Just wondering how does it work that people in your city support a certain team. For example if there are 2 or more teams how do people deciede who to support, and because of this what is your rivalary like with your locals.

For me: Swansea City

Swansea has a population of 200k. There are a lot of surrounding towns like Port Talbot, Llanelli and Neath which are Swansea areas, if their not into rugby :angry: Porthcawl is probably the cut off area between Swansea and Cardiff. West of it is Swansea, East, Cardiff.

Cardiff are our huge rivals. A lot of people who aren't even into football dont like Cardiff, people here think Cardiff like to out do us in every way. We had the National Pool, they went and built the International Pool :rolleyes:

We dont have any other big rivals. The Bristol games are good, but I have no dislike for them. We like Wrexham and Newport to do well because their Welsh.

Your club please :)

Ipswich

Ipswich has a population of around 120,000 and a lot of Towns support is from other areas of Suffolk basically the catchment area is the county. The main Towns where Towns support is drawn from are Sudbury, Haverhill, Stowmaket, Bury, Felixstowe and Lowestoft.

Lowestoft and North Suffolk are the cut off points, above that it is Norwich. Lowestoft (Suffolk) and Great Yarmouth (Norfolk) are only a few miles apart but Lowestoft is ITFC and Yarmouth is NCFC.

Some of Towns support comes from North Essex (ie. Colchester :lol: ) but because of overspill in the 60's from London, there are quite a few Wet Spam, Spurs etc. around in most Towns.

Luton.

Well in the town of Luton it self the most supported teams are the the big four. Celtic has a fair bit aswell because of a fair sized Irish (mostly 2nd 3rd generation) in Luton.

With a large Asian population who all mostly seem to follow the big four or not have a Interest in football altogether. A few do follow the Hatters though

Well the support we do have comes from Luton and surrounding villages and towns in Bedfordshire like Bedford(rugby town) and Flitwick and mid beds in general(which is now being taken over by MK Dons) In the past could even say St Albans(you could say that is the cut off point) but when I go there all I see is Watford and glory hunters shirts.

Being close to London dont help aswell. The train station since the Emirates has opened is packed full of Arsenal on Saturday mornings.(well it was the last time I went down there on a saturday)

With more Lutonians(I mean people who's family has lived in the town for generation upon generation) moving out and being replaced by immigrants and the London overspill (which I descend from on my mums side) less and less support Luton and follow the big teams or ones their family may follow for example in my case Spurs. A fair few Northerners have moved down as well (which I descend from on my dads side) so therefore they would follow their family's team which in my case would be Newcastle


Our local rivals are Watford. Watford I guess as well is full of glory hunters and mainly London clubs shirts being situated where it is. I say with the gates they have, they get more Local support than we do.(also a bigger ground)

MK Dons don't count

Its sad to see the club which is in a town about the same size of Sunderland getting gates which it is.

London


Well you look around, and its predominatly big 4 clubs, Mostly Arsenal then Utd, though everyone was parading around in their chelsea shirta the other day :rolleyes: .

Even the bigger london clubs have fanbases largely confined to their respected area, you will occasionaly see West ham and Spurs shirts about but with west ham especially its mostly east london.

With clubs like Palace, Charlton Millwall etc it really is just their suburb and their sorrounding suburbs.

From fulham, there are a few locals, but mostly its a range from south west london to other places on the ouskirts of north west london.

Gates are growing year on year by about 1k, but its still a very rare nice suprise to see someone with fulham gear in my part of london.

London is a weird one. Although each club supposedly represents an area of the city, but the population is so mobile (with people moving around and foreigners moving in) that it's now rare to find an area in which the vast majority support a single club.

I grew up in Mill Hill/Edgware in North-West London, where there seems to be a 40:60 split between Tottenham and Arsenal, although increasingly you see kids with Chelsea shirts. Few Barnet fans here and there too.

Went to school in Northwood near Watford, and the best supported clubs in my year (in order) were Watford, Liverpool, Man United, Arsenal, Tottenham, West Ham, Blackburn, Chelsea.

Tottenham's support tends to come from Enfield, Hertfordshire, parts of Essex, and North-East London - although there are probably more Arsenal fans in Tottenham than Tottenham fans these days.

Of course, it's worth noting that Arsenal (aka Woolwich Wanderers) were originally a South London team. Hopefully one day they'll trout off back to wear they belong.

West Bromwich Albion

This is one problem with getting fans to support albion, as within miles we have Villa Wolves, Blues Walsall and Ourselves, which does mean we are competiting hard for supporters, We dont get many from Birmingham, a lot from wednesbury west bromwich and the surrounding areas to them, also have a lot in devon and a good group in london

Aberdeen, one club city, 200k population probs. Average gates about 12k. So much potential but tench crowds. Most people from the city are Aberdeen 'fans' but so many don't go to games. The nearest SPL club is 60 miles away in Dundee.
We'll easy sell out 22k for the big games and can take 6k away for big league games but it's strange. Only 3 clubs in Scotland have a significant support not from the city. The old firm obviously and Aberdeen.
The way the clubs run is a shambles and a lot of people aren't going back till the manager gets the bullet or the chairman fks off, which is quite sad. Only 8.5k there on Saturday, although I can't complain because I never went :ph43r: Not after that disgrace in the cup semi 2 weeks ago, said I wasn't going back this season....might go on Saturday though.

I guess manchester's pretty much down to family (as most places i assume) but there are big generalisations you can make about certain areas being predominately red or blue (obviously i'm talking about people from manchester as we have a massive proportion of people from out of town who might support anyone). For example you could grossly over simplify by saying salford and north & west m/cr are predominately red whereas south & east is more blue. But then wythenshawe, which is certainly south m/cr, is full of reds. As i say, i think it pretty much comes down to your family and who they support.

Most of our support comes from Colchester and the North-East Essex district of Tendering.

There are as many Ipswich fans from this area as Colchester fans, and probably nearly as many West Ham fans.

If only we had got promoted in 1957 instead of Ipswich-oh how things would be different!

Newcastle.

One club city, Fan base stetches up to areas of Northumberland and areas of Durham and South Tyneside aswell although it is pretty much 50-50 split with the mackems in these areas (I think anyway, sure that one of the Newcastle lot on here will live South of the Tyne so they can confirm.)

Also see a few Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool fans but not quite that many.

Durham is either 50:50 or 60:40 in favour of mackems, not really sure.

Stanley and Consett are 80:20 to the Geordies.

I'm from Wednesbury ;) I'm surrounded by Albion fans, it's good when we play your lot though as you never beat us

Villa:

Obviously we share the City with Small Heath, each club has got areas where it is mainly their fans. Obviously there are more Villa than Blues, both team's attendances and fan-bases will tell you that.

Then we've got Albion within 3 miles of us, Wolves a bit further and Walsall.

Don't see many fans from those 3 in Birmingham, their support is nearly all in the Black Country.

We've also got a big support in London

Tottenham.

We draw our historical and hardcore support from North East London. Walthamstow Chingford (Spurs)Woodford(Spurs/West Ham) Hackney(Us and Arsenal). West Essex Waltham Abbey Harlow Epping etc. All the new towns out in Essex has Spurs and West Ham. We really have a catchment area between the A12 and the A1 all the way up to East Anglia and Peterborough I'd say. Loads of Tottenham from places like Ely Hunstanton Stevenage Hertford . Spurs are only just in North London hence a large proportion of our fans are from East London. When I moved up to Lincs Cambridge border I was amazed at the ammount of support for Spurs and West Ham from people who'd moved out. You'll find more CFC and Gooners in London nowdays I'd warrant but many are just the glory hunters or immigrants who support the successfull teams. Not to say they haven't got their staunch fans or areas but in my opinion in terms of working class hardcore support it's Tottenham and West Ham by a mile.

Coventry

Population 600k+ with average attendances of roughly 20,000, so shocking support but with lots of potential. Coventry fans spread out across the city with your usual bunch of Chelsea, Man utd and Liverpool nobheds who know tench all about football. Alot of support from surrounding areas like Leamington and Nuneaton. Reckon we've got a fair few fans from around the country thanks to our '87 cup success and we've got a decent sized london supporters club.

Wycombe - Town pop 70,000

Average crowd now is 4500 but down from 6500 just 5 years ago.

Aylesbury an expanding town just 15 miles north has a pop of 50,000 but within 15 years 21,000 new homes are being built here !!!! Thats about 65,000 potential new fans - if it wasnt for the pesky MK Dons on the other side of the county though :ph43r:

The town now has loads of London Wasps shirts within it :angry: Hate them with a passion. They win a trophy each year they invaded our town and have now taken over.

As for the dieing football support of our club there is a per usual the Man U, Arsenal. Liverpool shirts always seen the day after a Euro win and Chelsea plus odd Spurs and West Ham.

I think a number from Maidenhead and Slough have gone to watch Reading in the last few years - average of 8000 in 2000 now 24,000 this used to be a Wycombe catchment area when we went up from the conference and our 3 wembley wins in 1991 ,1993 and 1994 .

You like us are suffering because of them. We even have some so called Luton going there now because "it is safer to park the car" and the usual new ground bolloxs. Well they are successful at the minute as well (lets hope that don't continue). The modern fans wet dream.

Barnet (popn 340,000 - techincally, if you count the whole of the London Borough, although it's boundaries are rather arbitrary. Barnet 'town' is much less)

I'd say 2/3 of our supporters either live within a mile/mile and a half of the ground or else used to but have since been priced out (many now live up the M1 in places like Milton Keynes etc). In this sense we have probably one of the most localised supports in the FL, something which gives the club a real feel to it.

Other than supporting Barnet, there are quite a few Division 1 supporters about, with a 50:50 split between Arsenal and Tottenham.

Ah yeah. I go to Finchley and Frien Barnet area quite often as I got family down there. I can never never ever recall seeing a Barnet shirt in all the times I been down there(that includes driving though Barnet sometimes, were are you all hiding ;) ) all Arsenal and Manu/ Chelsea (despite being closer to Spurs). Its a miracle clubs like that can survive let alone the likes of Wingate and Finchley.

Your club has the right idea though advertsing season tickets in the Finchley Press or Times something like that.(please correct me if wrong). I hope we will follow suit we need to get people in. :(

Maidstone, Kent - population of the actual town is around 75,000, but the surrounding district is twice that, with numerous new houses being built in the next few years.

The town is very much a vacuum for "real" football support (as in, people who attend matches) and I suppose has been since 1992. Despite the close proximity of Gillingham and Charlton laying on cheap travel up to SE London, neither have anything more than very lukewarm support in the town (and given the poor fortunes of both clubs at the moment, I doubt that's going to change anytime soon).
Apart from the occasional oddball like myself there's just the usual vague affiliation to the big four or one of the other larger London clubs. Given that its £10-15 for the price of petrol/train ticket and anything from £20 up to daft Chels/Arse prices for a match ticket, along with assorted other costs, its not usually an affiliation that's strong enough to generate frequent match attendance, particularly for people my age with less money.
These large number of interested but casual-ish football fans is the reason I'm very confident of Maidstone getting and keeping high attendances when they return to the ground, I know any number of people who'd love to be able to have a few drinks and toddle along to see some football for a (comparatively) reasonable price. 750-1500 attendance I reckon, and this for a level 7 club. Course, it's got to happen first...

We had a 30 story apartmnt building (the one being built in the SA1 waterfront area). Cardiff have made one a tad bigger. They say no to the Welsh assembly, we say yes, plans that the guild hall would get a million pund revamp come out, after hearing this.....Cardiff say yes to have it! <_<

I don't think our fans are the kind of people who wear the shirt on non matchdays! The part time Arsenal/Spurs fans definately are!

I'd say that South Tyneside is more Newcastle than Sunderland, not by much though. Gateshead is pretty much all Newcastle, I haven't met many Sunderland fans that live there. Although I'd say Shields and Boldon are 50:50.

I was told that Leicester's one of the biggest city which only has 1 football club but I'm really not sure on that. Certainly most of the county will support city but we've lost a few fans the last few years whilst dicking about in the championship and will probably loose more if we go down on sunday. They'll probably all come back when we improve. But averaging 25,000 is still pretty good going considering this club has had 5 years of constant tenche.

Our only real competitors are the tigers, Over the last 10 years the Man Utd of rugby? (I'm not sure as i dont follow the tenche sport!) they average 18,000 every week.
Surrounding areas such as Hickley is pretty split with cov, although its in Leicestershire, its only a few miles from the Richo arena.
Similar story in Loughborough there seems to be a fair few forest around there as Nottingham its much closer than Leicester.

Stoke has a population of what about 250,000 and stoke normally get 15,000 (unless doing well) and the vale get around 4,000. With us being virtually dead-centre in the country we have supporters for every club it seems. Liverpool seem most popular and the scum of course, of which how many go remains to be seen. Everton have afew, Chelsea and Arsenal do too. Villa and wolves are popular with some and i know of 20 leeds fans in stoke so there are bound to be more of us too

Very split it seems with many prefering to 'glory hunt' aka JTsbluearmy than support the locals

:o

You were a 'glory hunter' 5 years remember :P

Wrong

It was 6. The line of tenchness was 5 years ago and we crossed it :rolleyes:

We built a new stadium, just 2 years later they build one.

We built apartments around the sea front, they extended their city to take it down to the sea front.

We had a big wheel in the city centre at christmas, the biggest in Wales. Cardiff sent their one back and ordered one bigger, seriously :o

We've just built the biggest night club in Wales. Its just a matter of time.

Im sure small clubs fans, alot of them go to your matches but also support an prem side, i see that alot around manchester clubs.

Leigh RMI:

Leigh has a population of about 45,000. Our average attendence this season was 222.

Obviously Leigh is a huge Rugby League town always has been a always will be. It doesn't help that, Wigan, Bolton, Manchester, and Liverpool are all near by. We are never going to attract big crowds on Saturday's are we?! When people would rather be in the pub at 12.15/5.45 watching the big boys play.

It doesn't help RMI charging Adults 8 quid when Bolton & Wigan don't charge much higher in fairness... Wigan also advertise their home games in the Leigh Reporter & Leigh Journal.

Sunderland

Population - 280K

Average attendance this season - 43097

Most supporters obviously come from Sunderland, lots of supporters from South Tyneside and Durham, also many branches throughout the UK. South Shields is split 50:50 between Sunderland and Newcastle, but places like Jarrow are mostly Newcastle. Boldon is probably around 50:50 as well.