| Average Crowds 18:23 - Oct 12 with 9779 views | ipswichtillidie |
A lot being made of the fantastic support. I wonder when/if the club look to increase the capacity. The new owners would surely look at this given how they have done things so far. It would increase the sell on from a business perspective greatly too. My question would be could we generate the support to fill say a 40,000 all seater. Maybe even larger with safe standing. Looking at the list from the link below if we could establish ourselves around that number it would be a huge step in cementing our long term aspirations of being a (BiG) club again. Perhaps they might look at a new venue. All conservations they would have had.
Just a thought…
https://www.eadt.co.uk/sport/ipswich-town/ipswich-town-home-crowds-among-biggest |  |
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| Average Crowds on 09:07 - Oct 13 with 1774 views | blueislander |
| Average Crowds on 21:29 - Oct 12 by ITFC_Forever |
I think it would slightly, but not by loads. |
It doesn’t . It decreases it. |  | | |
| Average Crowds on 09:18 - Oct 13 with 1739 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Average Crowds on 20:30 - Oct 12 by Hipsterectomy |
Or MK Dons stadium which I think was designed to be easily upgradeable to 40,000/45,000
just why [Post edited 12 Oct 2022 20:33]
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Ha! Does it really? That's the very definition of over-optimism. |  |
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| Average Crowds on 10:14 - Oct 13 with 1687 views | Wallingford_Boy |
| Average Crowds on 19:00 - Oct 12 by Marshalls_Mullet |
30,000 is about right for the club, even if we reached the Prem. |
Hardly, we average almost that now in Div 3!!
I'd say 40,000 is about right for our ambition of returning to the top flight.
Obviously don't go out and build it tomorrow, but IF we go up next season and then push on, I would think an extension of PR is the next obvious step. |  |
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| Average Crowds on 10:17 - Oct 13 with 1684 views | azuremerlangus |
Once the pitch is sorted out in the summer they could fill in that corner with seats (above the screen) and give that bit to the away fans? It would be completely separate from the rest of Cobbold & SAR, allowing home fans utilise the whole of of the Cobbold without any wasted seats. Probably going to add about 2.5k? |  |
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| Average Crowds on 10:25 - Oct 13 with 1680 views | OldFart71 |
I think if there is any desire to develop PR then the capacity has to be 35,000 minimum with better facilities for corporate boxes probably placed at the top of the stand instead of at the bottom where currently situated. The Cobbold stand was opened season 70-71 so over 50 years old and I believe the plans to be for that one to be replaced. Mind you it would have to be some development to increase the ground capacity to 35,000 as this stand only holds some 1,900. The original idea of the SBR stand and the SAR stands being built was not only for the fact that we had achieved Premier League status, but was also for England under 23 Internationals which required a 30,000 capacity. For those that like stats the largest crowd was the F.A. Cup versus Leeds Utd where some 38,000 crammed into PR. In the old days it was commonplace for supporters to sit on the edge of the pitch which of course is now considered a danger to supporters and players alike. | | | |
| Average Crowds on 10:25 - Oct 13 with 1678 views | N2_Blue |
| Average Crowds on 10:14 - Oct 13 by Wallingford_Boy |
Hardly, we average almost that now in Div 3!!
I'd say 40,000 is about right for our ambition of returning to the top flight.
Obviously don't go out and build it tomorrow, but IF we go up next season and then push on, I would think an extension of PR is the next obvious step. |
Level of football is not the only determinator of crowds.
I'd say we are nearly at our ceiling in terms of size of crowd that can consistently be achieved. This is due to pick up of club fortunes of team on pitch currently but most important that we are playing good and exciting football. (The actually level of football is almost irrelevant, people just want to be entertained and see their local team trying to play good football)
There are no guarantees we will have this in Champ or PL, especially after a few seasons as the novelty wears off.
There is a reason why we are getting bigger gates in L1 that we did in Champ even in the playoff season under Mick - it's the football.
40k really is too big for a club our size. We would spend the majority of our time playing in a stadium 2/3rds full and even potentially half full outside of the PL.
Redevelopment would be improving facilities and hospitality, updating stands that need them and a potential small increase in capacity but i seriously doubt we've ever increase capacity at PR much past low 30s. |  |
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| Average Crowds on 10:35 - Oct 13 with 1673 views | ipswichtillidie |
| Average Crowds on 10:14 - Oct 13 by Wallingford_Boy |
Hardly, we average almost that now in Div 3!!
I'd say 40,000 is about right for our ambition of returning to the top flight.
Obviously don't go out and build it tomorrow, but IF we go up next season and then push on, I would think an extension of PR is the next obvious step. |
I’m of this view point I must say. My point for sure though is that I believe it will be something they will want to do at “some” point. When and how is a debate for another day. | |
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| Average Crowds on 12:07 - Oct 13 with 1621 views | carlisleaway |
| Average Crowds on 19:28 - Oct 12 by jayessess |
I think we've already got the highest attendance on that list relative to the size of the city/town.
Norwich, Ipswich and Middlesbrough are the only urban areas with a population under 150,000 with a team in the top 25. Yes, we've got a big catchment area but we are punching above our weight with attendances as it is.
Not owning our stadium is a big issue for moving. We can't recoup money from the land. I think there's obvious scope to rebuild the East and West Stands and age will probably force us to at some point. We'll surely aim to increase capacity somewhat when we do. But I've seen nothing to suggest it needs to more than 5k (this isn't a "build it and they will come thing", we know how many people want Ipswich Town tickets at any given times! Extra 10k? If we've got a waiting list at 30k maybe you consider it!) and the timing will have to be absolutely spot on. Are we going to have the breathing space to forego some revenue during construction? Is the investment going to affect the playing budget? Very easy, as we've seen in the past, to get stuck playing lower league football in a half empty stadium that you built for sunnier days. |
Norwich have a population of 202,000 as compared to 134,000 for Ipswich |  | | |
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| Average Crowds on 12:47 - Oct 13 with 1572 views | ipswichtillidie |
Thousands and thousands of regular Town fans don’t live in Ipswich. I was born there and that’s really my only association since tbh. I live in N.Essex now. Population in the east of England his risen from 5.4million to 6.3million since the turn of the century. I think what’s key is looking at the future generation of supporters. I believe with the foundation the club are doing this amongst many other things.
https://www.plumplot.co.uk/East-of-England-population.html [Post edited 13 Oct 2022 12:57]
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| Average Crowds on 14:26 - Oct 13 with 1499 views | jayessess |
| Average Crowds on 12:47 - Oct 13 by ipswichtillidie |
Thousands and thousands of regular Town fans don’t live in Ipswich. I was born there and that’s really my only association since tbh. I live in N.Essex now. Population in the east of England his risen from 5.4million to 6.3million since the turn of the century. I think what’s key is looking at the future generation of supporters. I believe with the foundation the club are doing this amongst many other things.
https://www.plumplot.co.uk/East-of-England-population.html [Post edited 13 Oct 2022 12:57]
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Plenty of Town fans from outside Ipswich for sure, but there's no real precedent for teams getting 40,000 fans on an average week without being in a big city. Only Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Newcastle and London do as it stands. |  |
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| Average Crowds on 14:54 - Oct 13 with 1473 views | ipswichtillidie |
| Average Crowds on 14:26 - Oct 13 by jayessess |
Plenty of Town fans from outside Ipswich for sure, but there's no real precedent for teams getting 40,000 fans on an average week without being in a big city. Only Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Newcastle and London do as it stands. |
I think 40,000 because it was mentioned has been used as barometer to judge a “not feasible or feasible” option. I stated that “if” we got to that level (ever at some point) then we could consider ourselves as perhaps one of the more elite teams again. Perhaps they will look to develop a stand gradually if it’s ever looked at. | |
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| Average Crowds on 15:11 - Oct 13 with 1457 views | oldburian |
| Average Crowds on 19:17 - Oct 12 by ipswichtillidie |
I return to my previous comment that demographically things have changed.. Perhaps you might have noticed the odd house popping up over the last few years. Take a look a populations of local areas now compared to 22 years ago where as your link will show we were getting gates of 25/26/27 k. I just think if you look at history and use it as an excuse your doomed to fail. Look at Weat Ham as an example. They use to have gates around those levels now they fill a large 60k all seater. We could get attendances up and match day prices down… |
New housing is not the only factor, the evidence is quite near in that Colchester is the fastest growing town in the country according to some data and it ha had a dramatic effect on their attendances, they have gone down on average. | | | |
| Average Crowds on 15:32 - Oct 13 with 1441 views | mrfixit426 |
| Average Crowds on 15:11 - Oct 13 by oldburian |
New housing is not the only factor, the evidence is quite near in that Colchester is the fastest growing town in the country according to some data and it ha had a dramatic effect on their attendances, they have gone down on average. |
I've been to watch them this season. I can assure you the dwindling crowds are not down to demographics! |  | | |
| Average Crowds on 15:37 - Oct 13 with 1426 views | rickw |
I don't think this is something to worry about until we start to get 29,500+ regularly and perhaps established in the PL, otherwise it's a massive outlay which would take years to pay back |  |
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| Average Crowds on 15:41 - Oct 13 with 1404 views | ipswichtillidie |
| Average Crowds on 15:37 - Oct 13 by rickw |
I don't think this is something to worry about until we start to get 29,500+ regularly and perhaps established in the PL, otherwise it's a massive outlay which would take years to pay back |
28,000 is practically a sell out your mistaken if you think we can get anywhere near 30k currently. You’ll not sell out restricted views and single seats as well as there being restrictions in certain areas of the ground which bring the capacity down. It’s been spoken about by MA. They were trying to resolve it I think or improve situation [Post edited 13 Oct 2022 16:04]
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| Average Crowds on 17:06 - Oct 13 with 1376 views | bournemouthblue |
| Average Crowds on 10:25 - Oct 13 by N2_Blue |
Level of football is not the only determinator of crowds.
I'd say we are nearly at our ceiling in terms of size of crowd that can consistently be achieved. This is due to pick up of club fortunes of team on pitch currently but most important that we are playing good and exciting football. (The actually level of football is almost irrelevant, people just want to be entertained and see their local team trying to play good football)
There are no guarantees we will have this in Champ or PL, especially after a few seasons as the novelty wears off.
There is a reason why we are getting bigger gates in L1 that we did in Champ even in the playoff season under Mick - it's the football.
40k really is too big for a club our size. We would spend the majority of our time playing in a stadium 2/3rds full and even potentially half full outside of the PL.
Redevelopment would be improving facilities and hospitality, updating stands that need them and a potential small increase in capacity but i seriously doubt we've ever increase capacity at PR much past low 30s. |
In the second Premier League season we had 27k applications for season tickets and our away section has never been that big, especially by Prem standards
I'd agree early 30ks would make sense but I'd reckon about 35k would be doable
The record 38k would have beaten in our glory years, had capacity not been capped at 34k imho |  |
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| Average Crowds on 17:22 - Oct 13 with 1363 views | bournemouthblue |
| Average Crowds on 12:47 - Oct 13 by ipswichtillidie |
Thousands and thousands of regular Town fans don’t live in Ipswich. I was born there and that’s really my only association since tbh. I live in N.Essex now. Population in the east of England his risen from 5.4million to 6.3million since the turn of the century. I think what’s key is looking at the future generation of supporters. I believe with the foundation the club are doing this amongst many other things.
https://www.plumplot.co.uk/East-of-England-population.html [Post edited 13 Oct 2022 12:57]
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Ipswich's catchment area is fairly vast, a successful Ipswich would appeal to much of North Essex which I would argue probably makes our potential fanbase larger than that of Norwich but I think the numbers are more elastic when we are doing well, so we may see a greater drop off but could go higher than them too, at our peak | |
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| Average Crowds on 17:48 - Oct 13 with 1345 views | pennblue |
Yes it is definitely possible, look at Brighton, they used to get crowds of 7,000 at the old Goldstone ground. | |
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| Average Crowds on 17:57 - Oct 13 with 1331 views | textbackup |
| Average Crowds on 15:32 - Oct 13 by mrfixit426 |
I've been to watch them this season. I can assure you the dwindling crowds are not down to demographics! |
you mean to say the itfc oap's arent ripping up trees? |  |
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| Average Crowds on 22:32 - Oct 13 with 1269 views | mrfixit426 |
| Average Crowds on 17:57 - Oct 13 by textbackup |
you mean to say the itfc oap's arent ripping up trees? |
I've only seen one game. Chambers was ok. and Sears looked lively. I think Skuse touched the ball three times before he was taken off. Tubby Judge looked like he'd put on a couple of stone, huffed and puffed in the centre of midfield with about 20 yds of space around him all game and was totally ineffectual.
Could have been an off day.
Anyway, it cost me the best part of £50 for me and the boy to go, whereas Town is significantly cheaper, especially for kids. And Colchester wonder why they can't attract a crowd. | | | |
| Average Crowds on 22:38 - Oct 13 with 1257 views | Lord_Lucan |
| Average Crowds on 19:00 - Oct 12 by Marshalls_Mullet |
30,000 is about right for the club, even if we reached the Prem. |
If we reached the Prem I think we could easily reach 35,000 + per game - but not necessarily Ipswich fans.
Football tourism is a thing and if you are a fan and want to watch some of the big clubs you are often screwed.
People fly from all over the world to watch Liverpool, Manu U etc at West Ham as that's usually the only stadium with general sale tickets.
Not saying it's a good thing or not, just saying. |  |
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| Average Crowds on 07:43 - Oct 14 with 1201 views | azuremerlangus |
| Average Crowds on 22:38 - Oct 13 by Lord_Lucan |
If we reached the Prem I think we could easily reach 35,000 + per game - but not necessarily Ipswich fans.
Football tourism is a thing and if you are a fan and want to watch some of the big clubs you are often screwed.
People fly from all over the world to watch Liverpool, Manu U etc at West Ham as that's usually the only stadium with general sale tickets.
Not saying it's a good thing or not, just saying. |
35k sounds about right to me too. Getting the Cobbold stand to 40k would involve something pretty big with the corners getting filled in too. A mirror image of the west stand with new boxes in between the tiers is my guess - not sure what capacity uplift that would bring. | |
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| Average Crowds on 09:52 - Oct 14 with 1168 views | jayessess |
| Average Crowds on 17:22 - Oct 13 by bournemouthblue |
Ipswich's catchment area is fairly vast, a successful Ipswich would appeal to much of North Essex which I would argue probably makes our potential fanbase larger than that of Norwich but I think the numbers are more elastic when we are doing well, so we may see a greater drop off but could go higher than them too, at our peak |
As far as I can see there are 2 teams currently in the Premier League in broadly analogous locations (the one club in a small-to-medium sized conurbation and also the one club in a mainly rural county). That's Brighton/Sussex and Southampton/Hampshire. At the moment, Southampton don't quite fill their 32,000-capacity stadium, Brighton are more or less filling their 31,800-capacity stadium.
In the past 10 seasons, mostly in the Premier League, they've had 2 sell-out crowds between them. I'm not really sure why we should expect to have a markedly different experience if we got promoted?
Worth noting that Southampton had one season where they would have benefited from a bigger stadium - 2012-13, the year they got promoted back to the Premier League with back to back promotions - but it fell back thereafter. You could argue that if they'd had a big enough stadium to accommodate that surge of interest, they'd have kept more of those fans and it might have driven a long-term expansion. By that logic, we'd want to start building the expansion as soon as possible, to capture that bit of the wave. | |
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| Average Crowds on 10:01 - Oct 14 with 1156 views | clive_baker |
| Average Crowds on 19:14 - Oct 12 by EastTownBlue |
I’m not sure how much the capacity can be increased by redeveloping the Cobbold Stand. Having a ground that holds just beyond 30,000 should suffice.
For anyone thinking of building a new ground out of town by the A12/A14, get yourselves a season ticket at Reading. |
Given build costs at the moment I'm not sure of the payback on development anyway, it's not like we regularly sell out or have demand for more tickets than we have seats. Even if we topped out at 30k every week as is, and had demand for 35k (highly unlikely bar a few games a season), but if it was every week that's 5k tickets x 23 games which is a couple of million a year in extra revenue. The payback is too long, especially with the nature of our ownership. They're much better off achieving it through price if demand outstrips supply, by sticking an extra couple of quid on a ticket and achieve it that way. |  |
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