cornerdon26 wrote:
I'd be really intrigued as to whether we'd have had this discussion if we got promoted in 2009.
Brighton got promoted from L1 getting attendances of 6,000-7,300 in a ground that could hold about 8500. 20,000 in first year in Champ then grew. Would we have seen a similar trend? At that time, I'd honestly not have ruled it out.
But it didn't happen. Shit happened, we are where we are. Whilst we can criticise Winky for focusing on other aspects would we have attracted the players or been I'm a financial position to recruit some of our best talent without the added revenue from the stadium? I'm unsure
Brighton always had the core support in the town from the Goldstone days, just thousands of stay away fans who would never have gone to the Withdean or (previously Gillingham) so it was fairly predictable that they would flourish once they finally got the ownership and stadium sorted. The deep pockets of Tony Bloom helped, but probably not to the level they’re at right now. They got the jump on a lot of Championship clubs that are like oil tankers in terms of their recruitment model and structure. Fair play to them.
Similarly, Brentford got “the model” right, but before they left Griffin Park, but again it took deep pockets. Like Brighton there was a lapsed support (Griffin Park once held 40,000!) and ownership issues, but they also managed to galvanise a generation of youngsters who’d been lost to surrounding clubs. I’m not saying they all used to support Chelsea or, to a lesser degree, Fulham, but having a brother who used to go a lot to Brentford, they were very much a “second team” for many. That’s where the increased numbers have come from.
We’re different. The numbers in the population are there in MK, but we’ll always be fighting the geographical pull of London and to a lesser degree the West Midlands and families moving to MK having their own clubs going back to the start of the new town. Only results on the pitch will change that. Though I’d put the caveat that even a promotion this season isn’t going to increase attendances that much. Too much “trust” has been lost in the ownership amongst a significant number for them ever to return as season ticket holders. I know several who jacked it in last summer (some thirty years plus from Plough Lane>Selhurst>Hockey Stadium…). They still go but pick and choose their games. I doubt even Championship football will bring them back as ST holders (they’ll disagree with me and the GroupChat will be pinging, but statistically clubs know that once you lose a season ticket holder the chances of getting them back are slim).
Now that the novelty has worn off there’s a definite sense of “it isn’t going to be the shiny future that Pete thought, is it?”. What’s striking to me is the numbers from those early days who I simply don’t see anymore. In truth, it’s probably normal to have some sort of churn of support, and people’s priorities change, but there are fans you’d see home and away every week, who I never see nowadays. Did their “life priorities” change, did they get disillusioned with the lack of progress as a club, or was it that they were, in the words of our detractors “two club w***ers” who were never really fans in the first place? Probably a mixture of all three, but I still feel that no “proper club” loses those sort of numbers.
The encouraging thing is that there is definitely a younger element going home and especially away, but it’ll be a struggle to keep them as “life priorities” start to take effect. You’d hope they have stronger ties to the club than the teens/early twenties of 2004, but we’ll see.
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