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Liquid Gold

Liquid Gold

Well-Known Member
This is something i quickly put together to compare the population of a city with the attendance of the football club. The formatting doesn't follow over well from excel to here but it shows that, even though we were in a league higher than all of these teams, we are only 17th best supported in terms of our catchment area. This is from a team where some fans find it unacceptable that we respect the clubs in the division we're in because they view is as a big fish.

Team Average Attendance Population Population in Attendance
Forest Green Rovers 2,775 5,794 47.89%
Lincoln City 9,005 97,541 9.23%
Tranmere Rovers 6,667 88,818 7.51%
Yeovil Town 2,952 45,000 6.56%
Carlisle United 4,712 75,306 6.26%
Morecambe 2,033 34,768 5.85%
Crewe Alexandra 3,761 71,722 5.24%
Bury 4,044 78,723 5.14%
Grimsby Town 4,430 88,243 5.02%
Mansfield Town 5,000 106,556 4.69%
Oldham Athletic 4,364 96,555 4.52%
Macclesfield Town 2,316 51,482 4.50%
Milton Keynes Dons 8,223 229,941 3.58%
Swindon Town 6,427 182,441 3.52%
Cambridge United 4,338 124,900 3.47%
Exeter City 4,418 128,900 3.43%
Coventry City 12,326 360,100 3.42%
Colchester United 3,521 111,921 3.15%
Stevenage 2,714 87,700 3.09%
Newport County 4,386 151,500 2.90%
Cheltenham Town 3,134 117,100 2.68%
Notts County 7,357 321,500 2.29%
Northampton Town 5,100 225,700 2.26%
Crawley Town 2,290 111,700 2.05%
Port Vale 4,430 255,400 1.73%
 
T

theferret

Well-Known Member
shy_tall_knight said:
I agree generally that our support is poor but 2 games that I went to and remember the home crowd being poor

Arsenal had not won anything since 1979 but were having a good season and Stoke were a mid-table championship team

18 January 1987 Arsenal 0–0 Coventry City London
Stadium: Highbury
Attendance: 17,561

2007-11-03
Stoke City 1 – 3 Coventry City
Britannia Stadium, Stoke
Attendance: 11,576
r
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The worse one I can recall was Chelsea away in the PL in 1993. They were playing in the FA Cup final just a few weeks later and only 8,000 at Stamford Bridge.
 
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theferret

Well-Known Member
Liquid Gold said:
This is something i quickly put together to compare the population of a city with the attendance of the football club. The formatting doesn't follow over well from excel to here but it shows that, even though we were in a league higher than all of these teams, we are only 17th best supported in terms of our catchment area. This is from a team where some fans find it unacceptable that we respect the clubs in the division we're in because they view is as a big fish.

Team Average Attendance Population Population in Attendance
Forest Green Rovers 2,775 5,794 47.89%
Lincoln City 9,005 97,541 9.23%
Tranmere Rovers 6,667 88,818 7.51%
Yeovil Town 2,952 45,000 6.56%
Carlisle United 4,712 75,306 6.26%
Morecambe 2,033 34,768 5.85%
Crewe Alexandra 3,761 71,722 5.24%
Bury 4,044 78,723 5.14%
Grimsby Town 4,430 88,243 5.02%
Mansfield Town 5,000 106,556 4.69%
Oldham Athletic 4,364 96,555 4.52%
Macclesfield Town 2,316 51,482 4.50%
Milton Keynes Dons 8,223 229,941 3.58%
Swindon Town 6,427 182,441 3.52%
Cambridge United 4,338 124,900 3.47%
Exeter City 4,418 128,900 3.43%
Coventry City 12,326 360,100 3.42%
Colchester United 3,521 111,921 3.15%
Stevenage 2,714 87,700 3.09%
Newport County 4,386 151,500 2.90%
Cheltenham Town 3,134 117,100 2.68%
Notts County 7,357 321,500 2.29%
Northampton Town 5,100 225,700 2.26%
Crawley Town 2,290 111,700 2.05%
Port Vale 4,430 255,400 1.73%
Click to expand...

How are you defining catchment area though? Birkenhead the town is 88K, Birkenhead the metro area is over 300K. Forest Green are really a Stroud team and not just Nailsworth. Lincoln is notably bigger than the figure quoted. You can make these figures look very different by using different criteria. Leeds would have ranked about the same as us when they were in this division, but that doesn't mean they were mistaken to regard themselves as a big fish.
 
Liquid Gold

Liquid Gold

Well-Known Member
theferret said:
How are you defining catchment area though? Birkenhead the town is 88K, Birkenhead the metro area is over 300K. Forest Green are really a Stroud team and not just Nailsworth. Lincoln is notably bigger than the figure quoted. You can make these figures look very different by using different criteria. Leeds would have ranked about the same as us when they were in this division, but that doesn't mean they were mistaken to regard themselves as a big fish.
Click to expand...
I've just taken population of the town city based. This comes out with stretched figures for teams like FGR but analysing based on a teams actual catchment area is a much bigger project. Id you start adding nearby areas that are assumed to have support then you can start adding Nuneaton, Bedworth, Kenilworth, Leamington and Warwick for us. This is the simplest way of measuring attendance based upon where a team is based and it shows that despite being a league above, being a top tier team for many years and a cup winner the number of people that turn up to watch us is poor.
 
T

theferret

Well-Known Member
Liquid Gold said:
I've just taken population of the town city based. This comes out with stretched figures for teams like FGR but analysing based on a teams actual catchment area is a much bigger project. Id you start adding nearby areas that are assumed to have support then you can start adding Nuneaton, Bedworth, Kenilworth, Leamington and Warwick for us. This is the simplest way of measuring attendance based upon where a team is based and it shows that despite being a league above, being a top tier team for many years and a cup winner the number of people that turn up to watch us is poor.
Click to expand...

We'll just have to agree to disagree then, because the point is that the populations of the places you listed are not correct in many cases - that's even before you stretch the areas out to include towns outside of the main conurbation (conurbation being the true size of a town/city, not the one made up based on artificial boundaries) - which applies to all others too. Our catchment area is smaller than people think it is. We also have a much smaller indigenous population owing to a disproportionately high number of students, and also a population that is rising faster than almost any other city in the country, suggesting there are a lot of new arrivals in the city.

My view is that over the past 10 years our crowds have been very disappointing, but I believe this goes in cycles. Prior to that, they were comparable and often better than many clubs people regard of being of a similar stature, regardless of the level played at. We are going through the worst period in our history in terms of attendances and it is disappointing. I think our 4 lowest averages since 1928 have come in the past 6 seasons and I cannot see that changing in the near future sadly.
 
fatso

fatso

Well-Known Member
RoboCCFC90 said:
All the above would be irrelevant if the Club was in the Premier League though, attendances would be double every week.

Of course, a reality check though *sarcasm
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So what was the average attendance In our last season or two in the premiership then?
 
Irish Sky Blue

Irish Sky Blue

Well-Known Member
better days said:
Many teams are like this
A Chelsea supporting mate was fearful that they would only get 30,000 at Wembley if they moved there during their (now cancelled) rebuild of their stadium
When they went down to the 2nd division (now Championship) in the 1980's they were getting crowds of 8000 some weeks
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They had 8000 against us in the PL.
 
T

theferret

Well-Known Member
coop said:
The trouble is with Coventry is that most of the population came to work in the pits and car industry in 50s 60s 70s were from Scotland Newcastle and other areas and most of there children are brought up to support teams like Rangers Celtic Newcastle just for an example.
Click to expand...

You hear that a lot, and there is an element of truth in it, but actually Coventry's population growth was a lot earlier than that. In 1908 the city had a population of 88,000 but by 1951 it was 260,000. Leicester by contrast was 220,000 in 1908 and 285,000 by 1951. Coventry grew massively in the early part of the 20th century. The growth you refer to in the late 50s, 60s and 70s wasn't actually that significant.

Right, I'm boring myself now.
 
Evo1883

Evo1883

Well-Known Member
If you want to look at well supported clubs in Comparison to populations, then you can't really look beyond Sunderland, then a bit further down like Norwich.

Very well supported clubs
 
Otis

Otis

Well-Known Member
coop said:
The trouble is with Coventry is that most of the population came to work in the pits and car industry in 50s 60s 70s were from Scotland Newcastle and other areas and most of there children are brought up to support teams like Rangers Celtic Newcastle just for an example.
Click to expand...
Exactly!! Exactly this.

I worked for British Coal and was working alongside so many Newcastle and Sunderland fans etc. and they had kids here and their kids then also became Newcastle and Sunderland fans etc. (I worked there for 22 years).

I think some comments are slightly unfair, because Coventry had people coming from all over, the North and Ireland and Scotland and such, to work in the mines and the car industry and factories.

My dad went up the City in the Jimmy Hill era of the early 60's and said that many of this new influx of workers would go and watch the City then, because they were a team very much on the rise and having success. They still supported THEIR team though and when the success dried up they stopped coming.

City, as we all know, have been through an awful period of struggle and no success.

This HAS to come into the equation too.

We get a sustained period of success, we will get the fans.
 
chiefdave

chiefdave

Well-Known Member
theferret said:
The worse one I can recall was Chelsea away in the PL in 1993. They were playing in the FA Cup final just a few weeks later and only 8,000 at Stamford Bridge.
Click to expand...
Its mad considering what the demand would be now to think that in the late 80s / 90s when I started going to games you could just turn up at places like Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea etc and pay on the gate.
 
Evo1883

Evo1883

Well-Known Member
I would wager Coventry having one of the highest % of glory supporters in England.

A city this size and all I ever used to see on Facebook was cov lads talking about man utd, Liverpool arsenal etc... See kids with man City tops on at daughters school now
 
T

theferret

Well-Known Member
Evo1883 said:
If you want to look at well supported clubs in Comparison to populations, then you can't really look beyond Sunderland, then a bit further down like Norwich.

Very well supported clubs
Click to expand...

This is true, but both of those clubs benefit from geography to a degree. Norwich is remote, is 45 miles from the nearest club and really represents the whole of Norfolk and its 800,000 residents. Sunderland have a couple of other big clubs in the area, but in a region of 2.6 million people, but I'm not knocking them.

Working in Nuneaton, I know Villa, Leicester, Blues and Albion fans. It's very different.
 
Evo1883

Evo1883

Well-Known Member
theferret said:
This is true, but both of those clubs benefit from geography to a degree. Norwich is remote, is 45 miles from the nearest club and really represents the whole of Norfolk and its 800,000 residents. Sunderland have a couple of other big clubs in the area, but in a region of 2.6 million people, but I'm not knocking them.

Working in Nuneaton, I know Villa, Leicester, Blues and Albion fans. It's very different.
Click to expand...


You'd probably also have to look at history, in the case of sunderland and the North East in general football is almost a religion. It is to me but they've spent the vast majority of their history in the top flight, kids growing up being taught that supporting Sunderland is their only option.. Bit envious of them in that respect, wish Coventry was the same... I am but most are not
 
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