in cost would have been minimal back then: maybe less than £10 mill. Nobody would ever have called West Ham a big club when they were at Upton Park. In fact, there were seasons when our average home gate was bigger than theirs. But, now they've moved to a big stadium, they've suddenly grown in size as a club in the eyes of the football public and are perceived as a club that could poach any one of our players if they wanted to.

Premier League clubs with 30,000 capacity stadiums, even teams that have won major trophies recently, like Leicester, will always be regarded as small by Premier League standards. In fact, I can envisage a time in the futiure, when we follow the American sports model and insist that teams require a minimum stadium capacity of 40,000 or more to even compete in in the Premier League.

The difference is West Ham are regularly filling their 60000 stadium, whilst we are barely able to fill our 32000. Southampton is only a medium sized city and we just don't have the fanbase that these big city clubs are able to attract.

I think in good times and against the glory clubs we could occasionally attract 35-40000 but most of the time we would be left with masses of empty seats which is never a good look.

[Turkish]

31 minutes ago, Nordic Saint said:

You obviously don't follow football very closely or you'd know that fans who go to games at big clubs don't all come from within a few miles of the stadium or even from the same city. The bigger the stadium, the wider the area you attract fans from. Travelling distances are so small in England that you could develop a big club just about anywhere other than perhaps the extreme south west. You could draw a line diagonally across the country just south of Liverpool, Birmingham and London and see that Saints don't have a lot of competition in the Premier League in our half of the country.

I've heard it said that our fans have a 'small club mentality' which is hard to change,  but there is really no reason why our club can't grow much bigger.

As a wiseman once said.......

I hear there are massive ranks of Saints fans in Hereford, Gloucester, Cirencester, Weston Supermare and Shrewsbury who would come to St Marys if only it was bigger.

[Toussaint]

4 minutes ago, LuckyNumber7 said:

The difference is West Ham are regularly filling their 60000 stadium, whilst we are barely able to fill our 32000. Southampton is only a medium sized city and we just don't have the fanbase that these big city clubs are able to attract.

I think in good times and against the glory clubs we could occasionally attract 35-40000 but most of the time we would be left with masses of empty seats which is never a good look.

They also have the "advantage" of being in London, I think they have also rebranded to include London in their crest. London alone is a big attraction in the global sense. I may be stuck in the past but I really don't want to attract an addition 20 or 30 thousand fair weather, not really interested in Saints, premier league soccer fans. 

[tajjuk]

4 minutes ago, LuckyNumber7 said:

The difference is West Ham are regularly filling their 60000 stadium, whilst we are barely able to fill our 32000. Southampton is only a medium sized city and we just don't have the fanbase that these big city clubs are able to attract.

I think in good times and against the glory clubs we could occasionally attract 35-40000 but most of the time we would be left with masses of empty seats which is never a good look.

Leicester are a 'medium sized city' (and actually one with far more local competitors) but they are increasing their capacity to 40k pretty soon. It's quite obvious if you have some success, you'll get more fans and outgrow the stadium. 

Man City's attendances in the early 2000s in the PL were about 35-40k, they now get about 52-54k average attendances. 

Pretty much any club in the UK within reason could grow their fanbase significantly over time with sustained success, certainly one like ours with basically no local rivals. It's like 50-60 miles in any direction to even get another PL club.  

[sad saints fan]

40 minutes ago, Nordic Saint said:

You obviously don't follow football very closely or you'd know that fans who go to games at big clubs don't all come from within a few miles of the stadium or even from the same city. The bigger the stadium, the wider the area you attract fans from. Travelling distances are so small in England that you could develop a big club just about anywhere other than perhaps the extreme south west. You could draw a line diagonally across the country just south of Liverpool, Birmingham and London and see that Saints don't have a lot of competition in the Premier League in our half of the country.

I've heard it said that our fans have a 'small club mentality' which is hard to change,  but there is really no reason why our club can't grow much bigger.

East of the Hamble you will get nothing .That is "bandit country " and will follow anyone but Saints. North of Winchester they will always follow the big London clubs . To the West mainly Man Utd and Liverpool and never attend games ,also rugby union is a much bigger draw in places like Bath and Bristol.

[Turkish]

 

Just now, sad saints fan said:

East of the Hamble you will get nothing .That is "bandit country " and will follow anyone but Saints. North of Winchester they will always follow the big London clubs . To the West mainly Man Utd and Liverpool and never attend games ,also rugby union is a much bigger draw in places like Bath and Bristol.

and then south is the sea, unlike a lot of clubs half of our catchment area is the ocean, Leicester is being pointed to as what could be, yet funnily enough Leicester is pretty much in the middle of the country, not right on the sea. 

[LuckyNumber7]

3 minutes ago, tajjuk said:

Leicester are a 'medium sized city' (and actually one with far more local competitors) but they are increasing their capacity to 40k pretty soon. It's quite obvious if you have some success, you'll get more fans and outgrow the stadium. 

Man City's attendances in the early 2000s in the PL were about 35-40k, they now get about 52-54k average attendances. 

Pretty much any club in the UK within reason could grow their fanbase significantly over time with sustained success, certainly one like ours with basically no local rivals. It's like 50-60 miles in any direction to even get another PL club.  

I agree, but we are never likely to have anywhere close to Man City's success, plus the Greater Manchester area has a population of nearly 3 million.

As for Leicester, again they have had a few years of success which will have boosted their fanbase, but I noticed quite a few empty seats at their game the other night. It will be interesting to see if they can fill 40000 on a regular basis.

[Mattio]

1 hour ago, Nordic Saint said:

It's amazing what a difference stadium size makes. It's a pity we didn't start St Mary's with a 40,000 capacity. The difference in cost would have been minimal back then: maybe less than £10 mill. Nobody would ever have called West Ham a big club when they were at Upton Park. In fact, there were seasons when our average home gate was bigger than theirs. But, now they've moved to a big stadium, they've suddenly grown in size as a club in the eyes of the football public and are perceived as a club that could poach any one of our players if they wanted to.

Premier League clubs with 30,000 capacity stadiums, even teams that have won major trophies recently, like Leicester, will always be regarded as small by Premier League standards. In fact, I can envisage a time in the futiure, when we follow the American sports model and insist that teams require a minimum stadium capacity of 40,000 or more to even compete in in the Premier League.

The original plan was a 25000 seater, so count your lucky stars.

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/14332554.plans-for-southamptons-stoneham-stadium-25-years-on/

[LiberalCommunist]

Not too bothered about the noises from our club, but what I do find terribly irritating is the medias reaction to our good performances. They act all incredulous about us having the audacity to have good footballers here. How very dare we. 

[tajjuk]

23 minutes ago, LuckyNumber7 said:

I agree, but we are never likely to have anywhere close to Man City's success, plus the Greater Manchester area has a population of nearly 3 million.

As for Leicester, again they have had a few years of success which will have boosted their fanbase, but I noticed quite a few empty seats at their game the other night. It will be interesting to see if they can fill 40000 on a regular basis.

It also has one of the biggest football clubs in the world vying for that support. We also likely have 2.5 million people within less than an hour from the club and no competing club really in that area. Yes we would need more success and reaching the heights of City is unlikely, but people seem to be suggesting just because we only get about 32k as a lower middle PL club (also one in recent years that has had a terrible home record btw) that we wouldn't get more as a top 6 regular, top 4 regular etc. 

It won't suddenly attract a load of 40 year olds to change club what it does is stop more kids becoming Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool etc. fans. who then grow into adults and start turning up at the stadium. 

[Charlie Wayman]

2 hours ago, SaintBitterne said:

Look I'm under no illusion that we are a massive club and every player has their own agenda about wanting to play at the top. But what is with our players and chairman in recent days coming out and publicy discussing how small we are and that everyone wants to leave to bigger things.

Following on from Semmens interview, Bednarek had this to say today "Jan Bednarek on Ralph Hasenhuttl: "Hopefully, I keep my fingers crossed, that he will become, one day, the manager of some bigger team in the world.".

Like it's obvious were not an end goal for anyone, but let's maybe dress it up a bit ffs.

I wonder if the develop and move on philosophy also applies to management,? 

So, can we expect Semmens to move on in a couple of years to leave a pathway for a younger better CEO with more ambition 🤞🤞🤞?

[Charlie Wayman]

1 hour ago, Noodles34 said:

are you seriously suggesting that West Ham are a bigger club than us because they moved to a bigger stadium? They're bigger than us anyway mate, always have been and probably always will be. Clearly a lot comes down to definition, but the name of West Ham FC is certainly more well known than the name of Southampton FC. 

Mainly because of the World Cup winning trio of '66

[maysie]

9 minutes ago, Charlie Wayman said:

I wonder if the develop and move on philosophy also applies to management,? 

So, can we expect Semmens to move on in a couple of years to leave a pathway for a younger better CEO with more ambition 🤞🤞🤞?

So if a new younger CEO has more ambition does that mean he can print money then or will be investing himself? He's doing what we can with in our means to make us as successful as can be, it's not rocket science

[hackedoff]

2 hours ago, Nordic Saint said:

It's amazing what a difference stadium size makes. It's a pity we didn't start St Mary's with a 40,000 capacity. The difference in cost would have been minimal back then: maybe less than £10 mill. Nobody would ever have called West Ham a big club when they were at Upton Park. In fact, there were seasons when our average home gate was bigger than theirs. But, now they've moved to a big stadium, they've suddenly grown in size as a club in the eyes of the football public and are perceived as a club that could poach any one of our players if they wanted to.

Premier League clubs with 30,000 capacity stadiums, even teams that have won major trophies recently, like Leicester, will always be regarded as small by Premier League standards. In fact, I can envisage a time in the futiure, when we follow the American sports model and insist that teams require a minimum stadium capacity of 40,000 or more to even compete in in the Premier League.

I would rather they fill a small trophy cabinet to a larger stadium.

[Turkish]

52 minutes ago, tajjuk said:

It also has one of the biggest football clubs in the world vying for that support. We also likely have 2.5 million people within less than an hour from the club and no competing club really in that area. Yes we would need more success and reaching the heights of City is unlikely, but people seem to be suggesting just because we only get about 32k as a lower middle PL club (also one in recent years that has had a terrible home record btw) that we wouldn't get more as a top 6 regular, top 4 regular etc. 

It won't suddenly attract a load of 40 year olds to change club what it does is stop more kids becoming Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool etc. fans. who then grow into adults and start turning up at the stadium. 

We have one of the biggest cities in the world just over an hour away which has 6 premier league clubs, 3 of them part of the supposed big 6, plus to our right we have a city that have it inbred in them too hate us, then 30 miles further down the coast another premier league club, below us is the sea. The massive area which could  be transformed into a hotbed of Saints fans if only we stuck 10,000 extra seats on top of St Marys isn't quite as big as you seem to think. If it's just a case of building a big stadium because you've got not many other clubs round you why haven't Bristol City or Rovers, Norwich, Ipswich, Plymouth or even frigging Yeovil become massive, they've all got tonnes of people living near them and no other premier league club near them too.

Edited 16 February, 2022 by Turkish

[Kenilworthy]

There wasn't the possibility for St Mary's to be built to hold 40,000. The council was concerned about the impact on local  traffic infrastructure and limited the capacity to 32,000. That is why we had things like the free bus travel with match tickets to encourage use of public transport. The hope was that if it was proved not to be an issue then we could expand the capacity. Hence three sides of the stadium were built with foundations that could support additional seating. Of course we now find that such an expansion is ruinously expensive.

[nta786]

I’m sure we could fill 40k if we charged £15 a pop rather than the avg £50 we charge these days, going as high as £89 for the Kingsland Premium. 
Coventry sold out fairly quickly at those prices.

I’d have loved a super stadium similar to those mock up pictures that MLG used to post but we’ll have to make do with 32k. 

[tunit]

2 hours ago, Turkish said:

 

and then south is the sea, unlike a lot of clubs half of our catchment area is the ocean, Leicester is being pointed to as what could be, yet funnily enough Leicester is pretty much in the middle of the country, not right on the sea. 

A shuttle ferry from the channel islands could be an option? Or even get some of our French neighbours interested now we have Perraud and Diallo both looking good  

[StDunko]

2 hours ago, sad saints fan said:

East of the Hamble you will get nothing .That is "bandit country " and will follow anyone but Saints. North of Winchester they will always follow the big London clubs . To the West mainly Man Utd and Liverpool and never attend games ,also rugby union is a much bigger draw in places like Bath and Bristol.

Bollocks, I've lived my entire life east of Portsmouth and been a ST holder since I was a little kid (that's a long time as I'm probably considered middle aged now).  My father lived in Southampton before I was born then moved east, but obviously he wasn't changing elegancies and I was brought up to be a Saint.  For the last 20 years I've travelled to home games from West Sussex (although recently moved back just within the Hants border) and the trains to/from Southampton home games always have plenty of Saints fans on them from places much further east than the Hamble.   

[CB Fry]

30 minutes ago, StDunko said:

Bollocks, I've lived my entire life east of Portsmouth and been a ST holder since I was a little kid (that's a long time as I'm probably considered middle aged now).  My father lived in Southampton before I was born then moved east, but obviously he wasn't changing elegancies and I was brought up to be a Saint.  For the last 20 years I've travelled to home games from West Sussex (although recently moved back just within the Hants border) and the trains to/from Southampton home games always have plenty of Saints fans on them from places much further east than the Hamble.   

But not enough of those people to create a huge waiting list for season tickets or really any particular difficulty for a casual fan to get a ticket for an average Prem game with a minimal amount of planning.

Filling a Southern Railway carriage or two with some expats from Guildford or Crawley does not make a case for a significant expansion of the stadium.

I believe West Ham have a season ticket waiting list even now, with a 60k seater stadium. Someone will know better than me but I am not sure we have ever sold our maximum number of season tickets in any season.

That's the foundation for stadium expansion.

Edited 16 February, 2022 by CB Fry

[Mystic Force]

A key difference is that West Ham did not have to build their own stadium, similarly Man City. But if any large sporting contest would like to let us have their used stadium I am game.

[aintforever]

4 hours ago, SaintBitterne said:

Look I'm under no illusion that we are a massive club and every player has their own agenda about wanting to play at the top. But what is with our players and chairman in recent days coming out and publicy discussing how small we are and that everyone wants to leave to bigger things.

Following on from Semmens interview, Bednarek had this to say today "Jan Bednarek on Ralph Hasenhuttl: "Hopefully, I keep my fingers crossed, that he will become, one day, the manager of some bigger team in the world.".

Like it's obvious were not an end goal for anyone, but let's maybe dress it up a bit ffs.

I get what you mean but they are just being realistic. Because of the wealth of the clubs at the top there is a ceiling to what we can achieve and a major selling point for us is that we can be a stepping stone. The one thing we can offer certain players that bigger clubs can’t, is the opportunity to showcase their talent in the best league in the World. They move on, we make money which we can invest again and grow. Pretending we are bigger than we are is not going to grow the club, the only way that happens if through success on the pitch.

Edited 16 February, 2022 by aintforever

[Turkish]

Has anyone considered that we could fill a bigger stadium if we reduced ticket prices to £10 and have more tickets to away fans? We’d also make a fortune from additional hot dog sales

[Convict Colony]

Wouldn't take it too seriously, you never see Simple Jack and Jan in the same room for a reason.

 

[JRM]

4 hours ago, Noodles34 said:

are you seriously suggesting that West Ham are a bigger club than us because they moved to a bigger stadium? They're bigger than us anyway mate, always have been and probably always will be. Clearly a lot comes down to definition, but the name of West Ham FC is certainly more well known than the name of Southampton FC. 

I've travelled to see football in countries like Ukraine, Serbia, Poland etc , often hear "I love West Ham United, my favourite film is Green Street Hooligans." , definitely helped raise their profile. 

[Noodles34]

53 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Has anyone considered that we could fill a bigger stadium if we reduced ticket prices to £10 and have more tickets to away fans? We’d also make a fortune from additional hot dog sales

And popcorn sales would go through the roof 

[Sergei Gotsmanov]

5 hours ago, Turkish said:

Yes it was something like that, then a few years later they said to expand to 42k it would cost almost the same as the stadium again at £3k a seat. Hindsight is a great thing and maybe we should have gone 40k then. However I do remember at the time though most people thoughts 32k was about right and we might struggle to fill it. 

When we built the stadium we budgeted at an average gate of 26K. The stadium also effectively bankrupted us when we got relegated. This was also the case with many other clubs that built new stadiums - Leicester and Derby off the top of my head.

[Ex Lion Tamer]

2 hours ago, CB Fry said:

But not enough of those people to create a huge waiting list for season tickets or really any particular difficulty for a casual fan to get a ticket for an average Prem game with a minimal amount of planning.

Filling a Southern Railway carriage or two with some expats from Guildford or Crawley does not make a case for a significant expansion of the stadium.

I believe West Ham have a season ticket waiting list even now, with a 60k seater stadium. Someone will know better than me but I am not sure we have ever sold our maximum number of season tickets in any season.

That's the foundation for stadium expansion.

West Ham simply have a huge catchment area east of London and up into Essex where there are no other sizeable clubs

[The Kraken]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

Has anyone considered that we could fill a bigger stadium if we reduced ticket prices to £10 and have more tickets to away fans? We’d also make a fortune from additional hot dog sales

Ffs, yet again you’ve shown yourself up with having a dell-sized mentality. We don’t need to reduce prices like you say, we need an EasyJet-type layered pricing model. It’s not rocket science.

[The Kraken]

5 hours ago, CB Fry said:

This is like slipping into a familiar pair of comfy shoes after a long break.

#catchment

Love this analogy 👍

[Ted Bates Statue]

1 hour ago, JRM said:

I've travelled to see football in countries like Ukraine, Serbia, Poland etc , often hear "I love West Ham United, my favourite film is Green Street Hooligans." , definitely helped raise their profile. 

If only we held onto Saphir Taider <3 a bit longer, maybe our profile would also have been boosted in a similar manner.

[moonraker]

6 hours ago, sad saints fan said:

It would be pointless having a larger capacity stadium because even if we won the champions league 10 years running Southampton does not have the population to increase fan numbers significantly. There only just over 300k people in Southampton and about the same number in Eastleigh and Winchester combined . So you would need about 6% of the population to be a) a football fan b) a Southampton fan c) Not be an armchair fan d) be able to afford the price of admission. You would get a few tourist but not a significant amount .

By your parochial criteria Everton and Liverpool should only be attracting crowds of 25k ish.  I live in Bath and know a couple of dozen saints fans here, and i don't go out looking for them.  Saints catchment is pretty big, their is no real competition to the West or North West until Bristol, Brighton are the nearest competition to the East with the exception of plague island.  I believe we could easily build a 40k crowd if we were to continue to play attractive and entertaining football.

[moonraker]

4 hours ago, Turkish said:

We have one of the biggest cities in the world just over an hour away which has 6 premier league clubs, 3 of them part of the supposed big 6, plus to our right we have a city that have it inbred in them too hate us, then 30 miles further down the coast another premier league club, below us is the sea. The massive area which could  be transformed into a hotbed of Saints fans if only we stuck 10,000 extra seats on top of St Marys isn't quite as big as you seem to think. If it's just a case of building a big stadium because you've got not many other clubs round you why haven't Bristol City or Rovers, Norwich, Ipswich, Plymouth or even frigging Yeovil become massive, they've all got tonnes of people living near them and no other premier league club near them too.

Of the teams you reference only one is premiership side, Bristol as is much of the West Country is as much a Rugby area as football, 4 of the top 5 Rugby clubs for attendances are in the West Country,  there are also a lot of "plastics" possibly i would contend because  neither of  Bristol's two clubs have been able to break out of the Lower leagues.

Edited 16 February, 2022 by moonraker