Crowds
Soo. The club wants to fill the stadium, maybe we need to look to give the away team another 1000-1500 seats Half the Beachdean and maybe a third of the Family stand. Obviously ppl don’t want to give up their seat. But if it means a full house till we increase our own home support, maybe it should be considered. More income= Larger, better squad! Or is it more important for you to sit in the same place!
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Am I right in sort of remembering that a while ago they changed the season ticket blocks that were available in the Beechdean?
Potentially for scenarios where they could sell more to away fans?
Personally I'd be in favour where possible of increasing sales, as long as we actually think we'll make profit once you factor in the extra stewarding/policing/costs of fixing stuff their goon fans break.
Most teams in this division probably wouldn't bring more than the current away allocation. You're probably only looking at Pompey, Sunderland, Ipswich, Bolton, MK and Oxford - and maybe Coventry, Bristol Rovers and Lincoln. Even then, I reckon only the first three would necessitate as many extra seats as this proposal. Non-starter.
Those changes in the Beechdean, brought in by Andrew Howard, were chiefly intended to streamline where people with freebies or group packages sat - player guests, youth clubs etc. Ended up a complete farce as existing STH were moved to seats apart from each other due to most of the central seats being already taken. Thankfully things quickly reverted back when it became apparent it was a mess.
I've no issue being moved once, even twice, a season to accommodate big away followings, but I sit where I do for a lot of different reasons, and have got to know those around me well over the years.
It's only going to be an occasional thing of course.
Until we get promoted
But then hopefully a lot more of the town and surrounding areas wake up to what's on their doorstep.
Simon, outing yourself with the classic Facebook/ Gas double post. Schoolboy error!
Yeah of course. Let's make it a home game for an away team. Give them all the help they want.
My heart sinks when we give two stands to the away team. It makes it less like a home game, a harder game to win.
I accept that we need the income but, in purely football terms, it is deeply disappointing that we have to do this.
GA must be torn, the club needs the extra money, some of which will go to the playing budget, but he knows that two sides of the ground cheering on the opponents, puts his team at a distinct disadvantage.
It has to be done occasionally, and still so that we have more fans than the opposition.
Take Sunderland - perfect example.
Oxford for another example could start to make it feel more of an away game due to the super close location.
Did Oxford ever require extra seating? I don't recall an occasion that they did, even when we were their big day out from their non league days. FA cup, Stefen Oakes scores within a minute of them getting an equaliser. Such sweet memories!
They probably could have required it, but we didn't allow it.
Did we not give them a little extra the other season, only for them to wreck the place/ or more stewards required wiped out any profit?
Or am I mis-remembering things, and it was the latter thing with there being no benefit, for why we didn't actually allow more seats?
I would much prefer the club to mount a campaign to sell the extra tickets to home fans. I am surprised that the new management team decided against that. A lack of confidence, ambition maybe.
Oh well. I don’t post on here a lot. And certainly don’t cause offence. So it’s all good
Did Sunderland game sell out last season. I am getting old and memory seems to have gone.
8442, 2723 away, for Sunderland last season @DevC. I thought the club said in advance that it was sold out.
At the Fan's Council meeting after the match, Michael Davies said the stadium capacity was 9448, but was under 9000 for that match.
Those numbers look a bit odd. Didn't they have the whole of the main stand last season too?
So 1,800 away end, and only 923 of the 1,500 in the main stand? Or was it literally selected blocks?
@Steve_Peart I seem to remember that the Sunderland figure was revised to 8725, confirmed by the club a few days after the game. Apparently there had been a 'human error' in the counting. Came to light in @railwaysteve 's 'guess the attendance' thread - yes, just found it here...
https://gasroom.org/discussion/comment/104086#Comment_104086
@Malone All the nobs were in the middle of the Mackem rabble, as far as I can remember. Beechdean capacity is actually only 1267.
Thanks @NewburyWanderer, that rings a bell now, but the club are still quoting 8442:
https://www.wycombewanderers.co.uk/news/2019/september/pompey-win-attracts-bumper-crowd/
Club must have forgotten the revision.
I guess calling it the main stand is totally ridiculous these days.
Though i thought someone quoted it as 1500 but may be either an estimate or pre any change. Like the away end was 2000 and now 1800?
I think the capacity was bigger many years ago when the club would sell standing tickets for the paddock in front of the seats; maybe that figure has stuck in people's memories.
Do visiting club dignitaries, players' family tickets, scouts and other such get included in the announced attendance figures?
Pretty much every stand has reduced capacity compared to our peak of just over 10,000 some years ago.
Away fans is capped at slightly less due to Rovers behaviour. The terrace had its max allocation reduced a few years ago due to health and safety. The paddock tickets as you say no longer sold, and many of the seats were broken in the Family Stand for some time.
I emailed Matt Cecil about the Sunderland attendance last season. He confirms that it was 8725.
The problem was a faulty turnstile counter which then required a manual click-through counter, which wasn’t added to the overall figure on the day, but only recognised in the week afterwards. The club used the lower figure last week, to keep it in line with the figure released at the time. I would prefer the club to use the correct figure.
Matt also helpfully gave a breakdown of the stand capacities from figures he had to hand, the Stadium Manager is away this week.
Beechdean: 1267
Terrace: 1429
Family Stand: 1576 + 64 disabled
Frank Adams Stand: 2842 + 360 in the executive areas
Away: 1850
However, 1800 is the usual maximum for away fans. Block A is generally not fully sold to allow for late arrivals, as it is not a front-loaded stand, and an allowance is made for fans not sitting in their allocated seat.
From my reckoning, that gives a notional capacity of 9338, which can be lower when seats are removed, for segregation for example. For the forthcoming Sunderland match, the away fans will be given around 900 in Beechdean, once seats for directors, press and hospitality are taken into account, and seats taken out for segregation netting.
For some reason it feels disappointing looking at those figures.
I'm not sure if Mr Couhig actually ever talked about future expansion, or whether it was caught up in lack of context about boards etc, but step 1 would be seeing how we can maximise what we already have.
ps @Steve_Peart , excellent work from you confirming the numbers. Have always wondered, and no one ever seemed to know exactly.
The away end was never actually 2,000 then? Or was it?
It was 2000 I believe @Malone, before the horse punchers got to work.
It makes more sense to have been a round number.
I suppose then, what doesn't make sense, is if there are presumably still these extra 150 seats dotting around that we just can't use, why would they have to keep that "float" of 50 spares for late comers/knowing people don't sit in their actual seat?
The Terrace at 1429 seems very precise. I'd have thought that adding another 21 and rounding it up to 1450 would be sensible from the viewpoint of all the authorities. Unless, of course, the capacity is calculated as an exact function of taking the overall ground area of the enclosure and then dividing it by the average "footprint" occupied by a typical individual.
@Steve_Peart am I right in thinking these are the legal capacities not the physical capacities?
Legal I assume @floyd. Some of us will remember how the terrace used to be ram packed for some games. As for that Slough game in '93...