18000 is number Mark Ashton said he felt was optimal for this season, delighted weve made it

Div 3
1 Derby County 27,214
2 Ipswich Town 25,533
3 Sheffield Wednesday 24,025
4 Portsmouth 18,282

Div 2
1 Sunderland 37,987
2 Sheffield United 28,588
3 Norwich City 25,950
4 Middlesbrough 24,389

Wonderful news.

Thanks for that MickMillsTash. Would be interesting to see the corresponding city/ town populations compared to the average attendances. I'd think Ipswich's population would be one of the smallest.bcetain,y the number of chimney pots in Suffolk are a lot less than those Clubs catchment areas. Brilliant support for East Anglia's biggest Club.

ArnieM: You make a good point. Given the size of the town, Ipswich would probably come out on top in terms of attendance vs population. We have great support. But all these figures are subject to many variables. It's not easy to determine town/city population vs urban area. Also, if Naarwich had a bigger ground, I'm pretty sure they would get 33000+ as the urban area is certainly bigger than around Ipswich. If Wednesday were in the PL, they could easily get 40000+ if they were doing well. It would be interesting to know just how high we could go if we also had a bigger ground, but it looks as if 29000-ish might be our limit. For the time being, we're doing very well to keep up with and outperform clubs with better potential for large attendances than we have.

Excellent context Steve ITFC Sweden. I agree will what you say totally.

The key point I take, is we have now supassed the many clubs that had overtaken us on average attendances over the past few years (e.g Stoke, Bristol City, Middlesborough, West Brom, Reading et al.), following our years of decline and decay. WE ARE ON OUR WAY BACK, OF THAT I AM SURE. COME ON YOU BLUES.

One final point, on our natural ceiling Steve. You quote 29,000 and that is a decent and reasonable shout which I can go along with, but I do wonder now, given our momemtum and hopeful rise into the Championship and ultimately the Premieirship, whether we could be looking as high as say 34,000 regular attendances in the Prem, IF we had the capacity (in the Prem, we would have sell out away fans attendances as well). Don't forget, back in the 1970's when most of the ground was standing, we would, on occasion, squeeze 34,000 plus in for the biggest games, not forgetting the 38,010 against Leeds in 1975, with more fans locked outside.

Very interested to read the comments about our natural capacity. Frankly If we can get 28000 (with a full away section of 2000) in league one I believe we can get well over 30000 in Championship especially if we challenge.
BUT, and its a big one, we have to increase capacity in the right way to do that, and the only way to do that presently is to expand the Cobbold stand. By doing that, we could probably get to a max of 37500 with either a new stand or (more likely) a big top tier.
Before everyone says thats too ambitious, we must remember our 28000 optimal at the moment would immediately rise by 2000 by allowing a 4000 away following. Derby, Wednesday, Portsmouth would do that now, in the Championship Norwich, Sheff utd, West Brom etc etc would probably bring 4k
So without any organic growth of our own fans we are already at 30000.
Last season we started with 21200 which dipped to 18000 before gradually rising.
I dont know the exact average last season but im guessing 23k? If we are now at 25.5k thats 10% growth in half a season.
Its interesting playing with numbers but pointless adding capacity without being really ambitious, so Im praying teh board will go fairly big with Cobbold and give us some decent headroom to grow into :)

It would be interesting to know what average ticket prices were; after all, any fool can fill a ground by giving tickets away.

I suspect that if we are promoted then the Club will raise ticket prices on the basis that we are seeing a better quality product (it's easier and cheaper that building additional capacity).

I think it is astounding that 25000+ fans turn up to a 3rd division game and this is a direct result of the team playing decent football and having owners who appear to care and understand what is needed to be successful - long may it continue.
As someone of a certain age who was lucky enough to see Sir Bobby from the very start of his tenure I well remember the big crowds during the successful times but equally the way they dropped off after he left.
Big crowds depend solely on the team performing and being successful so until we are regularly at capacity with waiting lists for season tickets I would council against any major expansion of the stadium and inject any cash available into securing the best available players to maintain our march to the promised land of the Premier League.

Having read the comments above, I am prepared to revise my estimation of our natural celing a bit (I'm usually a bit conservative - small "C"). Yes, in the right circumstances, we might be able to grow to around the mid 30000s, especially when you take into account full away attendances (a good point, that I rather missed). COYB!

I remember vaguely the season 80-81 when but for injuries we would have won the league. The average crowd was above 26,000 with maybe 3 or 4 above 30,000. I think it follows that given we can get gates of up to capacity in Division One we would almost certainly get crowds between 4 and 6,000 more in the Premier League. Leading me to believe a capacity of 35,000 would allow for extra Town fans, extra away fans and special games like Liverpool, Man Utd, Man City, Tottenham, Chelsea and even West Ham I sometimes think people forget that the Cobbold Stand opened in season 70-71 so over 50 years old. I think complete replacement is in order with proper Corporate facilities.