Relegation will be the first nail in the coffin
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If we were relegated, I can’t see the home crowds being that much different to yesterday , especially if we are winning at home more frequently.
I can only speak for myself and many fans I know, but it won’t make that much difference as the support down there yesterday are the hardcore, and season tickets sales will be around the same level if priced correctly.
Away support will increase as the away days will be a novelty again.
Relegation will be the first nail in the coffin
Yesterday's crowd of 17500 or so will possibly be the biggest of the season if we go down are doing well and it's against Plymouth
I reckon we would average about 12000
History tells us the public of South Wales will support a successful cardiff city team
But going into league one is not going to get the crowds in
After two decades of championship football but the last few seasons of struggle I think if people think we are going to be getting good gates if relegated they are totally deluded
The gates where we have had very few away fans give us an idea of our base level
I reckon it's about 17000
I think a drop of 5000 if very much possible
I don't think we will go down
But if we do, crowds will be bigger if we are in the top 2 or 3 all season 20k plus after a few months
If we are looking at the play offs crowds will increase towards the end of the season
First season I think we would, especially if we like to think of ourselves as a big club
Regardless of what the club said, there wasn’t 17500 there yesterday. Closer to 14k I would’ve guessed. That would be around our average crowds in League 1 with maybe 11k at the lowest for night games and 17k at the most for the big one off games.
If we were challenging for promotion then towards the end of the season I could see 20k+ crowds.
The problem is exactly this
Some people think that we are a big club but we are clearly not
If we are flattening out at 17 or 18000 in the championship then we are not going to match those gates following relegation
And I think anyone who thinks we will needs to give their heads a wobble
Every time we've been relegated from the top tier we've suffered a large drop in attendances. That's not unusual at all. It's more unusual to find clubs who hang on to their home support after dropping into the second tier.
Dropping from the second into the third tier is different, however.
1931/32: Div 2 to Div 3 - average crowd dropped by 583
1975/76: Div 2 to Div 3 - average crowd rose by 2559
1982/83: Div 2 to Div 3 - average crowd rose by 1462
1985/86: Div 2 to Div 3 - average crowd dropped by 1302
There are some other issues as well. In the 1930s there was a huge economic depression. In 1930/31 our average crowd was just over 8k in Div 2. By 1937/38 we were averaging 20k in our 7th season in Division 3, most of which saw City struggle at the wrong end of the table.
Our crowds in 1976 and 1983 rose, helped I'm sure by them both being promotion seasons back to Div 2, but there was a malaise in our attendances accompanied by relegations and a lack of investment. It's interesting to note that, of the 4 times we won promotion from Division 4, our crowds went down in Division 3 on each occasion, bar the last in 2001/02.
Looking at the Div 2/3 issue in reverse, every time we've been promoted from the third tier to the second, our crowds have gone up, but in the second season in the second tier, they've dropped lower than the promotion season in the third tier.
Our new ground has been important in raising attendances. Only twice has our average attendance at the CCS been lower than the last season at Ninian Park, which saw its highest average attendance since 1970/71. This season's average is higher than we saw under Slade and the Trollope/Warnock season. Given all that has gone on, I think that suggests we've got a more loyal fan base than some give us credit for.
That was our first game back in that division after promotion the season before. We averaged around 12.5k that season with crowds as high as 19k for the Stoke playoff semi and as low as around 8k for the visit of Colchester, though in fairness, that was the 3rd home game in just over a week.
When we were last in the top flight we lost around 8 thousand fans once we were relegated
If clubs with greater support than us lose thousands of fans when relegated from the championship to league one why do you think we are going to be any different
It's likely our average this season is going to be around 18000
If we are relegated I predict an average gate of 12000