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Is Bristol a football city?


CyderInACan

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2016/08/26/andy-robinson-we-want-to-return-rugby-to-the-heart-of-bristol/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

 

Bristol has always been a rugby city

Really? Is this true? Combined crowds at AG and the mem are much higher than the average Bris crowd, even allowing for bumper attendances now Prem rugby is back. Even going back to the 80s when Bris were clearly in their pomp, it was always footy that provided the backdrop to life here. Which given the prevailing circumstances in BS3 is saying something. 

Is this just another convenient media myth? 

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4 minutes ago, Southstandoriginal said:

To be fair to that article, it doesn't seem to be taking the usual lazy line that Bristol is a rugby city and not a football one, but rather highlighting the true situation that like Leicester there is a tradition of both sports being established in the city.

How this thread ever supposed to get traction when someone actually reads the said article and give a fair and considered response?  Disappointed. 

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Theres clearly enough fans for Bristol City. We sent 40k to Wembley.

Weston football club made a statement last week or so that they desperately need more supporters, as not enough people in the town support them and are either plastic prem team supporters or support city. Weston are desperate for more supporters.

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2 minutes ago, CrazyInWeston said:

Theres clearly enough fans for Bristol City. We sent 40k to Wembley.

Weston football club made a statement last week or so that they desperately need more supporters, as not enough people in the town support them and are either plastic prem team supporters or support city. Weston are desperate for more supporters.

Difficult when you've got the best arena in the south-west three quarters of an hour up the road

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3 minutes ago, CrazyInWeston said:

I agree with you there, but when I hear fans say the price for BCFC is too high, why not just go to Weston, its less than an hour and costs you £10.

Theres so many reasons I can think of why fans wouldnt do that.

Personally might give it a go this year! The hans stadium isnt it? Trained there couple of times.

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3 minutes ago, CrazyInWeston said:

I agree with you there, but when I hear fans say the price for BCFC is too high, why not just go to Weston, its less than an hour and costs you £10.

Personally think that's the reason why teams like Weston need to draw in more crowds. Do people really want to pay £10 to go and watch the same bloke who will be fixing his car on Monday morning. I'm not knocking the talent the blokes have and could only dream of playing that standard but think £5 is more than enough

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3 minutes ago, Aipearcey said:

Personally think that's the reason why teams like Weston need to draw in more crowds. Do people really want to pay £10 to go and watch the same bloke who will be fixing his car on Monday morning. I'm not knocking the talent the blokes have and could only dream of playing that standard but think £5 is more than enough

I get what you are saying, but its been said numerous times that the gate reciepts help pay the wages for Weston, they're desperate because without the supporters they cant pay the players, thats how bad the situation is there.

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In terms of success achieved, the Bristol Rugby club has been more successful than City or Rovers. Maybe not in terms of attendance figures where the football clubs outscore heavily but certainly if one considers the number of international players developed by Bristol and the esteem with which they were regarded.

For example and without consulting the history books, City have had four players get England caps (3 in very early 1900's plus Atyeo) and Rovers Geoff Bradford. Whereas Bristol have had lots of players who were chosen to play for England. I could list at least a dozen that readily come to mind during my lifetime, ie since the end of World War 2.

Admittedly in the amateur game which existed until about twenty years ago, they could be described as a "big" club although their status in recent times has diminished. Yet with older rugby supporters, there are many non Bristol fans, who are very pleased to see them back in the rugby Premiership. And if they are successful and end up challenging at the top, then they could easily have bigger gates than Rovers in League One. At present City appear to have attendance levels that will hold them as the biggest, unless of course, they belly flop down the leagues. This would seem unlikely at present but.............   

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So many people in the City playing football every weekend in leagues - I would say this city certainly has football in it's DNA, maybe people who do not live here cannot see it though as it's very grass root, community based and not in your face / advertised.

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23 minutes ago, Fiale said:

So many people in the City playing football every weekend in leagues - I would say this city certainly has football in it's DNA, maybe people who do not live here cannot see it though as it's very grass root, community based and not in your face / advertised.

Agree. With the Downs and the other leagues throughout the city, this has also always been used as one of the reasons we don't get better crowds at AG - everyone's playing!  

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7 hours ago, CrazyInWeston said:

Despite being in the same league for years, they've averaged the lowest attendance in this league....for years, even when newly promoted sides come up from leagues below their average attendence is higher than Westons.

If there was a reason for City fans to go watch WsM surely it'll be the fact that our boy MacCoulskey (sp?) is on loan there and he started the season on fire. 

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No such thing as a 'football city' really, as in 'X city is and Y city isn't'. Success breeds interest. If City and Rovers swapped histories with Liverpool and Everton respectively, people would question whether Liverpool is a football city. In a big city like ours, if we get sustained success, we will have crowds and interest.

There's a huge catchment area and plenty of passive interest in both Bristol sides who attend on occasion (Wembley attendances and some other big away supports'). These people might be friends of City/Rovers fans or list us as a second team but live in the area.  

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The biggest threat to crowds for City isn't Rugby or Rovers but the amount of plastic Premier League supporters. I would hazard a guess that there is over 100k fans of a Premier League team in this City that attend between zero and two live games in a season (of the team they follow). If each of those attended 1 game at Ashton Gate (a possibility should we get to the PL) then our average crowd would grow by over 4000.

Alternatively we could convert a few ourselves, we have a particularly good opportunity with no game for 2 weeks and the table showing us as a top 6 team so plenty of time to convince them. 

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On 29/08/2016 at 09:00, Ian M said:

The biggest threat to crowds for City isn't Rugby or Rovers but the amount of plastic Premier League supporters. I would hazard a guess that there is over 100k fans of a Premier League team in this City that attend between zero and two live games in a season (of the team they follow). If each of those attended 1 game at Ashton Gate (a possibility should we get to the PL) then our average crowd would grow by over 4000.

Alternatively we could convert a few ourselves, we have a particularly good opportunity with no game for 2 weeks and the table showing us as a top 6 team so plenty of time to convince them. 

Sorry to reply to my own post but how many STHs would be up for a challenge once the SAG let us fully open our stadium and the club send out our voucher to bring a friend for a tenner? Target a game that might be a lower attendance and each look to bring a mate who hasn't been before to that game. If we win that game I'd like to bet 50% would come again at full price. 

My choice would be Blackburn in October, 21 days after the previous home game so plenty of time for the club to arrange swaps so STHs can still sit with their mate they are bringing. It would be important to open the Lansdown Stand from the get go to allow movement (which would also free up spare seats in other areas for STHs mates to sit in. 

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4 hours ago, Ian M said:

Sorry to reply to my own post but how many STHs would be up for a challenge once the SAG let us fully open our stadium and the club send out our voucher to bring a friend for a tenner? Target a game that might be a lower attendance and each look to bring a mate who hasn't been before to that game. If we win that game I'd like to bet 50% would come again at full price. 

My choice would be Blackburn in October, 21 days after the previous home game so plenty of time for the club to arrange swaps so STHs can still sit with their mate they are bringing. It would be important to open the LS from the get go to allow movement (which would also free up spare seats in other areas for STHs mates to sit in. 

As a season ticket holder don't you get the chance for a cheap "guest" ticket as part of the deal? Or have I totally made that up? 

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1 hour ago, CyderInACan said:

As a season ticket holder don't you get the chance for a cheap "guest" ticket as part of the deal? Or have I totally made that up? 

Yeah that was what I meant in the first paragraph, could we as fans encourage each other through social media to bring a mate to the Blackburn game for example. That game should see the stadium completed but is early enough that a good performance could see some of those "mates" returning a few times over the remainder of the season. Plus Blackburn is pretty winnable. 

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27 minutes ago, Ian M said:

Yeah that was what I meant in the first paragraph, could we as fans encourage each other through social media to bring a mate to the Blackburn game for example. That game should see the stadium completed but is early enough that a good performance could see some of those "mates" returning a few times over the remainder of the season. Plus Blackburn is pretty winnable. 

Good idea should maybe start a thread so can decide for definite which game but Blackburn is a good shout and maybe put it on Twitter 

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2 hours ago, Kevin weet said:

Portishead town has the same problem as Weston local people watch the Bristol teams £10 a ticket isn't the way forward portishead is growing fast but they will always struggle for support along with nailsea and backwell and Clevedon.

Taunton played Bridgwater last Saturday, 20 years ago the crowd would have been 1,000 plus, Saturday's crowd was 384. Personally I blame football on tv as the reason people won't watch it live. There would have been a game on TVs until 2.45pm and then another at 5.15 pm. Midweek crowds in local football are even worse, people choose to watch a TVs game rather than support their local team.

As for Bristol being a football City, when you compare it with somewhere like Sheffield who have a teams in the same leagues as Bristol's clubs, it's clearly not.

You only have to see the thousands of us who travel from outside of Bristol to see that the Bristol public ( the vast majority) aren't sports fans.

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15 hours ago, Phileas Fogg said:

No such thing as a 'football city' really, as in 'X city is and Y city isn't'. Success breeds interest. If City and Rovers swapped histories with Liverpool and Everton respectively, people would question whether Liverpool is a football city. In a big city like ours, if we get sustained success, we will have crowds and interest.

There's a huge catchment area and plenty of passive interest in both Bristol sides who attend on occasion (Wembley attendances and some other big away supports'). These people might be friends of City/Rovers fans or list us as a second team but live in the area.  

True words PF. 

Although Bristol is different from somewhere like Middlesbrough,  Preston, Wolverhampton etc in that it is full of people who moved into the area. I think we have had the largest inward net migration of any large city in the UK for many years..

Hopefully, a successful BCFC will attract the kids of these incomers, even if few themselves attend games.

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