Stadium Expansion

Hmm. But St. Albans is officially a city.

 

Our official attendances are up on the average from our most successful season ever (= first year in the top division under GT, when the average was about 19500). In days gone by attendances were bigger than nowadays (nothing else to do, standing on terraces, really cheap).

 

But we've already got one team from Herts in the FL (Stevenage) and possibly two next season (if the Wood's run keeps going) - should the local grassroots' support of these teams be sacrificed on the altar of the PL's riches? Or do we move into half&half scarf territory?

 

I hope you didn't use that calculator when sitting maths exams

 

Sorry but that’s not quite right. Our attendances now are certainly bigger than in the First Division in the 80s but general attendance levels were much lower then than they are now, mainly due to hooliganism and football being ‘uncool’. It was an irony that our best period up to that point on the pitch coincided with the worst period for football’s image and popularity.

 

Very surprised to read that now (supported in other sources on the web too).

I am absolutely sure we averaged over 20,000 in 82-83 based on memories at the time - I remember being proud that we had done so. Perhaps it league attendences I am thinking of.

One thing people were pretty sure of back then, was that they were being understated for declaration of tax. Best example was the Liverpool/Milford debacle in the cup. The attendance was officially stated at 300 under capacity, however the stadium was dangerously over full.

And believe it or not, those poor unfortunate little scouser cherubs were unlucky enough to have a wall fall down in front of them down the Rookery end, allowing access for those who were otherwise desperate to find a turnstyle so they could pay their dues. How unlucky can you get eh? I remember Denis (Nigel's Dad, coach, scout and ground maintenance man) Gibbs taking some brickies round to rebuild the wall the next day.

 

Perhaps we could get him to help design the SEJ stand extension? "the stand will feature 'low crotch' padded seats with full length zips.. "

 

One things for sure, accessibility will definitely need to be improved if there's any SEJ extension, it's already a f'in nightmare to get out of the ground up Occupation Road, let alone if there's another 5k

 

OK, fair enough, but actually I was thinking of further back:
In the sixties we'd have maybe 15/16000 at home against QPR, say, or Brentford (Third Division), 13000 perhaps against also-rans from further away. Obviously this is a generalisation.

 

Well I am proud to say that I was born and bred in the wonderful City of St Albans. We also have two Garden Cities as well

 

I believe St Albans to be one of the loveliest cities in England. The cathedral and conservation area are stunning,Mozart's Requiem is spectacular in the Abbey.
WGC and LGC have their pleasant parts but St Albans is a top six city I think.

 

Ah yes, Snorbens: "The Country's 2nd Best* Pretend Cambridge"

*After Canterbury.

 

If the SEJ extension was reserved for patrons who promise to leave 10 mins early because of exasperation over Holebas, this would be less of an issue.

 

When people say something is top 6, it does sound like it is sixth best.

Eg, @rsenal are a top 6 team.

 

Here's a list of all our average league attendances over the 15K mark.

Season Att Level
85/86 15,360 1
05/06 15,450 2
79/80 15,462 2
13/14 15,512 2
86/87 15,800 1
83/84 16,510 1
14/15 16,664 2
07/08 16,876 2
69/70 17,223 2
84/85 18,246 1
99/00 18,544 1
06/07 18,751 1
82/83 19,488 1
16/17 20,571 1
15/16 20,594 1

Currently we are averaging 20,223. A bit down on the last 2 seasons, probably due to the reduced capacity from the close season works.

I'm not sure at what point the club started counting season tickets holders regardless of attendance but fairly sure they didnt in 82/83. So i would suggest that in terms of actual attendees that season would have seen the most fans in the ground.

 

Same thing happened before the Bradford 7-2 win in 89. I'm guessing that wasn't a horde of Bradford crazies trying to get in for free. It was actually a storm the night before.

 

Another thing to note is that currently the attendance is pretty stable at just below capacity, even allowing for no-show ST holders, but back in the 80s there was a huge discrepancy between the high and low league match crowds. We would get 25,000 or more for Liverpool but sometimes as little as half that for someone like Coventry. So the average back then was greatly increased by just a few big games.

 

Indeed. For instance the highest and lowest home league crowds of the 82/83 season actually came within days of each other in March..

Sat 19 Mar Tottenham Hotspur Att 27,373
Tue 22 Mar Birmingham City Att 14,229

 

I don’t quite get the ‘build it and they will come’ argument. At Wembley we struggle to sell 30,000 and that must be our total support (even me mum who never goes).

No one like seeing empty seats so I’m happy at the capacity the way it is thank you

 

There are apparently over 3000 on the waiting list for season tickets, and I'm sure there are many others who cannot committ to a ST for various reasons, but would like to get to some games who currently can't buy tickets, plus surely we should be looking forward as a club and expect our fan base to grow? Therefore I don't think a 30K seater stadium would be unrealistic.

One thing I would say, is that perhaps there should be a section of unreserved seating, because if you want to buy tickets for an idividual game, finding two seats together is not an easy task, and if you want more it is virtually impossible.

IMO if there was such a section, casual individual match sales would probably show a big increase.

 

This is true. However, after spending what felt like 2 hours leaving the AMEX this season, I now count myself lucky!

 

In business its about what will happen in the future

If you track the region population growth from the 80s to now I imagine there will have been a sizeable increase, and if you project forwards another 20 years more so

That's what will define and drive stadium expansion

 

What an excellent post.
I agree entirely.

 

From the Watford Borough Council website..
"The resident population estimate for Watford on Census Day 2011 was 90,300. This was an increase of 13.3% compared to the figure of 79,726 from the 2001 Census. On the 23 June 2017, ONS released the mid-year population estimate as at the 30 Jun 2016 (MYE 2016) and Watford's estimate is 96,800"

So current trends would suggest a population growth for the Watford area of 10-13% per decade.. or 10,000 residents give or take. I wonder what percentage of those are likely to be match attending football fans mind?

I think there's more to it than just population growth mind.. not least how the team are performing.

 

We're about to move out of the conservation area. Wanna buy a house, IBB? Ten quid off as it's you

 

It's about potential.
When everything is taken into consideration, but particularly where we are based, next to London, tube and mainline links, plus motorway links we have more potential to GROW our fan base in 10 years than any other Club I can think of, IMO.

 

Which shows why GT got discouraged by interest dropping off once people thought we were established as a mid-table top flight team

 

Of course... popularity of football.. competing entertainment.. prices.. quality of football at the vic.. it would be complex to model

The largest effect I think is the league we are in, attendances always fall when a club is relegated

The basic premise though (if all variables stay within reasonable limits) then a population increase means a larger market

 

Some projections, I've only had a cursory look but there is some interesting stuff here

http://atlas.hertslis.org/profiles/profile?profileId=1036&geoTypeId=16&geoIds=E10000015#

c30% increase projected for Watford from 2014 to 2039

 

Which is not far short of double the national average. 125K people in Watford by 2039.. where are they going to put them all?!

Looking at that we should act fast on re-locating the stadium.. before we run out of land on which to build.

 

Agree, no one likes seeing a half empty stadium but the fact is if you limit the capacity to 20,000 there is absolutely no way you can increase your fan base. Every venue has its limit and the question is what is Vicarage Roads.
Obviously that depends on what league Watford play in. If you don't take a risk (is it really a risk?) to build to 30k you will never know if you could fill it. In my opinion if we stay in the Premier League we will fill it. If I'm wrong
there will always be seating available which is not a bad thing to have as you can attract new fans. With a growing population, Premier League football a 30K stadium is not unrealistic.

 

Here’s something to consider. If we had a 25K capacity we could house all those currently on the season ticket waiting list so then we would broadly be in a similar situation to now, albeit with a larger stadium. But if we went up to a 30K capacity it’s likely that we would have to accept a significant number of empty seats (several thousand) except for the games against the ‘big’ teams. Would people be happy for the club to operate a variable away section, depending on the opposition, so that the stadium was full on those occasions? For example we could have a 30K capacity crowd with 7,000 Scousers filling the Vicarage Road end, or is that a step too far?

 

A step too far. Don't clubs only have to allocate 3000 anyway - or 10% if the stadium holds less than 30K?

 

Not really a step too far. An adjustable away section isn't unique. Maybe not in the PL but Forest I know operate such a system as do others.
Most PL teams would bring more than 3k to the Vic if tickets were available and if we had our non-season ticket holders in the same stand and demand is poor for any given game just increase the away section. Seems obvious to me.

 

Definitely worth taking a financial risk on, if indeed there is one; build the extra tier, take the capacity up to 30k.

Give tickets to schools, youth clubs and what not - do what City do. Then spend £300m in one transfer window....

Definitely worth a punt.