Todays attendance

Posting about the obvious need for a new stadium or increasing capacity isn’t criticism, the board should really be a bit more open about any future plans ( if any ) they might have though .
If they don’t have any plans then it’s quite clear that they should

Quoted from Bigdog

Town size yes, population catchment area no. There are quite a few medium sized towns like Bury St Edmunds, Stowmarket, Sudbury, Newmarket etc that are Ipswich Town strongholds and hundreds more decent sized villages than NE Lincs. Don't doubt we'll need extra capacity and need to attract more fans to home games in the near future to progress, but let's also be realistic in what our reach is as a football club too..

I saw this a little while back (and it’s not quite up to date, as Scunny are on it), but this map slices up England according to each areas nearest football league or Premier League club. It doesn’t tell the whole story of course as it’s based on land mass only and not population size, nor does it factor in the quality of travel links in places like Devon and Cornwall, but it gives you a rough flavour of how we compare to other locations (which is basically about average, but without the benefit of a major urban population close by).

Quoted from Bigdog

Town size yes, population catchment area no. There are quite a few medium sized towns like Bury St Edmunds, Stowmarket, Sudbury, Newmarket etc that are Ipswich Town strongholds and hundreds more decent sized villages than NE Lincs. Don't doubt we'll need extra capacity and need to attract more fans to home games in the near future to progress, but let's also be realistic in what our reach is as a football club too..

If we we were' in the top flight like Ipswich were, have no doubt that Barton,  Barrow   Brigg, Louth, Scunthorpe (!) Market Rasen Immingham and everyman and his dog would be GTFC strongholds. Just the small matter of getting there.

Quoted from Poojah

I saw this a little while back (and it’s not quite up to date, as Scunny are on it), but this map slices up England according to each areas nearest football league or Premier League club. It doesn’t tell the whole story of course as it’s based on land mass only and not population size, nor does it factor in the quality of travel links in places like Devon and Cornwall, but it gives you a rough flavour of how we compare to other locations (which is basically about average, but without the benefit of a major urban population close by).

Good to see the Spurn Point Ultras represented.

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

If we we were' in the top flight like Ipswich were, have no doubt that Barton,  Barrow   Brigg, Louth, Scunthorpe (!) Market Rasen Immingham and everyman and his dog would be GTFC strongholds. Just the small matter of getting there.

Ipswich averaged over 20k in the third tier last season. Even at the top end of the top tier in the thirties we didn't come close to that. I was just pointing out they were a bad comparable to make. Don't deny we can grow with success, but the Suffolk population figure is about 750k..

7,214 is a very credible opening day attendance, I expect the Imps to be about the same v Wycombe tbh.

Might be from the same source, but following on from Poojah's map is this, little bit outdated but I don't imagine much change (especially as it looks at tiers 1 to 8 ) - https://automaticknowledge.org/voronoi-1to8/#8/53.392/-2.208

More telling is this: https://docs.google.com/spread.....w/edit#gid=790781456
Which gives you the population within each polygon on the map.  Now obviously there are some discrepancies, as have been pointed out.  For example it's not likely we're attracting a fanbase from Withernsea just because we're closer to them as the crow flies, vice-versa with losing fans from Immingham to Hull.

That gives us just under 275,000 as a polygon population, which isn't too far off what I reckon we've got reach of.  

Using this site - https://www.freemaptools.com/find-population.htm gives the following, based on what I'm drawing out as places I think we've got or had reach previously, that's over 300,000 to go at.



Of course some will argue that my map is too close to other teams, places like Market Rasen and Wragby are too close to Lincoln and Brigg is too close to Scunny.  But to my memory, these aren't Lincoln or Scunthorpe supporting places, we've traditionally always had decent followings from those areas, right throughout the East side of Lincolnshire down to the Skeggy way on.

Even if you really scale that back and discount the likes of Wragby, accepting that they're lost to Lincoln forever, there's a huge catchment to go at.  Most importantly though it's a huge catchment with little alternative.  Anything east of Market Rasen is closer (in terms of time to travel to)to Blundell Park than any other professional club in the area.  Not many other clubs are in this position, with a lack of clubs stealing fans from your relative doorstep.  

Even if you strip it back to the 170,000 odd residents of North East Lincs, it's an hour to the next football ground.  One is in the league above us and the other is two above.  I think culturally it's a hard sell to anyone to go and support Lincoln or Hull when you're a NEL native.  

It's an enviable position with a hell of a lot of untapped potential there.  Our obstacle towards getting bigger gates and bigger support shouldn't be our location or population, if anything that's our advantage.  Football has changed beyond belief in the last 20 years. Unfortunately at the point when the game has become more and more popular, we've suffered a sustained period of decline.  Had football held such a lofty position 25-30 years ago do we really think we would only have pulled 5/6000 gates in the second tier?  Not a chance.

When success comes our way, (I mean real success, not getting back in the league) our gates could absolutely skyrocket.  If, big if, we can accommodate them.

Quoted from diehardmariner

Might be from the same source, but following on from Poojah's map is this, little bit outdated but I don't imagine much change (especially as it looks at tiers 1 to 8 ) - https://automaticknowledge.org/voronoi-1to8/#8/53.392/-2.208

More telling is this: https://docs.google.com/spread.....w/edit#gid=790781456
Which gives you the population within each polygon on the map.  Now obviously there are some discrepancies, as have been pointed out.  For example it's not likely we're attracting a fanbase from Withernsea just because we're closer to them as the crow flies, vice-versa with losing fans from Immingham to Hull.

That gives us just under 275,000 as a polygon population, which isn't too far off what I reckon we've got reach of.  

Using this site - https://www.freemaptools.com/find-population.htm gives the following, based on what I'm drawing out as places I think we've got or had reach previously, that's over 300,000 to go at.



Of course some will argue that my map is too close to other teams, places like Market Rasen and Wragby are too close to Lincoln and Brigg is too close to Scunny.  But to my memory, these aren't Lincoln or Scunthorpe supporting places, we've traditionally always had decent followings from those areas, right throughout the East side of Lincolnshire down to the Skeggy way on.

Even if you really scale that back and discount the likes of Wragby, accepting that they're lost to Lincoln forever, there's a huge catchment to go at.  Most importantly though it's a huge catchment with little alternative.  Anything east of Market Rasen is closer (in terms of time to travel to)to Blundell Park than any other professional club in the area.  Not many other clubs are in this position, with a lack of clubs stealing fans from your relative doorstep.  

Even if you strip it back to the 170,000 odd residents of North East Lincs, it's an hour to the next football ground.  One is in the league above us and the other is two above.  I think culturally it's a hard sell to anyone to go and support Lincoln or Hull when you're a NEL native.  

It's an enviable position with a hell of a lot of untapped potential there.  Our obstacle towards getting bigger gates and bigger support shouldn't be our location or population, if anything that's our advantage.  Football has changed beyond belief in the last 20 years. Unfortunately at the point when the game has become more and more popular, we've suffered a sustained period of decline.  Had football held such a lofty position 25-30 years ago do we really think we would only have pulled 5/6000 gates in the second tier?  Not a chance.

When success comes our way, (I mean real success, not getting back in the league) our gates could absolutely skyrocket.  If, big if, we can accommodate them.

Great bit of analysis. History is really important with football. Teams like Blackburn and Burnley punch way above polygon population weight. We have to bear in mind that Lincoln have as long a history as us, although without ever being top flight. They have a Uni and growing population. If they continue to do well on the pitch and develop Sincil or get a new ground they will pull in young fans from the fringes of our catchment whereas Scunny never really could. But facilities count massively. Walking round for the ticket office last night you can see even the big stand at Mansfield offers far more than we can in the cramped Findus.

I wasn’t going to add any more to this thread but it’s funny what you hear when you’re in different company. Apparently there is a potential development in the pipeline, I was told where and, in theory, it makes sense. I’m not going to say any more other than that. 🤞

Going back a few decades the Findus stand car park was a bus park with supporters' buses coming in far and wide. I know 2 came from Brigg, collecting along the way. Pre Humber Bridge I believe some from Barton, Louth, Skegness and some from the Lincoln direction. It's a long time ago but that park was full of buses so I'd say getting on for 20-ish buses.

I know most have cars these days which are convenient, but it's something the club could look at. Bus, Match Ticket and a pint for say under £40! Just a thought.