Away Support

[The Royal Forester]

According to the Reading Chronicle. Paul Ince has called for more support away from home, citing Sunderland taking 2000 to an away match. Having been to away matches in the 3rd. and 4th. tiers, when the number of Reading fans could be counted on one hand, I think that our away support now is quite good, but, of course it would be nice to improve it. As Sunderland has a much bigger home fan base from which to draw their away following has made me wonder, what percentage of Sunderland's average home attendance goes to their average away support? How does Reading's percentage compare to Sunderland's? It would be good to see how our percentage compares to other Championship clubs with a similar home gate. as well. Anyone care to work it out?

[RG30]

I think Paul Ince should worry more about performances on the pitch than our away support.

[CountryRoyal]

Our away support is what it is, it’s about right for a club of our size with our level of success. It isn’t helped by a predominantly northern division.

Plus oxf*rd off Paul you want more fans and we want more goals and more wins so there we go.

[Elm Park Kid]

Weird - I just saw this on fb and came here to post . . .

[Mid Sussex Royal]

Some of this is down to location...not surprised to see Millwall where they are...every trip starts on the M25 and pretty much any game not in the south is awkward, particularly evenings

[Sutekh]

Weird - I just saw this on fb and came here to post . . .

Ouch! Worse than Wigan, that really hurts but then after several seasons of utter cr@p under clueless managers it’s going to take a season or so to persuade people again. Funny though that Reading actually aren’t so bad away from home for a team that has been struggling, it’s been the home form that’s largely been really terrible over the few seasons.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Yeah I've seen that post on Facebook as well which I found interesting.

We are only below Wigan on average and our nearest game is who? Millwall away? QPR? Which is what 40 miles or so?

Wigan have Blackburn, Burnley, Blackpool and Preston that are all just around the corner really, that might be why their average is skewed but also why their total number of away fans is lower than ours.

It's no real surprise to see some of these clubs taking low number of fans though as the "lowest", such as us, Cardiff, Hull, Huddersfield etc. But of course, if you want more travelling fans, we need better performances and better results.

Hopefully if we can get our average up towards 1000 by the end of the season, that would be a step in right direction for me.

[Norfolk Royal]

As a veteran of travelling away with RFC in the late 70s early 80s I can't believe how large and vociferous our away followings are now. Remember travelling to places like Rochdale and Hartlepool and barely seeing another Reading fan in the ground.

It's all relative of course, we had smaller crowds then and away fans had a likely chance of sustaining serious injury if they made themselves known.

[Coppells Lost Coat]

Be nice to see the average distance those travelling have done as well. As mentioned its a northern dominant league.
Plus Reading basically only have a handful of games under 200 miles round trip in Bristol, QPR, Luton, Millwall and Watford. Then you see that of the closer ones in Luton and Watford was midweek and another on a friday night at QPR.

So the numbers really dont surprise me.

[Elm Park Kid]

Our three Wembley games probably make up a pretty good chunk of our post 2010 away game attendances!

[Stranded]

Be nice to see the average distance those travelling have done as well. As mentioned its a northern dominant league.
Plus Reading basically only have a handful of games under 200 miles round trip in Bristol, QPR, Luton, Millwall and Watford. Then you see that of the closer ones in Luton and Watford was midweek and another on a friday night at QPR.

So the numbers really dont surprise me.

I could be mis-remembering but am sure I read pre-season that we have the most miles to cover this year of any club, or certainly near the top of that list.

[Sutekh]

Be nice to see the average distance those travelling have done as well. As mentioned its a northern dominant league.
Plus Reading basically only have a handful of games under 200 miles round trip in Bristol, QPR, Luton, Millwall and Watford. Then you see that of the closer ones in Luton and Watford was midweek and another on a friday night at QPR.

So the numbers really dont surprise me.

I could be mis-remembering but am sure I read pre-season that we have the most miles to cover this year of any club, or certainly near the top of that list.

It’s not Reading at the top, it’s Norwich and Swansea as they’re sort of out on limbs whereas Reading are a bit more central and on or very close to the M4, M3, M40 and M25. After that it’s the likes of Sunderland, Cardiff and Middlesbrough while Birmingham and Coventry are unsurprisingly the best off. Anyway Reading are 8th overall.