What % of fans would disappear if we went down the divisions

[papereyes]

Also a lot of the middle/middle upper class fans will watch the rugby instead. and there are many like that in Reading.

LOL @ comments like this.

Just LOL

[Royalee]

We're not Real Madrid,
We're not Barcelona,
We are Reading football club,
And a skanky, money grabbing, unambitious Polak is our owner.

1/10, which is what I gave your mum btw.

[Sun Tzu]

W
Also sine our capactity is 24200 its impossible we averaged around 25000 in the prem - take in segregation and i think our ave was closer to 23200, which is a long way from 25000.

.

It was just over 23800 in the first year in the Prem and just over 23500 in the second.

Pretty much sell outs every week in the home areas with the dip below capacity explained by the clubs like Boro, Bolton and Blackburn who brought smallish travelling support.

[North Somerset Royal]

The answer to your question Gus is none at all as anyone who is only prepared to support a club when it is in the higher echelons is clearly not a "fan" in the true sense of the word which is an abreviation of "fanatic". By definition fanatics will follow their team even if it were to drop out of the Football League altogether and in my view one of the benefits of a return to the third & fourth tiers would be getting rid of all those plastic fairweather arseholes who get in my my way when I am trying to buy a pint in the Jazz Cafe.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

One incorrect assumption often made is to assume a 3000 drop in crowds means 3000 people have stopped watching. It doesn't. It usually just means a few thousand are picking and choosing their games more than before. We probably did have 8000 fans who went along fairly regularly when our average crowds were around 4000. Most of them just only went to 8 or 9 games a year.

There's also very little to suggest that people who stop going decide to support another team instead, so the fact that there are other teams they could see in an hour or so's drive is irrelevant. Nobody who supports Reading is going to go and support Cardiff City if they got promoted. No adult is going to suddenly decide to support Arsenal or Chelsea for that matter either.

The fact is our crowds will rise and fall with success and failure just the same as they do at every other club in the country. Some fans seem obsessed with this curious idea that our fans are more fair-weather than fans of other clubs, but there's not anything to suggest that's true.

[parky]

We're not Real Madrid,
We're not Barcelona,
We are Reading football club,
And a skanky, money grabbing, unambitious Polak is our owner.

The last line doesn't fit it's too many syllables

[.:BigDaveInTheDungeon:.]

back in 95/96 we took over 40000 to wembly, and again for the play off final to cardiff when we lost to walsall. both seasons our attendence was below 15000 which shows the support for the team has always been there just some people can't come every week.
maybe if you encouraged people to attend more often when they can rather then mocking them for attending the few games they do more would come.
and before anyone calls me a plastic i've had a season ticket for over 10 years now

[Forbury Lion]

I'd be more inclined to renew my season ticket if we went down the divisions as opposed to going up as long as season ticket renewal prices went down as well.

I'm undecided about renewing next year, £450 is alot of money and so is my mortgage. I've not enjoyed this season at all. In fact it's been a bit of a chore attending matches, so much so I gave my ticket away for one game. The division we're in won't have any impact at all on my decision.

I think if we dropped to League 1 we would lose a number of the current fans but also regain a number who were priced out of matches if ticket prices were lowered to reflect the division.

[Deathy]

We're not Real Madrid,
We're not Barcelona,
We are Reading football club,
And a skanky, money grabbing, unambitious Polak is our owner.

He's English, you spasticated fuk piece!

[Royal With Cheese]

Whatever the percentage there will still be a large percentage of moaning pcunts left.

[Dirk Gently]

Really, it all depends on the pricing model. Bradford City have shown that they can have attendances 3 times the divisional average by staking them high and selling the cheap - I think it's £80 for adults and a fiver for kids.

Prices have such an affect on attendances that they have to be taken into account so the question being asked is too one-dimensional.

[Gus the teenage cow]

looks like I was unerringly prescient in the OP

[Nameless]

Not sure making the fairly obvious point that more people watch teams when they are successful is 'prescient'

Any thoughts on the shape of the planet or the colour of the sky ?

[Barcelona Blue]

I remember back in the 80´s at elm park we had one match against preston where there was only 1500 although through the 80´s we norlly had around 3.000-5.000 per game.

on a big game in those days you got 10.000-12,000 like when we played wolves to keep the unbeaten record from a start of a season

I would say

80´s hardcore real fans 3.000- 5.000

move to mad stad 10.000

average for chump around 18.000

I reckon fans that would stay thick or thin now 10-12.000 which is great compared to old days

[poohs pure]

I've been looking at average attendances through the years and of course success brings more fans but the figures say the following:

at elm park we averaged about 10,000 when we were in the second/third tiers, the move to the madejski SAW NO NOTICEABLE INCREASE IN ATTENDANCE until we got promoted to the second tier where we averaged about 15,000 until our promotion season when we averaged 20,000 (suggests to me that 5,000 plastics appeared out of nowhere as they saw we were onto a good thing). We averaged just under 25,000 in the premier league for two seasons (another 5,000 plastics jumped on the bandwagon) and since dropping down a tier this season we are averaging about 18,000 so in one season we have lost more than 1 in 4 of our "devoted" fans, and this my friends is a season when we have been in the top three for months, worrying isn't it???


basically i am trying to decipher what is our solid group of dedicated fans who will follow us through thick and thin no matter if we drop down the divisions, i would put this hardcore group at around 10,000-12,000 i.e. we have had no discernible rise in hardcore fans in 10 years despite our sojourn in the premier and the increased exposure the game is getting

to conclude my deductions based on a thorough and well-researched study of attendance trends over the past 10 years conclude:

OF THE FOOTBALL SUPPORTERS IN OUR TOWN

Hardcore Base (will go no matter what)- 10,000
Strong Supporters(will go if we are in top 2 tiers, will be reluctant to go if we drop to third tier)-5,000
Fairweather Fannies (will go if we are in top tier or pressing at end of season from second tier)- 10,000

SHOCKING CONCLUSION IS OUR FAIRWEATHER FANNIES ARE AS BIG A GROUP AS OUR HARDCORE, THIS REALLY DUMBFOUNDS AND PAINS ME



to conclude please answer the anonymous poll above, I appreciate your time, co-operation and concern and I apologise if this post has shocked you, as an expose on Reading fan trends I have to admit it makes devastating reading

This is the post of a cnut that has no friends and it's sat at home having a conversation with himself, imagining there is a reasoned debate going on amongst a number of in the know types.

[EverHopeful]

I remember back in the 80´s at elm park we had one match against preston where there was only 1500 although through the 80´s we norlly had around 3.000-5.000 per game.

on a big game in those days you got 10.000-12,000 like when we played wolves to keep the unbeaten record from a start of a season

I would say

80´s hardcore real fans 3.000- 5.000

move to mad stad 10.000

average for chump around 18.000

I reckon fans that would stay thick or thin now 10-12.000 which is great compared to old days

i think from memory it was 1,781 vs preston - all i can remember was sitting on the South Bank 9 and no-one was in my way which as a young lad was good but the game was crap...........bigger crowds but after Blackpool not much has changed! been a few good years since to be fair!!

[urz13]

IMO the Premier League has already faded from sight.

[Cripple Creek]

Mmmm...I agree that we won't see the premiership for some time. It's more likely we'll drop a division on current form. But I honestly doubt we would lose that many fans if future success looks an increasingly unlikely event. I started watching in the 70s and saw some really, really bad Reading teams but, I mean, you don't really watch Reading because you expect glamour and great success do you? It's surely something more like blind devotion.

[Zana Badawi]

This is the post of a cnut that has no friends and it's sat at home having a conversation with himself, imagining there is a reasoned debate going on amongst a number of in the know types.

Yeah, we kind of worked that out when he resurrected a 5 and a half year old thread.

Mmmm...I agree that we won't see the premiership for some time. It's more likely we'll drop a division on current form. But I honestly doubt we would lose that many fans if future success looks an increasingly unlikely event. I started watching in the 70s and saw some really, really bad Reading teams but, I mean, you don't really watch Reading because you expect glamour and great success do you? It's surely something more like blind devotion.

But you don't actually go, do you - so its quite any easy thing to say.
The bar has been raised in the modern era. We're now paying 25 quid a ticket for a stadium we have to shuttle bus to and from in order to sit within spitting distance of at least one person, probably more, who will behave like they wished you hadn't turned up.
Its not so much glamour and success that is desirable, but a level of interest that makes it worthwhile. You cant rock up when you like with a fiver in your hand anymore.

You only have to look at teams like Blackburn and Middlesborough to see that your support can drain away even when you stay in this league. Attendance seems to be constantly on a knife edge.

[Cureton's Volley]

I have nearly 'disappeared' (attending only my 2nd game of the season tonight) but it's nothing to do with what division we are in. Have many fond memories home & away during our Div 2 days

The truth is I genuinely don't feel part of something special watching Reading anymore. The problems at the top of the club have underlined a shift in culture which is equivalent to us catching up with all that is wrong with modern football in the top divisions.

I just don't feel I get value for the grand+ it costs to attend a full season, and £25-30 a ticket for individual games doesn't really seem worth it either

Now on Saturdays I pay a fiver to watch Henley Town struggle near the bottom of the Hellenic. One can stand on the terrace, with a pint of Marlow Rebellion in one hand & a cig in the other. Simple pleasures. This weekend we even scored a last minute winner to beat 'top-of-the-league' 3-2, so we got drinks on the house in the clubhouse afterwards! That is what I call value

Feel free to level CSB / pcunt at me as appropriate, either here or in the Jazz Cafe at H/T.