A: Tandy.
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Countless people have countless excuses for not attending. Rebrand / shit football / bald manager. Basically they are not supporters just people who are glory hunters.
A: Tandy.
I'd guess that some of the reasons might be the number of events and situations over the last 8 years or so that clearly did steer vast numbers of long-term fans to rapidly cease 'unthinkingly and instinctively' supporting their team / club, and to become quite questioning and self-conscious.
Overnight. And then for a protracted time.
That breakdown of a previously 'absolute' bond takes time to rebuild. It may never be quite the same.
There were countless old school, die-hard fans who chose to fade away.
Numbers are back up, but maybe newer fans are simply not as passionate in the same old-school way.
That may be just a reflection of a changing society , perhaps nothing specifically about 'City'.
In terms of where we were at the time of the rebrand (a side that had been knocking on the promotion door for a number of seasons, 3 -time successive playoff failures), winning the Championship and playing in the Premier League meant those who left due to the rebrand were easily replaced. When things started going wrong (relegation, no likelihood of a return to the top flight) meant the glory hunters left as was always likely. They exist in all sports and with all clubs (e.g. all the Lincoln fans who went to Arsenal but haven't set foot at a home game this season).
Basically, in my opinion, the rebrand was the biggest issue, masked by our promotion. Had we not gone up that season I believe crowds would have plummetted. As it was, people wanted to see a Championship winning team and one in the top division.
I should imagine combination of those factors. What I found most disappointing last time I went to a game (during the premiership season) was the fact that with most of my mates being season ticket holders and me just being a visitor I had to sit on my own. I can see how that might put people off from showing up to the occasional game.
Exactly,we have just seen a bit of reverting to the norm.
Our crowds were inflated by being a really good team, and a bunch of people with season tickets to get fa cup tickets etc. Had we been an average championship team since the days of Lennie Lawrence then we would probably have had a pretty consistent attendance somewhere between 14 and 20 k, not that far from where we are today.
Think age is a factor.
During early 90's we had a young fan base and I reckon 80% or so we're under the age of 30. As the fan base has gotten older, the younger generation haven't replaced us and when you look at the crowds nowadays I'd say that 80% are over 30.
As our aging fan base gets older people have moved away, gotten families etc.
The cost of tickets on a match to match basis takes the piss if you have a family, and despite what people think, walk up fans are practically non existent due to the fact you have to queue twice to get in the ground.
For the 15 years or do we steadily grew our core fan base with promotion, and cup runs despite the riddler and scams antics, then the last 3 or 4 years the club decided to do its best to ruin everything. We seem to have turned a corner and things are improving, but I think we need something like a good cup run to get the lost fans/youngsters to start coming back.
we all know a good start to the season and the crowds will increase a little, a few K here and there
come Christmas if we are in with a shout of promotion, add another few K
so once again, it comes back to the fickle glory hunters, just as it has always been
It's reasons like this that we have lost so much core and away support. Many waited years through seasons of rubbish defending our local club over the glory hunters to be rewarded by a terrible few seasons in red.....many just thought forget this life is too short as there are plenty of other far cheaper things to do.
I think this is a good point. But season tickets for under 21 these days are £99 which are superb value imo. If these were the prices when I was growing up I would have saved every last penny I could to get one.
When you look at our team, where is the player who is City through and through who will make that last ditch tackle in the 90th minute even though we are 3-0 up - your Kavanagh, McNaughton, Stant etc. Can't really count Whittingham in that though he is a hero for me.
I just can't relate to players like Morrison, Peltier, Halford. Sounds stupid when I say I could relate to Chopra and Hudson whilst they were probably earning triple of what the current players are. But they loved this club and I'm not sure the current crop do (well not all of them).
Maybe this is why the kids aren't coming in their hundreds anymore? Because they can't see their heroes on the pitch. Might have to do with the fact that Wales are 10x better on paper these days and people just prefer that (like me - though the Ireland performance was no better than what you'd see at CCS every week).
But we were only getting average crowds of 3 - 4k, yes the odd big crowd of 10k here and there. The average these days is 15k, so I can't see much in the debate about deserting fan base etc. As figures show over the decades our fanbase and attendances have actually grown.
The dip in attendances has dropped since the prem years not over the decades.
Spedger
To answer your question, Paul, obviously they all read your accurate reports on the 'quality' of the football and said "........NAAAAH".
By the way no Sheffield Wednesday quiz this week? Not that I can ever get any of the answers - do you create the questions for University Challenge by any chance?
Definitely an aging fan base, our lot in the pub on Saturday mornings look like the cast from Last of the summer wine.
It's a hard question to answer because I asked about City supporters in general rather than any of you as individuals.
For my part, the rebrand affected me more than I expected it to and, about a month before the decision was made to go back to blue, I decided not to renew my season ticket for 2015/16 if we were still going to be playing in red. Of course, saying you're going to do something and actually doing it are two very different things, but I'm about 95% sure I would have followed through on my decision. One of the reasons I'm so confident about that was that I had stopped enjoying games with Russell Slade as manager - I still maintain that the only truly entertaining home match that season was the one with eventual Champions Bournemouth.
Although I kinda welcomed Neil Warnock's appointment, I readied myself for more Slade like boredom as our new manager took us to safety by adopting effective, but hard to watch methods. Instead though, I find it's the exception rather than the rule if I go home from a game bored by what I've seen - Warnock's football has been effective, but, in home matches at least, it's also been enjoyable because this feels like my Cardiff City again.
The surprise, and disappointment, for me is that those who have stopped coming to games regularly (and I agree that the real drop away in attendances occurred during 14/15 when many who had bought season tickets in the hope we would still be in the Premier League just stopped turning up after a while) have been slow to come back despite the better results and more entertaining football. I lost my season ticket card a fortnight ago, so had to go through what a walk up supporter has to for the Brentford match and it is quite a production compared to the days when you could decide whether you were going to go to a game at about 2.15 and then walk in through a barely used turnstile ten minutes before kick off - this may partially explain why attendances have failed to rise despite our climb up the table in the last few months.
Out of the responses so far, I think Splott Parker may have come closest to providing a correct answer to my question - if such a thing exists.
Last edited by the other bob wilson; 14-04-17 at 10:31.
People were spoilt with the success 2 cup finals from bottom tier to top tier in 10-15 years.
People just want to see the team win when we got promoted the football at times wasn't great.
It just feels like people have seen everything they wanted to experience after 10 years in the championship people were just waiting for promotion. The while rebrand arguement falls down because crowds were good in the premier league.