As of today we’ve sold 4,000 season tickets
V good. Think it was similar last season.
What do Rovers give other Dublin clubs for the derbies - is it 10%?
Just looking at the non league attendances in England, well into their seasons. Only 1 club Southend, having a average higher than Shamrock Rovers last year, 7200, and only 2 others higher than what Pats, Bohs and Shels managed last season, York City and Oldham.
Rovers 6k average would be about middle of the attendances for League 2 clubs this season.
NI clubs appear on that list too, with Glens best at 2900, just ahead of Linfield, 2800.
Southend, Oldham and York are what I describe as 'temporarily non-league clubs'. They're former league clubs that fell from grace and will be back in the 92 in the coming seasons (though in York's case, they're taking their sweet time over it!).
About half the conference these days comprises of former league clubs, which is mad. Though a number of those were also non-league for quite a while before joining the Football Leahue and then falling out of it again (e.g. Dagenham, Sutton).
There are 5 or 6 former FL teams in the level below as well National league north and South. They only introduced relegation from football league in 1987 and the difference between the official Football league and gbe lower levels is not really what it was. It really is more like div 4 and 5 at thisnpoint.
I think it will be 25,000, maybe even more. There does seem to be genuinely more appetite for the local game now, as evidenced by the season ticket sales, and with the hype over this bound to ramp up as we get nearer the date I think 25,000 is a reasonable expectation. I’m fairly agnostic on the merits of it either way. It’s not going to transform the league or anything, but it should be a good day out for the Rovers and Bohs fans that attend, and a few neutrals will probably tag along.
On the question of facilities, I think I recall a few weeks ago that Pats were hinting that an announcement on Richmond was imminent. Anyone hear any more on that ?
Out for a spell, got neglected, lay on the bench unselected.
We’ve passed the 3500 mark for season tickets and memberships now, there’s a waiting list of I believe 1500 for both too, never thought I’d see the day tbh.
Many of these "temporarily non-league clubs" have been replaced by clubs which traditionally were never league clubs before eg Lge One: Burton, Crawley, Stevenage, Wycombe; Lge Two: Bromley, Cheltenham, Fleetwood, Harrogate, Morecambe, Salford.
So that as some, at least, become established at league level, some of the clubs they have displaced may find their stay in non-league becomes rather more than "temporary". Which is how it should be imo, since with Promotion & Relegation, and proper regulation etc, the process now encourages/rewards Survival of the Fittest, all of which produces a healthier system.
Note, too, that a lot of the "new" clubs have existed for maybe a century before being able to capitalise on increasing populations and wealth in their catchment area (Greater London, South East of England etc) to step up. Alternatively they are in traditionally strong footballing areas (Lancashire, North West etc) and have managed to move ahead of their non-league peers etc.
Which in turn is reflected by the fact that many of the "new club" crowds are still not much higher, indeed sometimes lower than, those of the clubs they've displaced. I'd say this shows how the new boys have managed their resources very professionally when compared with the "older" clubs, yet these latter have nonetheless managed to retain a lot of their support, even when fallen on hard times.
Which yet again emphasises the importance of tradition and heritage etc, and being located in what I call a "proper footballing town" (or area).
Last edited by EalingGreen; 13/01/2025 at 1:24 PM.
In the EPL era there does seem to have been a change in the lower league landscape. Firstly a lot of sides that had never been in the top flight or not for years subsequently had they stint and faded, some big clubs falling down divsions after thrying to keep up financially. There was a time when you could almost list the 'conference' sides from listening to the BBC classified results on in the background on Saturdays but the profile has changed. It wouldnt be a shock to find that people saw the $ signs with the money being pumped in to the top flight so very small sides got a cheap cash injection enough to climb the ladder a bit, more 'traditional' lower league sides drifted. Throw in a couple of lottery winnners, former footballers and celebrity owners and there's 4? sides doing some social climbing on that basis alone. Some money filtering down to nonleague would have a greater impact on the smallest sides, not making a major imact on those already spending big for their level, causing a leveling effect. There are a few that are mind boggling bad at never making a go at things and could, Chelmsford City, up the road and Southend just falling apart. I used to enjoy going to games at that level around the North London/Essex for the contrast in facilites, old money v new, dried up old money struggling with their current stock. Anyway there are just some unsupportable sides, too many clubs in one area where one spell of success establishes a support base over another local club and it sticks (and is fickle so changeable), impact of semi wealthy people liking the idea of owning a club with dream of Premier League and think that it will pay for itself the higher they climb. I dont think demographics is major influence,no more than stars aligning and a combination of some money, good manager promotion and then the people come, or the oposite.
The PL dates from 1992/93, but it was only 5 years previously (1987) that automatic promotion and relegation between the Conference and EFL was permitted, and then only for one team each season.
This, rather than the advent of the PL was what really shook up the old order, replacing as it did the pre-existing system whereby teams finishing bottom were voted by the other EFL members either to be retained or replaced. And that maintained the closed shop, since if Club X voted to retain Club Y one season, they could rely on the favour being returned by Club Y should Club X finish bottom the following season. The new system meant previous no-hopers like Bury, Rochdale, Hartlepool and Halifax would in future have to sort their act out just to survive, never mind thrive.
The point being that those which don't can easily be replaced by any number of thrusting, new clubs, there already being over 100 f-t clubs as it is, far exceeding every other country on the planet. All of which reflects what Arsene Wenger once said about England actually being "the most football-obsessed country on the planet", not Brazil or Germany etc.
[All of which is further helped, crowd-wise, by the fact that all PL games are 98% sold out as it is, and even if they could get a ticket, many people aren't able to afford the prices. Which must mean at least some fans must turn to the lower leagues to get their "fix" instead.]
Im pulling rank on age here as as a 7 or 8 year old I didnt know that there wasnt automatic P/R from conference. I do recall stuff on meeting ground dtandards and some clubs were saved rather than next best nonleague promoted i think. I am sticking on there being a seachange after the mega TV money of the EPL happened too
Correlation, not causation - PL money has never filtered down as far as Lge Two/National League in sufficient amounts to make any real difference.
Which explains why "only" 51 teams have ever played in the PL, with none* of those having come all the way from non-league (v.few from Lges. One or Two in fact).
* - Luton Town had a brief spell in non-League shortly before their one season (2023/24) in the PL. But considering they had been in the top flight for 16 seasons over 3 spells right up to the start of the PL in 1993, when they were relegated after voting for it(!), they don't really count.
Isn't it Scotland that has the most senior clubs per head of population anywhere in Europe, or something like that?
England has an impressive number of FT clubs. But also has a population of 57m. Plus add another 3.1m for the fact that the largest towns and main population centres in Wales play in the English pyramid too. So English football definitely has the deepest system there is. But that is in no small part due to population, as well as sheer love of the game.
Entry and exit to/from the Football League was down to election prior to the introduction of promotion. A closed shop system, where other clubs got to decide your fate every year if you ended up bottom. It was a bit unseemly, as sometimes the voting was used by clubs to vent grudges, or to exclude ambitious new competitors in their area.
There's a great book called 'Denied FC' which goes into some of the shenanigans that went on over the years.
Absolutely and very impressive, even if the overall figures are somewhat skewed by the two Old Firm clubs.
Fair point re population.
As against that, Germany has a population of 84m, France 68m, Italy 59m, Spain 48m, Brazil 212m(!) and Argentina 47m.
None of these sustains anything like the number of f-t professional clubs, or p-t clubs, as England.
Another factor is that ticket prices in England must be higher than in any of those countries, often considerably so (esp Germany).
While I'm not sure if any of them have to compete with other professional team sports (Rugby Union, Rugby League, Cricket etc) on quite the same scale as England?
And the weather doesn't help much, either.
Cheers EYG I will look for that book, sounds like it could give some LoI moments a run for their money.
As stated, England has a very impressive depth of football by any standard. And having a relatigely large population (by European standards) obviously helps in that. But it's obviously not the full story. For example - Brazil may have 3.5x the population of England and Wales, But it also has a landmass that covers 55 times the territory. It's easy to have lots of professional football clubs in a small densely populated country with a sizeable population. Not so much when you have to fly to games across a country with 4 different time zones.
Russia is the classic example of this. A few years back a team from the Pacific coast of Siberia reached the top division for the first time. From memory their NEAREST fixture was the equivalent of travelling the distance of London to LA. So the fact that Russia has 2.5x the population of E&W pales when you factor in stuff like that.
As an aside, a number of the other teams in Russia's Premier League/top tier (most of which are based in the European part) were annoyed at having to cross 11 toime zones to the other end of the country once a season, so said publicly that the Siberian team should feck off and join the Japanese league instead![]()
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