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Are we a sleeping giant?


Desso

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As @steviestevieneville says, in the 70s it was, roughly:

76/7: 23,500 average

77/8: 21,000

78/9: 21,000

79/80: 19,000

Enthusiasm to start, then, second season: "you going v Middlesbrough Saturday?" "Er, no, going v Liverpool the week after."

Even in 78/9, when we were 6th for a while and Europe was talked about, and finished 13th, one of the finest 4 or 5 seasons in our history, a few thousand had lost interest, drifted away, surrendered to the familiar West Country indifference.

Part of that was the state of the game - which was in decline across the country - in the late 70s, and it's different now with football enjoying tremendous popularity, and the comfort of AG quite a contrast with 1970s AG, but you cannot get away from the fact that people around here are different to people in Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield, the Midlands and so on.

When it comes to following football week in, week out, we're just different. And broadly speaking, just cannot be bloody arsed. Not every week.

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2 minutes ago, cidered abroad said:

We averaged more than the gates announced by the club.

Fiddling by turnstile operators and much larger financial leakage at board level.

I've been in there when 35,000 announced as 27,000 and this happened all the time. If we go up and had the capacity, I believe we would fill 30,000 ourselves plus away fans.

Initially maybe but a full house v Brighton of Brentford ? No chance 

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1 minute ago, Moments of Pleasure said:

As @steviestevieneville says, in the 70s it was, roughly:

76/7: 23,500 average

77/8: 21,000

78/9: 21,000

79/80: 19,000

Enthusiasm to start, then, second season: "you going v Middlesbrough Saturday?" "Er, no, going v Liverpool the week after."

Even in 78/9, when we were 6th for a while and Europe was talked about, and finished 13th, one of the finest 4 or 5 seasons in our history, a few thousand had lost interest, drifted away, surrendered to the familiar West Country indifference.

Part of that was the state of the game - which was in decline across the country - in the late 70s, and it's different now with football enjoying tremendous popularity, and the comfort of AG quite a contrast with 1970s AG, but you cannot get away from the fact that people around here are different to people in Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield, the Midlands and so on.

When it comes to following football week in, week out, we're just different. And broadly speaking, just cannot be bloody arsed. Not every week.

True. I heard Jamie charraghers podcast recently with joe cole. He said . I thought people in London loved their football but after moving to Liverpool it’s a different level . They live & breath it. 
we just don’t do that here really, never have done. 

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I remember City being referred to as a sleeping giant when I was a child in the 80s. But I suppose back then our time in the top flight in the 70s was a recent memory. 

Terms like sleeping giant, and “big club” (I hate that one), are meaningless. 

For a city the size of Bristol, City have definitely underachieved as a club for much of our history. We have the potential and catchment area to be an established Premier League club, and maybe our time will come. 

The infrastructure (AG and training ground) is there. Behind the scenes, with NP’s knowhow, we are hopefully making progress after MA’s tenure.  

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Depends exactly how you define "sleeping giant".

We're definitely a club with a great potential which we've never really got close to actually realising. As others have said, we also have capacity for notable growth given our catchment area and the lack of other "big teams" in our area. I'd say we're possibly the most underachieving club in the country, but with that comes the potential to become a much "bigger" club.

Perhaps "giant waiting to be born" would be more accurate than "sleeping giant"? ? But something like that, yes.

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1 hour ago, Moments of Pleasure said:

It's all about the "catchment area" and the distance from the "glamour" clubs. Thing is, most football fans in the bleedin "catchment area" around here already "support" one of the bleedin "glamour" clubs. Most locals don't have the stomach for supporting a non "glamour" club.

I suppose some of them might go "half and half" : Chelsea and Bristol City, or Man/Bristol City.

I see where you're coming from, though I think a sustained period of Premier League football might change that.

When I first started going to watch City, my classmates at school chose to support a "glamour club" not because they disliked Bristol City, but because their interest was in Prem football, Match of the Day, Match Attax cards etc. In other words, they chose a Premier League club to support as they had no local team representing them in the Prem.

I think a sustained period in the Premier League for Bristol City would be likely to cause a notably greater percentage of kids in the South West to grow up supporting their local team.

I believe Gary Johnson might have said something along the lines of "Success breeds support, and Bristol City haven't had much success"

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2 hours ago, cidercity1987 said:

Our fanbase is great considering our lack of success. 20k on Friday, check out the other attendances in the Champ this season.

If we were ever successful our fanbase would explode too

 

 

1 hour ago, steviestevieneville said:

Don’t talk like a gas head. Even in the top flight we averaged mid twent thousands that’s with people coming over the bridge & up from the south west that disappeared as soon as we got relegated. 
There’s a lot of non bristolians living here now so we might pick a few of them. But explode is going over the top 

Fan base is irrelevant. The big money comes from TV revenue in the Premier League. Bums on seats is just a side show. 

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1 hour ago, steviestevieneville said:

Don’t talk like a gas head. Even in the top flight we averaged mid twent thousands that’s with people coming over the bridge & up from the south west that disappeared as soon as we got relegated. 
There’s a lot of non bristolians living here now so we might pick a few of them. But explode is going over the top 

We, and rovers, would both sell out our end at Wembley in any comp fairly easily. Lots of people have a ‘soft spot’ for either club and either live in Bristol or outside. If we became an established Prem club we’d begin to convert lots of those fans into regulars. The potential is there. 

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2 hours ago, Phileas Fogg said:

We, and rovers, would both sell out our end at Wembley in any comp fairly easily. Lots of people have a ‘soft spot’ for either club and either live in Bristol or outside. If we became an established Prem club we’d begin to convert lots of those fans into regulars. The potential is there. 

Not sure that attendance at Wembley is any indicator. Always a load of folk having a day out who would never go to the Gate.

(Well do I remember tell my in-laws that my son and me were going to Wembley to see City play Stoke in 2000. Father in law says he's never been, so I do the nice thing and offer to take him. He says thanks, and then 'hear that Margaret, John's taking us to Wembley'. At that my wife says 'well, if your taking mum and dad then me and Amy (daughter) will go as well. All of a sudden our party had gone from 2 to 6. Olympic Gallery. Cost me a bl**dy fortune. Since then not one of the 4 extras has attended one match, not that I've ever made that mistake again!)

 

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2 hours ago, Phileas Fogg said:

We, and rovers, would both sell out our end at Wembley in any comp fairly easily. Lots of people have a ‘soft spot’ for either club and either live in Bristol or outside. If we became an established Prem club we’d begin to convert lots of those fans into regulars. The potential is there. 

Day trippers go to Wembley . If we really had 40,000 fans why don’t we sell out every week 

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2 minutes ago, Shaun Taylor said:

Living off the early to mid 70's but still have a loyal fanbase at home 

Yeh to be fair Derby’s home and away support is very good for the championship

was also rumours a few months ago Vincent tan was looking to offload Cardiff so maybe them , capital city and only 3 league teams in there country the potential could be massive as much as I hate them

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Be wary of US owners- oh there are plenty of good ones but they have a liking for leveraged buyouts.

US 'money men'- sounds like leveraged buyouts could be possible there.

At Man Utd it's absorbable but caused some difficulties and lots of bad feeling, at Burnley it feels less easy to absorb...outside the PL- careful what you wish for!

Derby had US Owners pre Mel Morris- dunno how happy they were with their work/input though.

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3 minutes ago, Wiltshire robin said:

Yeh to be fair Derby’s home and away support is very good for the championship

was also rumours a few months ago Vincent tan was looking to offload Cardiff so maybe them , capital city and only 3 league teams in there country the potential could be massive as much as I hate them

A shame the Welsh FA don't muster up another 16 teams along with Cardiff, Newport, Swanseas & Wrexham and put them all in the Welsh league so we can forget about them!

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Bristol is a sleeping giant if city/rovers merged. (Won't ever happen!)

Will always have big interest for the big games and if we ever went up, but as people have eluded not really a giant as there's not been that success to keep the interest going.

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