Reply With QuoteAre Brighton a big club? They averaged similar attendances this season
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I think so.
Averaging 31,000 while being in the bottom 3 for most of the season. Not bad is it?
Our crowds have gone from 16,564 in 2016/17 to 31,413 this year.
What sort of crowds would we attract if we were challenging for a European spot?
Are Brighton a big club? They averaged similar attendances this season
We're as big as Leicester. We should be where they are.
We're as big as Leicester. And Wolves. We should be where they are. I don't expect us to ever win the league, but we could and should be a mid-table EPL club.
We are, what we are.
A championship club.
We’re not a big club. Even with years of sustained success, crowds would die off as fast as they came.
Define big.
What a load of rubbish, we are the 6th biggest city in the League, bigger than Newcastle,Leicester,Wolves and with a much bigger catchment area. If we had sustained success and were a top 6 side we would have 60k crowds that’s why our crowds have crowds have grown from 2000 in the bad old days to 32000 now! Like every other club in the league the more success you have the bigger your support, and Cardiff has the potential to be a top top club! Before Shankly, we were bigger than Liverpool and before they had huge investment bigger than Chelsea and Manchester City!Originally Posted by Bruce Parry
I wouldn't disagree. But so are half the clubs in the champ, a few in league 1. We can't all finish mid table PL
Historically a second tier football league club is probably right. Club with potential but this has seldom been realised, I guess you could say that about a good whack in the championship. But with the right and sustained investment there's no reason why the city couldn't become a more established top tier or yo yo club.
But it's fluid isn't it. All it takes is a couple of generations for the answer to that question, and the sense of the club's identity and its potential, to change. My dad has that late 60s/early 70s period as his default memory when he thinks of the city: a 2nd tier club with almost yearly European outings. In many ways it's probably closer to where we are now.
A couple of generations after and my default when I think of the club is still a tier 3/4 yo yo club despite the last 15 years primarily in the 2nd tier. I just wanted the city to get back to where I thought we historically belonged.
I've worked with a wide mix of different football fans in work and the supporters I still feel most similar to and have most affinity with are your Colchesters, Gillinghams, Wrexhams, and the like. I still feel like a bit of an interloper even with established championship club supporters despite the fact we are one.
I think Championship is our natural default.
We get 31000 but let’s be honest unless it’s a promotion campaign like momentum from the off crowds will drop off.
We’re alright but not that big.
Only if your history stops in the mid 1960s.
We were top tier in 61, and we were top tier in the 20s, with Huddersfield (!) our main rivals for winning the League.
And we were actually the favourites when we beat Arsenal in the 1927 FA cup final.
Lack of investment has dragged down our stature.
What's a big club? In Premier League terms, no. In UK football club terms, yes.
I'll disagree with you there. We've had 20 years in the doldrums where interest in the club plummetted. It's never easy winning those back. We lost a generation of football fans to bigger teams. They then pass on their "love" of the likes of Liverpool etc to their kids.
A few seasons ago I looked at sides who have dropped to the Championship but have a history of enjoying top flight football. Attendances in most of those cases remained similar following relegation. Villa's has even gone up this season.
Teams like Wolves, Burnley, Hull etc, who have enjoyed the odd season in the PL but have spent time in the lower divisions, seem to see their attendances yo-yo.
I reckon if we could have a decade of being established in the Premier League we'd develop a stronger fan base that would be less likely to stop going if we were relegated. Next season will surely see our best average attendance in the Championship. If we stay in the division, it'll be interesting to see what happens the season after again.
Granted, the capacity was too small for it to happen for some of of the time, but I never thought I'd see us average 31,000 in my City supporting lifetime - especially for a relegation season. The truth is though, with a capacity of just 33,000, that figure would have been higher still if we'd been able to fit a few more in for the bigger matches.
After all my stuff about "Tan's folly" down the years, I must apologise to our owner and say he was right to see the potential support that I couldn't recognise.
This season has proved that we definitely are big enough to become an "established" Premier League club in so many ways, but we still look to be some way short of that level in other areas besides on the pitch.
It's different now though isn't it?
Any club now could become a "big" club purely down to the plastic fans around.
Build a ground in the middle no nowhere and throw billions of £££s at it and eventually it will sell out it's 70k seater stadium every week.
Potential and catchment areas mean nothing now.
That's always been the case though. Maybe not billions in the past but relative the time, millions or hundreds of thousands.
Rich people don't tend to do this as you can pick a club like man City, big catchment area, big club already and make throwing billions at it a lot easier.
The point I was trying to make was that historically you needed a catchment area ( which CCFC had ) - now you don't need that as you can fill a ground and sell millions of shirts to plastics
Surprising to see that the Cardiff City Stadium has the 10th highest capacity in the Prem. And we come in at 11th with our averages attendances.
Imagine that. A Neil Warwick shirt in Dubai. Wonder what it would take 🤔
Is that Dionne's father?
Well here's our league performance over the years, should give an idea as to our "rightful place"
It's difficult to define a 'big club' these days. Traditionally you'd gauge it by attendances and the size of the fan-base and in the days before the Premier League and massive TV money, bigger attendances meant you were richer and therefore likely to afford the players that would keep the club in the top division. Today that model has gone. Are Bournemouth a big club ? Their attendances only average around 10,000 but the Premier League means their financial clout is in a different league to many old traditional big clubs such as Leeds, Forest or Sheffield Wednesday. As for City, I still tend to think that we are essentially a second tier club but with the potential to become bigger.
Incidentally our average attendance this season of 31,413 is the seventh highest in our history and our best since 1953-54. Five of our best six averages came in the decade after the second world war when attendances were very high everywhere. During the 1920's when we were perceived as a 'big club' only once in 1921-22 was our attendance higher than this season. In fact, in 1926-27 the year we won the Cup our average attendance was just 13,951.
I think it has been done to death over time but our potential is huge.
Can you imagine the crowds and interest if we could match the performance of a top 6 side for a sustained period?
I reckon we could achieve 40k plus on a regular basis which in effect would put us up there with the biggest if taking the size of the club at that time into account (The ground would get an expansion too I would guess). History obviously plays a big factor and ours from mid 80's until maybe the late 90's/2000s doesn't make for pretty reading.
The thirst for sports in our city is fairly obvious, hordes turn out for every sort of sports event that comes to town. If we could cement our place in the top flight, and get some young exciting players in, with a goalscorer (not asking for much!) then we could easily hit 40k.
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