Elm Park KidPATRIQT This would be a very different thread if it was on a northerners board. They live and breathe their club, through good and bad. Yet we seem to have far too many middle class fair-weather fans who lack the same passion for the club, and that's reflected in the stands too, sadly.
Not too many working class people can afford to live in Reading! Or those that do need to be very careful how they spend the odd few quid they have left over once rent is paid.
But most of the northern clubs are in industrial areas and have a long history or mass attendences and a much more engrained place in their town's history and culture - for many the ritual was to finahish the Saturday morning shift at the factory/mill/docks and go to t'match.
The single factor most likely to make someone support a football club is that their family has supportted them in the past, so if you don't have that history of mass attendence in the first place it's not something that will naturally grow - a period of success like we had 15 years ago will kick-start it, but it's not the same as 80-years of mass attendences.
People who complain about lack of supporters and the fact that supporters in a mainly middle-class town are mainly middle-class clearly don't understand the history of football orfootball cluture and support.