h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Coventry are moving to a new and bigger arena - The Ricoh Stadium. (which won't be ready for the start of next season)

A lot of clubs have recently upgraded their stadia, and whilst the capacities are less than the old standing stadia, they are an increase on the converted stadiums. Coventry's for example will have seats for an extra 9,000 people. Which is great - except we could have got 9,000 extra people into our old stadium - Highfield Road was rarely full.

So; where are these new fans coming from ?

How many VSC subscribers are regular attenders at football games ?

Would a new stadium for your favoured team affect if you would go or not ?

I'm a season ticket holder at Coventry - was last season, and already have one for next season. A new ground will not affect me.

Well, if Leeds moved, it wouldn't change me renewing for my season ticket, so long as there's a bus service from the ground to the station.

One thing I don't like about new grounds is how sterile and soul-less they are. Eastlands is a much nicer ground than Maine Road was, but Maine Road had something about it that the new ground misses. If that makes any sense.

I go to about 80-85 per cent of Bradford City home games (I have to miss the odd one due to University and acting commitments). I go to the occasional Bradford away game and a few Guiseley home matches too. I'd rather City stayed where they are as Valley Parade is easy walking distance from my home, but if they moved to somewhere else in Bradford I don't think it would affect my regularity of attendance much.

United moving out of Bramall Lane and into new accommodation in the Sheffield area would make no difference what-so-ever to my attendance - about half a dozen games per year. It's the 240 miles before you get to Sheffield that's the tricky bit, not the navigation once you're in the city.

Although the regeneration near the station area can make the navigation in the city more difficult...

Ah, but you're assuming that I come in via the Parkway. I don't go that way.

I come in via Mosborough, over the top through the Manor and out down on to City Road. Park the car and you're there

i don't know if you would call 10-12 matches a year regular or occasional, but the planned enlargement of gerland from 42000 to 60000 seats would let me see more games; waiting as we must to see what the son's weekend is like, or if the match will move to sunday for TV reasons, we often get shut out.

when i started going, the crowds were smaller, and the stadium was bigger, but very antiquated, an old track and field kind of place. once you got high enough in the ends to see the match properly you were as far from the near goal as you are today from the far one!

Well I usually go to about 10-15 games a season, but last year I only went to 4.

I think I ama bit of a reverse glory hunter, the better Argyle are doing and the higher we are in the league the less interested I am.

"I was there when we were shit"

To go regularly to a decent quality game in Belgium I would need a special ID card, and to register as the fan of one club. I'm not sufficiently bothered to do that, so I don't go to a match here - I just play once a week and watch the odd match on the TV.

sprout

Scunthorpe were the first team for many, many years to move ground in 1988 - BBC once said that the Iron were the trigger for all the club changes in the 1990s. Glanford Park has a capacity of around 9,000 compared to the 12,000 in the Old Show Ground (later Safeways, now Morrisons), and attendances correspondingly decreased. The average home gate last season was below 5000 - the OSG in the town centre always used to average 7000 or more.

Location can be as much a key factor as size.

B

I must admit to being mostly an armchair fan. I probably see Everton only a couple of times a season, though when I was younger I used to go to nearly all of Everton's away games in London and the South East. I was intending to go and watch my local non-league side play every so often, but I've never quite got round to it....

fb, shame on you! I got to (a personal record) of four games at Home Park this season, and I live in London!

Argyle are a bit unusual in that we built 3 new stands a couple of years ago so three quarters of the ground is 'new'. Our attendance averaged 16,420 in our first season back in the second tier (which is just over 78% of capacity) - that compares to under 10,000 last time we were there. I think part of that is down to the improved facilities, but equally football is more popular now than it was then, and the club has built up a bit of a head of steam having won two divisions in three years.

How many VSC subscribers are regular attenders at football games ?
I've just worked it out, but I'm a bit of an odd case. I saw four Argyle games at home this season (seeing as I've never lived closer to Plymouth than London, this is a personal record for me) and four away, although two of those were from the press box as a reporter. In addition to that, I think I've reported on 12 games for Radio London this season - five at Barnet, three following Yeading, three Brentford and one at Fulham.

Would a new stadium for your favoured team affect if you would go or not?
No, but then firstly we're three-quarters of the way to building a new stadium on the old site, and secondly I've always gone to more away games anyway.

You want a count up?

Six homes - Leeds, West Ham, Sunderland, Forest, Wolves, West Ham (FA Cup)

Fifteen Aways - QPR, Leicester, Brighton (ie a 'home' of sorts ), Gillingham, Ipswich, Derby, Millwall, Rotherham, West Ham, Forest, Arsenal (FA Cup), Reading, Leeds, Watford, Wolves.

So it's big home ties, and geography for the aways that decides it.

Only 2 last season.

Aways at Cheltenham and Shrewsbury

Next season might be a bit better - I can have a pop at Swindon and Bristol City.

B

Fair one Six, I also have to say that my work patterns have made attending games more difficult. And two of my main "go to football" buddies have moved away, and the third is now "birded up like a kipper" and isn't really allowed to go any more.

The result being that well it is quite so much fun on your own is it? No one to goto the pub with before hand for a start.

"How many VSC subscribers are regular attenders at football games ?"

As a season ticket holder I go to all home matches at Highbury and a couple of away matches every season (Fulham and The Millennium Stadium this season). I am also an extreme saddo who sometimes goes to Underhill to watch the reserves (well when Dennis Bergkamp, Edu and other 1st team players are playing and the entry is free ... )

"Would a new stadium for your favoured team affect if you would go or not?"

Make no difference at all EXCEPT that it is going to take me only 15 minutes to walk there rather than the 30 minutes it takes now (going round to get across the railway line adds lots of time!)

"Where are these new fans coming from ?"

The waiting lists basically - the season ticket waiting list is madness and the ticket registration scheme waiting list is pretty long too! They are current fans who can't get a ticket for love nor money at the moment!

I asked at the VSC because I suspected that a greater proportion of correspondents would be actual attenders, rather than armchair fans. (No criticism intended.)

I cannot understand the club's claims that new grounds lead to increased attendance, though the figures for Leicester and Derby would seem to indicate the accuracy of the claim. Coventry is a gross under-performer in terms of support size against city size, and obviously something is needed to get people through the turnstiles, but if you can't be bothered to go to our spiritual home, just outside the city centre, why would you go to an edge of town arena that can only be reached by public transport ?

fb - I go with my lad nowadays, and its different to going with my mates, but I now find I'm watching more of the game, and less time in the bar or the toilet.

Assuming my kids (when I get around to it) want to go to football with me I suspect I will get a season ticket/s. For the time bieng though going alone is a bit sad.

I used to regularly go on my own in the old days, but I'd always know where 'acquaintances' were standing, so there was someone to share the experience with. Nowadays you get a seat - you can't wander about - you can't move if you're next to an idiot - and you've got to disturnb half a row to have a leak.

Bring back the old days.

I'm a Celtic fan, and we rebuilt Celtic Park a few years back. The attendance pretty much doubled from around 30,000 to 60,000 as soon as the stadium was completed. There seems to be loads more women and children than before, when it was a bit of dump, to be honest (but a much better atmosphere). Maybe the projected increase is due to the same amount of men, but more women and kids.