Bumped Article: Chelsea's Lack of Fan Growth

[Macmoish]

Bump another year...

Originally Publsihed Sept 20, 2010

Mail - Martin Samuel
Roman Abramovich has spent £457m finding 1,639 new Chelsea fans... no wonder the Russian is trimming his investment
By Martin Samuel

In the seven years before Roman Abramovich took over at Chelsea, the club spent £106million on players and drew an average gate of 39,784.
Since Abramovich arrived, £457m has been poured into the transfer market and attendances have risen - to 41,423.
That is a difference of just 1,639 people, or £278,828 per fan. No wonder the talk is that Abramovich is trimming his investment, introducing cost-cutting measures and reduced transfer budgets at Stamford Bridge.

Crowd pleasers: but Drogba, Malouda and Co do not always play to full houses at Stamford Bridge

Never forget that three league titles have been won in his time, and an equivalent number of FA Cups. The League Cup has been won twice and Chelsea have appeared in the last four of the Champions League on no fewer than five occasions.
There are obviously contributory factors, not least the capacity at Stamford Bridge. It is likely that for certain big matches the club could have sold considerably more than the 42,449 permitted.
Yet Chelsea's average gate since Abramovich came in would still not constitute a sell-out. The fact is that while the significance of

\Chelsea has grown in Abramovich's seven years, the size of the club has remained largely unmoved.
It is not familiarity that has bred this contempt, either. Over the preceding decades the supporters hardly had the opportunity to grow weary of the heights of European football, yet it is noticeable that the ground is rarely full for Champions League group games.
Sizing down: Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich

Chelsea should have exploded in Abramovich's time, making a move to bigger premises essential. He has done everything right. He has invested substantially in players of good quality, who have in turn delivered success. He has encouraged entertaining football, and 44 goals in 11 games this season suggest an ambition fulfilled there, too.

He even froze ticket prices for four years prior to this season, equating to a net deduction of 15 per cent, with inflation considered. So what is Chelsea's problem? Strangely, there isn't one. They are simply proof of how incredibly hard it is to grow a club organically beyond its traditional size.
Arsenal moved from Highbury, where the capacity at closure was 38,419, to a new stadium at Ashburton Grove holding 60,355, and filled it instantly. Yet Arsenal have long been established as the biggest club in London and at the time of leaving Highbury had a 20,000-strong waiting list for season tickets, closed for some time. This, in part, prompted their move. The board knew that, in essence, Arsenal were a club with a following of 60,000; it was just that 22,000 of them couldn't fit inside the stadium.
Part of the reason Tottenham Hotspur are so desperate to upgrade White Hart Lane is to accommodate their own substantial waiting list. Yet on June 9, Chelsea announced season tickets were available to any 2010/11 member with 67 loyalty points or more, the equivalent of having attended every home match last season, using a ticket purchased on free sale.
Chelsea continue to look at plans to expand, but without the enthusiasm that exists elsewhere. Their big leap came between 1989 and 2003 when the average gate rose from 15,957 to 39,770. They hit the 41,000-mark the following year and have remained there since.

Bruce Buck, the chairman, is a realist. Abramovich is too, in his way. Beyond swapping lunacy for financial responsibility, his enthusiasm does not wane. Even with unprecedented success and £457m lavished on players, Chelsea find growth hard, yet Abramovich has not lost interest, as many expected.
But how many will follow him, once UEFA's poorly-conceived financial regulations take hold? If Chelsea's progress in joining the traditional upper echelons of European football is so dauntingly slow, imagine how difficult it will be when clubs are denied the potential of fast-tracking through owner investment? The transition from small to middling, middling to elite, will be glacial, and considerably more problematic than it is already.
If Abramovich cannot do it, who can? And more importantly, who will be bothered?

www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/article-1313469/Martin-Samuel-Roman-Abramovichs-457m-1-639-new-Chelsea-fans.html#ixzz108tLjEEK

[Lonegunmen]

Very interesting article actually.

[saphilip]

A capacity of just under 42.5k and we must now write an article about a club struggling to fill the stadium & grow its fan base because their average gate is just over 41.4k.

Hell it's not like they are playing to gates of 35k or less - so it's hardly a crisis. Of those 1k empty seats how much is actually found around the way end, and how has been partioned off for safety reasons for the big games?

Yeah I also question the loyalty of the average Chelsea fan, and many of them are glory hunters, but there is little doubt their support has grown over the past 15 years, both in the UK and the rest of the world.

Look I am no fan of Chelsea and MS normally writes some very good articles that is worth reading, but quite honestly he is making a mountain out of a molehill in my opinion.

"Struggling" to fill those empty 1.1k seats is not the reason why RA is cutting down.

[toboboly]

They do struggle on Champions League group stage nights where I think the average is more towards 35k. But I think the fact that they don't have a waiting list for ST's shows their stature and inability to increase fans.

[saphilip]

Possibly - I have noticed the empty seats in the CL. But also bear in mind that due to advertising reasons UEFA do reduce the capacity for CL games.

They probably have hit a limit in fan support but I guess it depends what happens to the club next to see if it will continue to show potential growth or if gates start dropping.

That said, let's not forget that their gates have increased steadily from the early 90's until now, from below 25k and less to just over 41k. That is a lot of growth in a relatively short time - so I guess fan growth was always likely to even out to some extent.

[klr]

The last time I saw that amount of Morons in the same place I was at Bluewater.

[Macmoish]

Which got me to thinking...

Great Chelsea Defeats (besides of course QPR games)

Obviously the Man Ut European Championship Final probably near the top...
And for me Stoke City beating them in League Cup Final...
Spurs Beating them in FA Cup Final in 1967

Big Disappointments:
Chelsea just not going down to Division III the same season Terry Venables took us to the First.
Chelsea beating Leeds in the FA Cup Final Replay.

[Macmoish]

Bump this article...

In light of Fernandes comments to the Standard re a 40,000-45,000 stadium:...Fernandes should think very, very carefully about how big a stadium...If he really knows QPR: We've NEVER been a "big" club. Just a fact...And playing in a stadium half full - or 1/3 full or 1/4 full.....

[RoryTheRanger]

It's because all the 'Chelsea' fans that suddenly appeared when Roman took over the club have since moved on to Man City or Utd.

[sharky]

Maybe some of them will move to QPR.

Mind you would we want fair weather supporters? I don't think so, but as we are also in West London there will inevitably be competition for supporters.

It will be very interesting to see how many fans we get as and when we get established in the Prem!!

[5hourslateR]

Could there also be a Fulham factor in the perceived lack of growth at Chelsea?

Their support has improved in the last several years

[ingham]

I think his basic point, that it is very difficult to grow a Club to bigger than its traditional size, is well made.

Clubs expand and contract within their size, not beyond it, according to how successful they are from time to time.

It is difficult to grow beyond their size because there is so little to win, and so many Clubs chasing it.

The more successful one Club is, the less successful the others are. A real glory hunter doesn't choose Chelsea when they have spent stupendous sums and only won 3 Premiership titles, while Ferguson has won 12.

There is a historical aspect, too. It is not merely a question of improvement. The instances selected by the author of the piece are confined to a deliberately selective period of time - Chelsea's MAXIMUM (and virtually their only) success.

It is misleading to do this. Yes, Burnley won the League in 1921 and 1960, and if we confine our attention to those seasons, they are the best.

Arsenal were the dominant Club after the Second World War, still riding high on their prewar eminence, and they added two titles in the next few years, and have won more since. Liverpool were the Champions in the first season following the war, and although they slumped soon after, United were runners-up and Busby was already embarked on building that legend.

As far as Abramovich is concerned, his era, compared to the prolonged and continuing era of the Big Red Three, Chelsea are small potatoes indeed.

It would take a lot of growing to make them comparably successful, and the problem, in part is that there are so many other Clubs. When United foundered, Liverpool emerged, and far smaller Clubs than Chelsea did well.

It all counts. And it all counts against any single Club.

You have to take in the whole picture. Not that there is any danger that another Club will outspend Chelsea and push their way into the gap between Man Utd and Arsenal .

That is the other major flaw in a regime which can only compete because the Chairman spends the Clubs future earnings in advance, running up colossal losses as he does so.

Any number of other clowns can do that. It isn't beyond the bounds of possibility that some oil-rich sheikh would take over an ailing rival to United and bloat their prospects, however temporarily, beyond those of RA's boys.

And isn't that why Abramovich was spending so much in the first place? Because Chelsea weren't big, and weren't successful? He goes on spending because they can only 'compete', however ineffectually, on borrowed money.

They simply don't earn enough. Unlike United, who have carried a comparable debt to Chelsea's, not a penny of which was spent on players.

United actually EARN the money to maintain their status, and were debt free- unlike loser Bates - before Glazer's predecessors lined their pockets at the Club's expense.

The other factor is talent. The English League has been dominated by two Clubs - Liverpool and United - for the last 35 years and more. And in Abramovich's time, the most recently dominant of that pair, United, has had the real talent, the only real talent in terms of consistent success, in the Premiership.

Ferguson.

Talent is invariably spread very thin indeed when there is so little to win. But there is always plenty of failure to go round, even just a place or two below the top, and Chelsea have had plenty of it.

Yet we know that, of its very nature, losing doesn't draw the glory hunters. If they really are glory hunters, they'll head off in search of more glory. Or just become disillusioned with the absence of it where they are. So the fact that they're losing regularly, and also losing vast sums of money with equal regularity, must diminish to a very considerable extent the early hopes engendered by the Abramovich era.

When Ferguson finally retires, maybe it will be their turn. If some other Club doesn't end up with the Paisley or the Ferguson of the next sequence. There must be a good deal of some anxiety at Anfield, the Arsenal stadium, Stamford Bridge and even among the other wannabes - who are wholly unsuccessful in Premiership terms.

Before our own glory season, way back in the mid-seventies, success was still rare, but far more widespread. Now it is very narrowly based indeed. One Clubs wins practically everything worth winning that is available to English Clubs.

They can't have it both ways, even if they don't realise that. If being big and winning is everything, the consequences of not being top and not actually winning will damages the two or three biggest Clubs outside Old Trafford just as much as not being in the running keeps all the rest in their place.

First is first, as they used to say, and second is Chelsea. If they can manage even that .

[bowranger]

Sept 21, 2011 10:29:00 GMT 5hourslateR said:

Could there also be a Fulham factor in the perceived lack of growth at Chelsea?

Their support has improved in the last several years

I think that might play a role, particularly with tourists, as well as people who are here semi-permanently. Chelsea may be worth it if you are visiting for a week and want to see a top Premiership side. But a lot of Aussies in West London who come over for a year or two have started going to Fulham because it's cheaper than Chelsea, and want to go somewhere more regularly.

Also, and I may be being really judgmental, but part of me thinks Fulham's ground with it's cottage/image of being relatively small sized as a club also plays a role in taking potential fans away from Chelsea. Say you live in SW London, football becoming increasingly trendy etc.... Chelsea is the obvious place to go, but Fulham is a bit more (eurgh) "boutique-y". Chelsea had it's hype with people like that when it won the league last time. To new fans who are looking for a club to support, it's the equivalent of having a couple of million to spend on art - could buy a Picasso, but will buy a Banksy because it seems cooler than going for the more obvious option - as long as they own some sort of picture. In the scheme of things, Fulham is massive in terms of the whole football league, just like Banksy is massive in terms of art and culture - but a lot of these people don't see much outside of that remit. I think to newer fans, Fulham are "underground". ;D

Similarly, when mates of mine who never paid any interest to football suddenly got into it, they all picked Man Utd etc. to follow casually. Now they've hit their 20s, they are all Spurs fans. It's not cool to follow someone *too* popular.

[Lonegunmen]

Sept 21, 2011 9:14:11 GMT RoryTheRanger said:

It's because all the 'Chelsea' fans that suddenly appeared when Roman took over the club have since moved on to Man City or Utd.

\

Depending on who's leading the league that weekend

[RoryTheRanger]

Sept 22, 2011 10:39:56 GMT Lonegunmen said:

Sept 21, 2011 9:14:11 GMT RoryTheRanger said:

It's because all the 'Chelsea' fans that suddenly appeared when Roman took over the club have since moved on to Man City or Utd.

\

Depending on who's leading the league that weekend

Exactamondo.

[5hourslateR]

Sept 22, 2011 9:44:02 GMT bowranger said:

Sept 21, 2011 10:29:00 GMT 5hourslateR said:

Could there also be a Fulham factor in the perceived lack of growth at Chelsea?

Their support has improved in the last several years

I think that might play a role, particularly with tourists, as well as people who are here semi-permanently. Chelsea may be worth it if you are visiting for a week and want to see a top Premiership side. But a lot of Aussies in West London who come over for a year or two have started going to Fulham because it's cheaper than Chelsea, and want to go somewhere more regularly.

Also, and I may be being really judgmental, but part of me thinks Fulham's ground with it's cottage/image of being relatively small sized as a club also plays a role in taking potential fans away from Chelsea. Say you live in SW London, football becoming increasingly trendy etc.... Chelsea is the obvious place to go, but Fulham is a bit more (eurgh) "boutique-y". Chelsea had it's hype with people like that when it won the league last time. To new fans who are looking for a club to support, it's the equivalent of having a couple of million to spend on art - could buy a Picasso, but will buy a Banksy because it seems cooler than going for the more obvious option - as long as they own some sort of picture. In the scheme of things, Fulham is massive in terms of the whole football league, just like Banksy is massive in terms of art and culture - but a lot of these people don't see much outside of that remit. I think to newer fans, Fulham are "underground". ;D

Similarly, when mates of mine who never paid any interest to football suddenly got into it, they all picked Man Utd etc. to follow casually. Now they've hit their 20s, they are all Spurs fans. It's not cool to follow someone *too* popular.

Nicely put.

I have been struggling to put that concept into words for years, especially for the folks who are not really into the nuances of supporting trends.

The Banksy analogy is spot on.

[Hogan]

Perhaps Chelscu.m have greatly increased their fanbase in recent years. Globally their profile has gone up significantly and i am sure their products are selling well across the globe. Many of the fans who in previous years went to watch the games no longer do so due to the expense. I have been told by one or two scu.m fans i know that they are made to feel as if they have to 'keep up with the Jones' when they go to games as the new breed of fan at the bridge is vastly different from previous generations.

I think maybe they could fill a larger stadium depending on prices, and subsequently over time a waiting list for ST's would also occur, but i am not in the slightest bothered that this is not happening there.

[Macmoish]

Bump another year....

But it also raises issues re how big QPR can grow/will likely grow

[ingham]

Interesting figures.

I think that rise in Chelsea's support has much more to do with their catastrophic finances after the economic slump in 1974. The end of the building boom hit them particularly hard.

They were getting big attendances in the 1960s, especially when they were doing well, and I can remember being there when there were absolutely massive attendances, one of 69,000. And that was at a Club which had won the title once, and the Cup once.

But they performed badly after 1974, and attendances inevitably fell.

I was also there when they featured an artist's impression of the new stadium they proposed to build on the cover of the match programme.

Essentially, it was the, as yet unbuilt East Stand - ALL THE EFFING WAY AROUND. Capacity given as 80,000, if I'm not mistaken. Something unheard of in English football at the time - a continental-south american style triple decker when all English grounds still dated back at least to the 13th century.

To my mind, Chelsea just weren't successful enough for 80,000. But there is little doubt that they would have built it, if 1974's slump and accelerating building costs hadn't bankrupted them, and the East Stand was/is the proof of it.

So my general feeling is that their support has fallen dramatically, in line with most other Clubs. Partly because grounds are so small, now. Partly because they are so exclusive, with many long term season ticket holders, sky high prices for seats.

In the fifties, they were a Club where people went to watch the OTHER side. A metropolitan Club, where the old-style 'floating supporters' turned up to see Stanley Matthews or glamorous Spurs. But also, and because of its 'neutrality', where there was a big reservoir of people prepared to go to the Bridge.

It wasn't a steamy fortress like LR, Anfield or The Den. Quite the reverse. More a place where 'football' happened.

So maybe, now, they're a contradiction, perhaps an unusual one. They have the children of the generations of people who used to go there, who 'support' Chelsea, but maybe just by wearing the shirt all over the place.

Maybe they could fill a very big ground, as they once certainly could. But this isn't a big ground. And the demise of the Shed and the old terrace tribalism alongside the phoneyness of 'buying the title' may have taken its toll.

But I wonder whether 'success' hasn't been quite what the wild expectations of RA's early days led them to believe. Mourinho won most of their league Titles in a couple of seasons.

But he left such a 'successful' and 'wealthy' Club apparently disaffected.

And Man Utd have remained easily dominant, while Abramovich despite all the money, can't settle to a particular manager, and is nowhere near dislodging United. Arsenal have won titles in almost every decade since the 1930s, so expectations are higher, while at Chelsea, I expect they're lower among the more 'glory hunting' supporters, and the Club looks much smaller as a result.

And now Man City are on the scene, raising the spectre of other 'Abramoviches', while Ferguson is still around.

[Macmoish]

Bump...

Not sure what Chelsea gates are

(Checking: Chelsea currently 41,000+ (which is close to capacity)

Prem Gates - www.soccerstats.com/attendance.asp?league=england


But again - besides the feeling of Schadenfreude when it comes to Chelsea, also of interest given QPR Plans


I havent followed Chelsea closely enough to see what their plans are with regards to their new stadium (if/when) - How big intend it to be

[ingham]

The answer, I think, is in the question. And the procedure is circular. The only way of answering it sensibly in the first place is BY REFERENCE TO the Club's fanbase.

Why is he asking about Chelsea? Why isn't he asking why Leyton Orient or Brentford aren't getting more than 41,000?

Think about it. If you said Chelsea could easily fill a 120,000 stadium, he would deny it, I'm sure. 120,000 is far too big for Chelsea. But why? If they can simply 'grow' their fanbase, who says they can't grow it to 120,000 a week?

But if they can do that, United can presumably grow theirs to 250,000 a week. And once they've reached that size, they would presumably be so rich, and so dominant, that they could go ON increasing the figure to as big as they liked.

Easily.

Not only are there severe practical difficulties - space, parking, getting a good view half a mile from the pitch - but the real difficulties are competitiveness and loyalty.

Chelsea don't have enough supporters because they can't get significantly more than they have. First, because people committed enough to stick to a single Club support ALL THE OTHER CLUBS, as well as Chelsea.

And secondly, because Chelsea simply aren't good enough. Not only that, it is more or less impossible for them EVER TO BECOME good enough. For the game to be interesting enough to people willing, at a pinch, to go regularly, ALL THE OTHER CLUBS must be relatively big, relatively wealthy, relatively able to compete.

And because they are, Chelsea haven't won enough to enable them to strip Arsenal or even QPR of its core support. But they probably wouldn't anyway. Core supporters won't easily abandon even a struggling Club to watch another one they couldn't care less about.

So Chelsea must compete USING THE RESOURCES THEY ALREADY HAVE. And those resources are limited.

He mentions Abramovich. And there is the answer, so big it is easily missed. Why hasn't Abramovich spent MORE? Why would Chelsea NEED a bigger ground if it is really being subsidised by a bloke with billions to spend? He would hardly notice another billion, after all, and if he really would like to dominate the English game like Ferguson did, why not spend the money?

Because Chelsea don't have it. A football club can't spend someone else's money. Nobody can. If it is someone else's, it isn't yours to spend. Whether it is a gift or a loan, it must be the Club's money for the Club to spend it. And borrowing £1 billion to spend on players tells us how LITTLE money Chelsea has. If its potential was really so great, it could either borrow far more, or it wouldn't need to borrow at all.

If Abramovich is the limiting factor, they can sign anyone they like. But they don't, so HE isn't, Chelsea is the limiting factor. To say how big 41,000 a week makes Chelsea is also to say how small they are.

In part, it is the law of diminishing returns. The problem at Clubs like Chelsea is not increasing their attendances, but preventing them falling, because the game is so competitive. Every Club spends far more time struggling - even if it is struggling in the top six - than winning. And for most, failure is to all intents and purposes permanent. And look at the size of Clubs measured in attendances.

United are hundreds of times more successful than QPR, measured by league placings, titles won, and so on. But their attendances are only ... what? Barely more than four times QPR's (in the top flight, anyway).

It isn't easy to turn vastly more success into vastly more people. When Liverpool were dominant, and United won nothing, Liverpool's attendances were smaller.

Focusing on one Club without asking the same question in the same terms about all the others results in a distorted idea of 'potential'. If Chelsea have risen to near the top, other biggish Clubs can do the same thing. That might start now. The next 20 years might see Chelsea never in the top 10, if they are in the top flight at all. If they can increase their punch 'just like that', so can Newcastle, Spurs, Leeds.

Even QPR - because QPR will be playing in stadium with 45,000 seats, if not 45,000 supporters.

The talent to win and win and win is rare. All that money spent, and it is Ferguson who won 13 titles - or is it 14? - and not Chelsea. Now he is gone, but will it be Chelsea who will replace him?

If Clubs like that really do have the potential ascribed to them, grounds holding 100,000 would have been built 60-80 years ago, when attendances were vast compared to today. Chelsea's record was 82,000 plus, but rarely anything like it otherwise. And when grounds were generally much bigger than they are now, attendances fell away far more dramatically. Now they are proportionately higher, because grounds have generally been shrinking to nearer the fillable size. For QPR to get an almost full house for playing the kind of rubbish we played recently would have been unthinkable in the sixties and seventies. We couldn't fill the damn thing even when we were top. Even the Arsenals didn't get full houses except for the biggest games and in their very best seasons.

On the other hand, that is the level of support those Clubs have inherited. All those generations of Arsenal supporters begetting Arsenal supporters keep their attendances high, but not high enough to guarantee more than 60,000 at a game (less than their old capacity), and they've won the title in every decade but one since the 1920s! Not excluding this one, come to think of it, they still have plenty of time to do so.

Sure, there is another reason why Chelsea can't do it. They are effluent. But it isn't nice to say so, and you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

[terryb]

But they have increased their crowds incredibly.

Think back to the numbers that attended their pathetic ground in Division Two in the eighties. All clubs had lower attendances then but we often had more than them!

Let's see how many they attract when the Russian decides to depart.

[Lonegunmen]

Even in the 90's they were getting crowds of 13k.

[ingham]

But that's the point. When they were poor, attendances collapsed. Yet, in the 1950s and early 1960s, when my dad used to take me there, they had 69,000 against Spurs, and 50,000 or more quite often, when they were also a pretty poor side.

Arsenal built a new ground smaller than the old one (before the Taylor Report), and no bigger than the support they knew they had, 45,000, including 15,000 on the season ticket waiting list. And Arsenal are a far more successful Club than Chelsea.

Big visitors, and London derbies, together with star players - Matthews typically packed grounds out then, before blanket TV coverage, and Marsh pulled in big crowds away from home in QPR's rise through the divisions in the mid-sixties.

In those days, they were nowhere near winning the title, OR even the FA Cup. Now, they're winning titles and even the Champions League and getting less than a full house.

With season ticket holders dominant, the Club's own supporters - rather than lovers of football in general - fill the grounds. And because a Club largely depends on its 'support' - rather than just anyone who might come along for the entertainment (like the theatre, say) - the size of a Club's support puts a limit on its attendances.

Actual attendances often depend on how well they're doing at the time, although United would probably get 76,000 in a Sunday League. They can go down to a very low level indeed, but they can't go up beyond the Club's hard core match-attending support.

If that wasn't the case, we could think of dozens of examples of Clubs who have doubled or trebled their support (as distinct from temporarily increasing attendances) in our lifetime. I can't think of any. Wimbledon rose in an amazing way (and so did QPR, come to that), but Wimbledon were still a very small Club in the top flight, as we are.

If we suppose QPR can do it, anyone can do it. The fact that they don't should give us pause for thought. No doubt Wigan's attendances have increased, but that is performance based, surely? Not hard-core support based. Clubs in similar sized towns to Wigan have attendances similar to Wigan's. If those Clubs went down to the non-league, they would eventually get attendances similar to Wigan's when they were outside the four divisions.

And even in the case of Man United, attendances aren't IN PROPORTION to the amount of success they have had. In the Premier League, they've won four times as many trophies as Chelsea, but their attendances aren't four times greater. They're four times greater than QPR, who have achieved nothing in the Premiership except the record for going the longest without a win.

Yet United actually HAVE all that success. And since the War, too. Not just 7 games under 'Arry in the second tier. If all that can't give them a 120,000 capacity stadium - and the dominance it might imply - why should we imagine that dumping QPR in a 45,000 ground not even intended for QPR will fill all the seats every week.

AFTER THE EVENT, YES!!!!!!! After we've dominated the game for 60 years, and won the 20 or so League titles, plus three European Cups (is it three?) which United have, OF COURSE!

But we haven't a clue. We couldn't work out how to beat anyone last season.

All the talk about big grounds and increasing support by simply moving a Club to a new building tells us all we need to know.

If they could improve the football, they would have done it long ago. All the investors, speculators, shareholders. Generate the excitement now! Demonstrate your genius for football. It must be easy, because Fernandes and Beard are talking big.

And that is what is required, presumably. Big talk. A property deal. £200 million siphoned out of the Club's pocket to pay for something the Club won't even own a square inch of.

Not a Busby, or a Paisley, or a Ferguson. Not years of painstaking improvement, development and SUCCESS, SUCCESS, SUCCESS, one triumph after another.

It must be a piece of cake. What's our average attendance over the past 7 years? 15,000? And we're going to treble that?

The real question is 'how does any Club get out of the margins and into the big time?' And the answer, for small Clubs, is that they can't. If we could get 10 points per game for playing exceptionally well, it might be different. But we only get 3, and on the day we do, loads of other Clubs also get 3. We can only sign one or two good strikers, and as we usually sign none, something as simple as that obviously isn't easy to overcome.

All they had to do, these billionaires, when Mittal came, was to buy the best players in the world. 'We' had the money. THAT was the way to make a big stadium dream come true. Because we have no idea how to identify real talent in the raw, when the players are nobodies playing for Accrington or Port Vale, and buying them cheap.

That isn't necessarily our fault. No small Club will give up a promising player easily, like it did in the old days, especially to another small Club. THEY want the big money too. And just signing nonentities, which is what we usually do, doesn't produce a team of Ian Wrights.

Just nonentities.

Start with the football, and it all falls into place. But nobody even suggests such a thing, and that, in itself, is very interesting indeed. Why doesn't Fernandes put together these ordinary players into a world-beating combination? OK, he isn't the manager. So he doesn't know. But if that is the case, how does he know we can treble our attendances in a way United and Arsenal and Chelsea have never done?

And the new ground, that isn't for QPR. It won't advertise QPR, it will advertise some rubbish of Fernandes's. If the Arsenal people didn't believe enough in Arsenal to call the Ground The Arsenal Stadium, and didn't believe enough in the Club's earnings when it GOT THERE to say no to an airline using the Club as an advertising hoarding, how much do this lot believe of all the stuff they chuck at us so casually.

It actually makes more sense for Fernandes to have said that QPR would win the title last year or the year before. Clubs have won the title in the last 80 years. I can't think of a single one which has trebled its hard-core support (or even increased it so significantly that anybody noticed).

Very small Clubs may increase attendances from 300 to 3,000, or 800 to 8,000. But very few do so, and when they've done so, they don't usually GO ON increasing it.

And why does the ground need to be multi-use? Why does QPR need to pay £200 million so somebody else can hold rock concerts?

If Arsenal needed proof, and went no further than the proof they had, that they could get 60,000, the idea that a Club like that can only increase capacity by one-quarter, while we could treble it - and do 12 times better than Arsenal, in other words - seems rather fanciful.

Sure, Chelsea might get 55,000 (the figure Kenyon thought they could manage) in a new ground. But as you said yourself, terry, or was it Lonegunmen, they also had attendances of 13,000. And that was down from their record of 82,000.

Surely it is obvious that attendances per se are just a red herring. If it is as easy as putting up a building to make QPR top 4 and a title contender, just do it. 'We' already have the money. But, strangely, we aren't spending it. And strangely, Mittal and the boys want £200 million FROM QPR for their own property deal.

Surprise, surprise.

That's the problem. And it's the same at Stamford Bridge. If Abramovich wanted it enough, he would have built a 120,000 capacity stadium, let it be empty for a year or two, and built a team nobody could beat. Land prices aren't a problem if he has billions and billions to spare.

But he has no idea how to do that. And Chelsea are still a nothing Club compared to United and, according to the Arsenal chairman, even Liverpool.

If they had a boot room, or even a Ferguson, it might be different. But that's the magic trick. And Ferguson started his English career at the biggest Club.

In the world, according to some.

Great thread, always interesting, discussions about the Ground. Always seems strange to me that successful football - which they would all produce if they knew how - is treated as if it is unimportant.

Or so obvious, and so easy to do (if only you have a new ground, different patterns on the shirts, and someone in the boardroom who loses more money than his predecessors), that it will simply happen.

Just like that.

[Macmoish]

Bump another year...

QPR Owners' plans of course, are rather more ambitious in terms of QPR supporters/crowd growth for QPR

[Macmoish]

Well for starters, Chelsea are (very regrettably) very successful - and have been for several years.

And Chelsea are not seeking to DOUBLE and more their crowd attendance.

[Macmoish]

Bump 5 Years...
Don't know enough about Chelsea (thankfully) to know re their growth/future

[Macmoish]

Bump again