Football Hotbeds

[Arjan Van Schotte]

following on from "worst football cities" - here's a little table i knocked up showing population (2001) -v- average attendance 09/10):


city pop. av. att. factor
1 manchester 394,269 120,377 3.28
2 burnley 73,021 20,664 3.53
3 blackburn 105,085 25,428 4.13
4 newcastle 189,863 43,388 4.38
5 sunderland 177,739 40,325 4.41
6 wigan 81,204 18,006 4.51
7 barnsley 71,559 12,964 5.52
8 liverpool 469,017 79,589 5.89
9 west bromwich 135,940 22,199 6.12
10 doncaster 67,977 10,992 6.18
11 bolton 139,403 21,881 6.37
12 ipswich 138,718 20,841 6.66
13 Norwich City 174,047 24,671 7.05
14 middlesbrough 142,691 19,948 7.15
15 derby 229,407 29,207 7.85
16 nottingham 249,854 31,184 8.01
17 watford 120,960 14,345 8.43
18 wolves 251,462 28,366 8.86
19 Yeovil Town FC 41,871 4,664 8.98
20 sheffield 439,866 48,299 9.11
21 Huddersfield Town 146,234 14,381 10.17
22 portsmouth 187,056 18,259 10.24
23 swansea 169,880 15,407 11.03
24 stoke 362,403 32,644 11.1
25 Southampton FC 234,224 20,982 11.16
26 Scunthorpe United FC 72,660 6,464 11.24
27 Shrewsbury Town FC 67,126 5,482 12.24
28 hull 301,416 24,390 12.36
29 reading 232,662 17,408 13.37
30 Burton Albion  43,784 3,213 13.63
31 Carlisle United FC 71,773 5,210 13.78
32 leicester 330,574 23,943 13.81
33 cardiff 292,150 20,717 14.1
34 preston 184,836 12,935 14.29
35 Tranmere Rovers 83,729 5,671 14.76
36 Wycombe Wanderers 83,729 5,544 15.1
37 birmingham 970,892 63,819 15.21
38 Peterborough United FC 136,292 8,913 15.29
39 Gillingham FC 98,403 6,335 15.53
40 Blackpool FC 142,283 8,611 16.52
41 Crewe Alexandra FC 67,683 4,075 16.61
42 coventry 303,475 17,305 17.54
43 Accrington Stanley FC 35,203 1,980 17.78
44 Leeds United FC 443,247 24,818 17.86
45 Milton Keynes Dons 184,506 10,290 17.93
46 Chesterfield FC 70,260 3,849 18.25
47 Exeter City FC 106,772 5,832 18.31
48 Swindon Town FC 155,432 8,389 18.53
49 Aldershot Town FC 58,170 3,086 18.85
50 Colchester United FC 104,390 5,530 18.88
51 bristol 420,556 21,644 19.43
52 Grimsby Town FC 87,574 4,430 19.77
53 Bury 60,718 3,029 20.05
54 Southend United 160,257 7,714 20.77
55 Morecambe FC 49,569 2,262 21.91
56 Torquay United FC 62,968 2,856 22.05
57 Oldham Athletic AFC 103,544 4,630 22.36
58 Lincoln City FC 85,963 3,670 23.42
59 plymouth 243,795 10,316 23.63
60 Hartlepool United FC 86,075 3,444 24.99
61 Bradford City AFC 293,717 11,423 25.71
62 Hereford United FC 56,373 2,139 26.35
63 Macclesfield Town 50,688 1,887 26.86
64 london 7,172,000 263,897 27.18
65 Rochdale AFC 95,796 3,443 27.82
66 AFC Bournemouth 167,527 5,720 29.29
67 Cheltenham Town 98,875 3,243 30.49
68 Rotherham United FC 117,262 3,817 30.72
69 Stockport County 136,082 4,420 30.79
70 Brighton 205,211 6,467 31.73
71 Walsall FC 170,994 4,029 42.44
72 Northampton Town 189,474 4,380 43.26
73 Darlington 86,082 1,943 44.3

[Kladze]

Fascinating ....... looks like a load of IP addresses ;-)

[Arjan Van Schotte]

Fascinating ....... looks like a load of IP addresses ;-)

yeah, not too pretty. dunno how to post a spreadsheet up.

columns are population/avg. attendance/factor

[Goataldo]

Cheers, I feel like rainman having a nightmare.

[Goataldo]

Fascinating ....... looks like a load of IP addresses ;-)

yeah, not too pretty. dunno how to post a spreadsheet up.

columns are population/avg. attendance/factor

Pardon my ignorance, but please define 'factor' in this context.

[Arjan Van Schotte]

Fascinating ....... looks like a load of IP addresses ;-)

yeah, not too pretty. dunno how to post a spreadsheet up.

columns are population/avg. attendance/factor

Pardon my ignorance, but please define 'factor' in this context.

just pop. divided by avg. attendance. kinda gives you a base "score"

[Kladze]

Cheers, I feel like rainman having a nightmare.

ROFL

[Beefymcfc]

That proves our stadium isn't big enough.

[Alex Sapphire]

you haven't included the pouplation of Salford (or Kuala Lumpur) in that Manchester number have you?

[Beefymcfc]

I thought we had around 480,000 in Manchester and about 2 and half mil in Greater Manchester?

[Socrates]

you haven't included the pouplation of Salford (or Kuala Lumpur) in that Manchester number have you?

Manchester City Region is about 2.5 million, you'd have to add in the attendances of Bolton, Wigan etc to give a true figure.

[ronk]

It's a stunning figure when you think of it. 1 in every 3.3 people (man, woman and child) in Manchester goes to the football at the weekend on average. Obviously it's distorted by the large numbers of people who commute to games, but that's a major contribution to the Manchester economy.

[Im_Spartacus]

It's a stunning figure when you think of it. 1 in every 3.3 people (man, woman and child) in Manchester goes to the football at the weekend on average. Obviously it's distorted by the large numbers of people who commute to games, but that's a major contribution to the Manchester economy.

How does London get a population of 7m on this list(the population of Greater London)....yet Manchester's population is just that for the City of Manchester - somewhat distorts things. As does the very high percentage of students from elsewhere living within the City of Manchester, and have never been to a match in their life.

I'd wager that very very few people actually living within the City of Manchester go to watch either club -but only whisper that, or we won't be able to rip the rags for not being from Manchester

[Nigels Tackle]

It's a stunning figure when you think of it. 1 in every 3.3 people (man, woman and child) in Manchester goes to the football at the weekend on average. Obviously it's distorted by the large numbers of people who commute to games, but that's a major contribution to the Manchester economy.

How does London get a population of 7m on this list(the population of Greater London)....yet Manchester's population is just that for the City of Manchester - somewhat distorts things. As does the very high percentage of students from elsewhere living within the City of Manchester, and have never been to a match in their life.

I'd wager that very very few people actually living within the City of Manchester go to watch either club -but only whisper that, or we won't be able to rip the rags for not being from Manchester

because this is a perfect example of lies, damned lies and statistics!

[john68]

My apologies Arjan, because there seems to have been fair bit of thought and effort gone into that mate

You have noted the City of Manchester population and included the rags. You have ommited the population of Trafford, where they fester.
Sorry mate.

[CitizenYank]

You guys are acting like the guys on the US Big Soccer Forum. They are always judging attendance to population
sizes, stadium capacity and team profitability. There must be a lot of entrepreneurs and accountants among football fans.

As long as you look around and your the seats are full, chances are your living in a hotbed!!

[Trautmann]

I heard many years ago that a good predictor of quality of life in a city is the success of their football team. The higher the attendance, the lower the quality of life. That seems to be borne out by the data here--the small "gritty" towns have amazing factor numbers.

[CitizenYank]

I heard many years ago that a good predictor of quality of life in a city is the success of their football team. The higher the attendance, the lower the quality of life. That seems to be borne out by the data here--the small "gritty" towns have amazing factor numbers.

Bingo!! I come from one of the smaller US metro areas. Portland, OR: Highest drug use under 18, Major drug trafficking, Highest Suicide Rate of any major US city. The local NBA team holds the modern record for sellouts in American pro sports 25 years, not even Man City can beat that. The state college football team draws 55 thousand a game, the MLS team has about twelve thousand season ticket holders. The civic pride we take in athletics is everything.

There is nothing else to do. Unless you like getting rained on.

[Arjan Van Schotte]

hi - yeah, of course it's not it's not perfect by any means.

will try and quickly answer some of the questions here:

the pop. stats used are here: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/s ... 1&Rank=224

of course i skewed the manchester figure - puts us top :) it's pretty impossible to give a useful figure for london/brum/manc. i think it's hardest for manc urban area tho coz it includes very distinct towns such as wigan, bolton, oldham etc unlike say "sandwell" or newham, lewisham etc. the pop. figure for barnet for example is knocking on 400K so they're obv. not interested in football (has one of the highest number of football season ticket holders for other clubs tho...)

apologies to those of you that have taken it very seriously and got all snotty - was just a bit of fun! and where the greater manchester urban area is concerned i think it's been interesting to show bolton and wigan so high up when they're often slated for their poor attendances. looking down the top 20 or so i think it's interesting to note that the real football hotbeds are apparently the north and east anglia!