A stadium half-full - where have all the Coventry City fans gone?
I LOVED Highfield Road, a proper football ground, but now our home is the Ricoh stadium and since we have been playing here, I have missed just one home game, so I do feel part of the furniture.
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But looking around the place lately, I'm wondering, where have all our fans gone?
Take the Forest game, only 18,000, then the Q.P.R.ÃÂ game, much less. A half-full stadium is becoming the norm.
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My mate said it could be because of the cold weather, or the recession, or for the Forest match, a lot will be on nights, excuses, excuses, excuses, an endless list of them.
Call me an old cynic, but if you follow a team, you do all you can to turn up for a match, so why all the lame excuses ?
The Forest fans came out with the usual chant, " your ground's too big for you". They may be right, because they get good crowds, so do the likes of Derby, Leicester, both Sheffield teams and, of course, Newcastle United.
So why can't we ? I used to stand on the Spion Kop, and in the West End at the old ground, and I recall crowds well in the 20,000 mark, so if we had them then, surely we can get them again ?
Maybe the part-timers may turn up more now we are starting to put together a decent run, but looking at this on another level, would us regulars feel a bit bitter, at the sight of the occasional fan turning up ?
Obviously the club would welcome them back, like prodigal sons, but wouldn't it be better to see them cheering the Sky Blues on throughout the whole season, not just now and then?
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Reccession - Car Industry - Midlands have a little think about your articles mate
i paid a visit to the ricoh while in the uk this year and the stadium is wonderful.
the squad of players are second rate of course in a second rate league. the team did not seem fit and their concentration was awful. i would suggest the stay away fans are sick and tired of being shafted by overpaid half hearted players who show up occasionally when they feel like it. underneath i feel all cov folk are ccfc fans but until we get a team who live and die cov get used to 15000 attendances.
it might be something to do with the fact the Ricoh is a complete ballache to get to...
Highfield Road regularly had crowds of 10,000 as well...fans starved of any form of success or even a whiff of challenging will spend what money they have elsewhere....
there are lots of reasons...
1)Difficulty getting to new stadium (i don't live in Cov anymore and I used to walk from train station to Highfield Road... not quite so easy/cheap anymore)
When will there be a rail service? When will parking be more available/cheaper? What about incentives for car shares?
2)Too expensive - added to travel costs, ã25 as an average price is too much. I went with some family to QPR and it would have been ã200 for us if it wasn't for four being children... still ã154. Why does the club not realise that Season Tickets aren't enough to live on, and the high price and on-the-day rises are turning more and more away.
3)Years of mediocrity - with the exception of an accidental 8th place finish in 2005(?) the occasional run of four or five games has been the only real highlight over a period closing in on a decade. I remain hopeful that RR&CC are building a team and business that can survive and move forward, but frankly I'd prefer the yo-yo of promotion and relegation to years of 15-21st position finishes... is it really only preston who have been in the second tier longer than us?
4)Stadium/Experience - the dents in the plastic bowl... i mean Ricoh, are beginning to give it a bit of character, but frankly having one complete end empty means it may aswell not be there... filling the corners has barely helped, instead it feels cobbled together, I wonder what city fans would make of closing off the top third of the stands all the way around with advertising hordings to concentrate the SBA nearer the pitch? MK dons don't even have seats on the top tier yet because they know they don't need them yet(did nobody do any sums when building the ricoh?).
And then to the experience inside the ground... no money? Again this discriminates against non-regulars, and although the steak pie is ok, the prices are extortionate and the queues are ridiculous, I queued from the start of half time against Barnsley, and just as the players were coming out I got to the front when they said 'no pies and no hot drinks sorry' as if that was good enough.
I love my football club, and for some reason I drive from Norwich (where I live) to get there as often as I can afford/have time, even though... I suppose and hope that shows I'm a real supporter, not just a fan?
AFAIC that's the best asnwer so far!
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