| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 11:21 - Dec 15 with 2156 views | orfordbuoy |
Where does Town see itself here? Are we bigger, smaller or roughly parallel to Leicester? (for many decades we were much bigger)
A previous thread concluded we have a catchment pop of around a million. Will the new Cobbold be big enough - or too big
Who can say? [Post edited 15 Dec 2023 11:24]
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| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 11:22 - Dec 15 with 2124 views | unbelievablue |
38k, with 2.5-4k for away fans. |  |
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| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 11:29 - Dec 15 with 2051 views | bluelagos |
Think you're (and many others) getting well ahead of yourself.
For sure, if we were established as a Premier League fixture, ten years of higher crowds then the numbers stack up, invest £Xm and get an extra 5, 8 or 10k on a match day...it's all guess work but all are possible.
But spending millions on ground development when we may only be in the Prem for a year or two is a mistake that cost us very heavily last time we went down that route. It literally bankrupted us.
Not saying we shouldn't develop, but I think investing in the team and establishing ourselves as a Premiership club has to come first imho. |  |
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| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 11:30 - Dec 15 with 2038 views | unbelievablue |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 11:29 - Dec 15 by bluelagos |
Think you're (and many others) getting well ahead of yourself.
For sure, if we were established as a Premier League fixture, ten years of higher crowds then the numbers stack up, invest £Xm and get an extra 5, 8 or 10k on a match day...it's all guess work but all are possible.
But spending millions on ground development when we may only be in the Prem for a year or two is a mistake that cost us very heavily last time we went down that route. It literally bankrupted us.
Not saying we shouldn't develop, but I think investing in the team and establishing ourselves as a Premiership club has to come first imho. |
More leg room in our seats is no.1 priority. | |
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| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 11:34 - Dec 15 with 1989 views | solemio |
Our downside is that we are a rural area; Leicester's is that they are closer to other fairly decent clubs. |  | | |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 11:34 - Dec 15 with 1985 views | bluelagos |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 11:30 - Dec 15 by unbelievablue |
More leg room in our seats is no.1 priority. |
But late for that innit. | |
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| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 11:39 - Dec 15 with 1955 views | orfordbuoy |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 11:29 - Dec 15 by bluelagos |
Think you're (and many others) getting well ahead of yourself.
For sure, if we were established as a Premier League fixture, ten years of higher crowds then the numbers stack up, invest £Xm and get an extra 5, 8 or 10k on a match day...it's all guess work but all are possible.
But spending millions on ground development when we may only be in the Prem for a year or two is a mistake that cost us very heavily last time we went down that route. It literally bankrupted us.
Not saying we shouldn't develop, but I think investing in the team and establishing ourselves as a Premiership club has to come first imho. |
Ashton has said it's going to happen (he also said we were going to sign more players pre-season, mind) - so it's a question really of when and how big? But I'm trying to gauge a little where do we see ourselves? Obviously, there was a time when Town was considered a bigger club than half the current Premier League.
Leicester a good role model?, or we still some way off that? | | | |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 11:41 - Dec 15 with 1936 views | jayessess |
I think it's obvious at the moment that we could probably sell another couple of thousand tickets most weeks and considerably more than that for the some games.
Issue is ideally you'd want those seats in place already, in advance of your successful period rather than being built in the middle of it. Other issue is the relative costs of building a new stand versus ticket sales.
Up your attendance by 3000 for a whole season and you only make another £2m or so in revenue... |  |
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| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 11:47 - Dec 15 with 1876 views | itfcjoe |
I think if all things go well for the next few years, then that is the top end of where we'd want to be capacity wise |  |
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| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 14:04 - Dec 15 with 1598 views | BtreeBlueBlood |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 11:29 - Dec 15 by bluelagos |
Think you're (and many others) getting well ahead of yourself.
For sure, if we were established as a Premier League fixture, ten years of higher crowds then the numbers stack up, invest £Xm and get an extra 5, 8 or 10k on a match day...it's all guess work but all are possible.
But spending millions on ground development when we may only be in the Prem for a year or two is a mistake that cost us very heavily last time we went down that route. It literally bankrupted us.
Not saying we shouldn't develop, but I think investing in the team and establishing ourselves as a Premiership club has to come first imho. |
Palace are building a new stand atm
It hasn’t had any impact on the existing one this season.
Maybe we could do the same!
Maybe just a 1 tier stand instead of 2? |  | | |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 14:44 - Dec 15 with 1499 views | ChampionsofInnsbruck |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 11:34 - Dec 15 by solemio |
Our downside is that we are a rural area; Leicester's is that they are closer to other fairly decent clubs. |
How is that a downside? You do realise that supporters travel to Ipswich in their thousands from wider Suffolk, Essex, and even some areas of Cambs because we are literally the biggest drawing football team in this region and always have been, we have no competition! If we had more seats and we were doing well we'd get 35k on average. |  | | |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 15:05 - Dec 15 with 1421 views | solemio |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 14:44 - Dec 15 by ChampionsofInnsbruck |
How is that a downside? You do realise that supporters travel to Ipswich in their thousands from wider Suffolk, Essex, and even some areas of Cambs because we are literally the biggest drawing football team in this region and always have been, we have no competition! If we had more seats and we were doing well we'd get 35k on average. |
Yes, people do come from a distance. For well over 50 years I came from Herts and then Beds. However, for much of that time crowds have been very much below 30,000 with occasional attendances below 10;000. It would be lovely if in the long-term we got the current level of support and interest.
J blame Sir Bobby's fish for not coming to games. | | | |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 16:14 - Dec 15 with 1285 views | OldFart71 |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 11:29 - Dec 15 by bluelagos |
Think you're (and many others) getting well ahead of yourself.
For sure, if we were established as a Premier League fixture, ten years of higher crowds then the numbers stack up, invest £Xm and get an extra 5, 8 or 10k on a match day...it's all guess work but all are possible.
But spending millions on ground development when we may only be in the Prem for a year or two is a mistake that cost us very heavily last time we went down that route. It literally bankrupted us.
Not saying we shouldn't develop, but I think investing in the team and establishing ourselves as a Premiership club has to come first imho. |
I have said this before. There's absolutely no comparison between when we last developed the ground and now. The North Stand was totally closed. Players like Mateo Sereni and Finidi George were purchased without the due diligence that the current management take before purchasing players. Both when relegated were apparently on very good contracts and were released to the tune of a few million pounds without the parachute payments available today. The owner didn't also have the resources that Gamechanger 20 have. Ashton is obviously confident that when they go ahead with the development it will be done in the correct way and that they are looking to try to build the new stand up, over and around the existing Cobbold so as not to impact on the size of the crowd. The Cobbold opened in season 70-71 so is around 53 years old. It restricts the capacity and as Ashton has said any new facility will incorporate ways of generating additional revenue when not in use as a football stand. | | | |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 16:25 - Dec 15 with 1250 views | ChampionsofInnsbruck |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 15:05 - Dec 15 by solemio |
Yes, people do come from a distance. For well over 50 years I came from Herts and then Beds. However, for much of that time crowds have been very much below 30,000 with occasional attendances below 10;000. It would be lovely if in the long-term we got the current level of support and interest.
J blame Sir Bobby's fish for not coming to games. |
We were getting 26k on average before Evans arrived, even in the second tier and bigger games would be 30k plus. Evans pushed the fans away. | | | |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 16:31 - Dec 15 with 1228 views | stonojnr |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 11:39 - Dec 15 by orfordbuoy |
Ashton has said it's going to happen (he also said we were going to sign more players pre-season, mind) - so it's a question really of when and how big? But I'm trying to gauge a little where do we see ourselves? Obviously, there was a time when Town was considered a bigger club than half the current Premier League.
Leicester a good role model?, or we still some way off that? |
Always felt we were roughly similar to Leicester, not expecting us to win the Premier league, but in terms of crowd size, catchment area etc.
I don't know that we'd sell 40k out regularly, even now, tickets aren't easy to get, but they're not there's 10k extra demand out there hard to get yet. | | | |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 16:33 - Dec 15 with 1222 views | jontysnut |
It may be the case that the original design at Leicester anticipated future addition.Easier to do with Lego grounds out of town. |  | | |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 17:06 - Dec 15 with 1143 views | Blue_In_Boston |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 11:41 - Dec 15 by jayessess |
I think it's obvious at the moment that we could probably sell another couple of thousand tickets most weeks and considerably more than that for the some games.
Issue is ideally you'd want those seats in place already, in advance of your successful period rather than being built in the middle of it. Other issue is the relative costs of building a new stand versus ticket sales.
Up your attendance by 3000 for a whole season and you only make another £2m or so in revenue... |
I think your right.
Equally if things take a turn for the worse we are likely to drop between 8k to 10k, that is roughly the number that never came through the turnstiles when the going was tough.
Throughout our history, spells of selling to capacity are rare, much as it is a great time to be a Town fan I'm not convinced that we have a diehard fanbase that merits a bigger ground. | | | |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 17:19 - Dec 15 with 1110 views | Vic |
Our historic stats on attendances are not great - quite sobering in fact. Check this out -
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/ipswich-town/besucherzahlenentwicklung/verein/67
We’re riding the crest of a wave now - how long will this ride last, and what happens afterwards? Will it last long enough to enable us to develop the ground and then consolidate? We don’t have a great track record - I can only hope the present lot are better than the Cobbold’s and Sheepy. (FWIW I absolutely think they are.) |  |
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| We used to be quite aligned to Leicester season 04/05 to 12/13 on 17:22 - Dec 15 with 1096 views | unstableblue |
Knocking around the Championship, ups and downs, similar crowds, but Town with a bigger core fan base than them, given our history and community ties
The Thai money came in and they kicked on as a club, they had the Premier League win, which was huge locally, huge. Their 1981. Suggest it expanded core fan base.
The infrastructure around the place went exponential, best training ground in Premier League.
These development plans were instigated.
In the meantime we had Marcus and woeful managerial appointments, with woeful football to match. Our fan base went into hibernation mode. Skouglas, Fulham at home, Hirst incompetence, Lambert disconnecting despite early promise.
But our fan-base has reignited quickly. Huge buzz and demand around the place.
To answer the question - I do think Leicester remain ahead of us and 40k is justified. 40k is high end for us perhaps… but at this trajectory and with local Premier League internet, fillable.
But like our Cobbold development plans the Leicester project is also about non matchday revenue |  |
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| They 23/24k average through that period on 17:28 - Dec 15 with 1055 views | unstableblue |
| We used to be quite aligned to Leicester season 04/05 to 12/13 on 17:22 - Dec 15 by unstableblue |
Knocking around the Championship, ups and downs, similar crowds, but Town with a bigger core fan base than them, given our history and community ties
The Thai money came in and they kicked on as a club, they had the Premier League win, which was huge locally, huge. Their 1981. Suggest it expanded core fan base.
The infrastructure around the place went exponential, best training ground in Premier League.
These development plans were instigated.
In the meantime we had Marcus and woeful managerial appointments, with woeful football to match. Our fan base went into hibernation mode. Skouglas, Fulham at home, Hirst incompetence, Lambert disconnecting despite early promise.
But our fan-base has reignited quickly. Huge buzz and demand around the place.
To answer the question - I do think Leicester remain ahead of us and 40k is justified. 40k is high end for us perhaps… but at this trajectory and with local Premier League internet, fillable.
But like our Cobbold development plans the Leicester project is also about non matchday revenue |
We were 25k down to 17k | |
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| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 17:44 - Dec 15 with 993 views | Churchman |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 17:19 - Dec 15 by Vic |
Our historic stats on attendances are not great - quite sobering in fact. Check this out -
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/ipswich-town/besucherzahlenentwicklung/verein/67
We’re riding the crest of a wave now - how long will this ride last, and what happens afterwards? Will it last long enough to enable us to develop the ground and then consolidate? We don’t have a great track record - I can only hope the present lot are better than the Cobbold’s and Sheepy. (FWIW I absolutely think they are.) |
They are quite sobering, but I’ll offer these thoughts. Firstly, the population of suffolk is growing. Secondly the fan base is noticeably younger than say 2018 and before (or maybe I’m just older!). The club is reaching out into the community. It is looking to use the stadium more than 23 times a year. Lastly, our current capacity includes restricted view seats. So it is clearly short of what we need, as things stand now. So what do I think?
The club is comparable in size and potential to Leicester, though they’ve had years of success while we’ve had years of dementor Evans. That our gates held up as well as they did during that period is remarkable.
40k seems too large a capacity to me, as things stand, but maybe I’m just lacking imagination. The club is moving at pace. I said a few months ago when this topic was raised 33k - 35k would be enough.
Maybe redevelop Cobbold to get the capacity to that level and plan to upscale other parts of the ground like three of the corners at a later date? If I was to redevelop another stand, it’d be Churchmans as we own land behind it. We could then bung the away fans at the top of it behind soundproof perspex or on the roof in a pen. |  | | |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 17:47 - Dec 15 with 978 views | unstableblue |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 17:19 - Dec 15 by Vic |
Our historic stats on attendances are not great - quite sobering in fact. Check this out -
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/ipswich-town/besucherzahlenentwicklung/verein/67
We’re riding the crest of a wave now - how long will this ride last, and what happens afterwards? Will it last long enough to enable us to develop the ground and then consolidate? We don’t have a great track record - I can only hope the present lot are better than the Cobbold’s and Sheepy. (FWIW I absolutely think they are.) |
Yeah does make for some sobering reading.
I think it was quite exceptional circumstances that drove the average below 20k, all aligned to Marcus Evans taking over, the end of the Premiership promotion drive and glory seasons, and of course a string of managers who weren’t right for the club. Keane madness, Jewell results (with the odd good show), mick uptick and then unwatchable (when attendance really dropped), Hurst losing the dressing room and Lambert early promise but then complete disconnect
I think like the Burley years this will cement a good core of 25k, and as long we as don’t do a Marcus that will remain for some time. Whether we need a 40k capacity depends on the next step, can we do a Brighton or a Brentford?
I think the strategy of wait and see on the Cobbold is right.
The good news is that their is a lot of youth around PR so the future is bright. | |
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| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 17:49 - Dec 15 with 963 views | unstableblue |
| Leicester extending capacity to 40,000 on 17:44 - Dec 15 by Churchman |
They are quite sobering, but I’ll offer these thoughts. Firstly, the population of suffolk is growing. Secondly the fan base is noticeably younger than say 2018 and before (or maybe I’m just older!). The club is reaching out into the community. It is looking to use the stadium more than 23 times a year. Lastly, our current capacity includes restricted view seats. So it is clearly short of what we need, as things stand now. So what do I think?
The club is comparable in size and potential to Leicester, though they’ve had years of success while we’ve had years of dementor Evans. That our gates held up as well as they did during that period is remarkable.
40k seems too large a capacity to me, as things stand, but maybe I’m just lacking imagination. The club is moving at pace. I said a few months ago when this topic was raised 33k - 35k would be enough.
Maybe redevelop Cobbold to get the capacity to that level and plan to upscale other parts of the ground like three of the corners at a later date? If I was to redevelop another stand, it’d be Churchmans as we own land behind it. We could then bung the away fans at the top of it behind soundproof perspex or on the roof in a pen. |
I’d imagine that 35k is all that’s possible in rebuilding the Cobbold.
Even Liverpools mega stand only added 8k. And that was costly. | |
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