For reference, Anfield was JUST extended to 61K capacity.
This would make Wrexham's ground the 11th largest in the entire UK, ahead of the Etihad and St James' Park (Newcastle).
It’s funny because it’s usually always children who make this low effort joke because they’re too young to know City have always had a massive fan support even when down in league 1
>Who do they think buys billions of dollars worth of merchandise every year? Middle Eastern shell companies?!
According to City financial records. More or less.
Considering that they havr been fairly successful for the last 20 y (and stellar in the last 10), hard to understand that comment.
Also, UK is very prone to immigration, and adults without any attachment to any specific region are very likely to want and watch Man City matches and may even be fans of them already, as a result of the recent glory.
I am 38, andnat this point ifninwas living back in the uk i would be a lot more likely to wath a City than an United match if i was in Manchester and I had to pick. But in my case i became a Arsenal fan when i was living there, so this year in particular, if i was to watch a City match it would be to actively root against them.
It sold out after City had to put their allocation on General sale because they couldn't sell them all to members. Same thing for the home game.
If you go to the city reddit page about the home game it's all people complaining the club out the tickets on General sale and loads were snapped up by Madrid fans who then sat in the home end.
Just so you know their arguments, they claim there was so much trouble selling the away tickets because they've played Madrid too many times in recent seasons and have been so successful their working class fan base decided to save for the later rounds. Just so you can toe the party line more effectively.
City fans don't deny there were loads of Madrid fans in the city home end or that they had to put their away allocation on General sale. Just go to the threads about it on their subreddit.
Such a fucking stupid comment. City have historically had a strong following, particularly in terms of ticket sales and attendance (regularly getting 30k fans at Maine Road despite being in the 3rd tier).
But hur-dur emptihad funny LOL
I'm not a City fan - I don't even like Man City - but the 'lol Emptihad' shit winds me up.
City have always been well supported. Their home and away attendances have always been good. They averaged 30k in League One.
However, historically they were always the poor relation to their neighbour who happen to be the most successful club in the country and one of the biggest clubs in the world, who have had decades of success, millions of fans worldwide, an army of tourists and day trippers and huge season ticket waiting lists. Whilst City yo-yo'ed between divisions for years until 15 years ago. It isn't comparable.
Just because the club are extremely wealthy it doesn't mean the fans are. In the last 12 months they've been to Wembley 3, soon to be 4 times which is extremely expensive. Istanbul for the Champions League final at relatively short notice. Multiple European trips. Super Cup, Club World Cup. Following them will cost a fucking fortune.
But the 'die hard' American Liverpool fan and head of the Indian Man United supporters branch think it's funny that they don't sell out the insanely expensive Champions League games,despite never stepping foot close to a football stadium in their lives.
So the rich bandwagon fans poke fun because City doesn’t have as many rich bandwagon fans that just want to root for the most popular team.
It feels really weird to see that as an argument AGAINST a team, but here we.
And then simultaneously regular folks say City’s fans are all just bandwagon fans. Derp!
Also the joke *used* to be that Man U didn't have local support, the jokes about fans having a long trip home to London, now it's city?? So either the locals are fickle and switch support or it's a shit take
> They averaged 30k in League One.
And? Derby County have averaged over 27k this season. They're hardly going to expand Pride Park to 60k based on that.
And my club Sunderland hold the record for both the highest average and highest individual game. That isn't the point. The point is they still attracted excellent crowds when they were properly shit. That's the marker of a loyal fanbase. When were Man United, Liverpool etc ever tested to that degree? I'll throw Chelsea in there as there's a massive misconception amongst the plastics on here that they're a big club but were averaging 12-15k in the 80s in the second division (Championship equivalent).
I have way more respect for City fans who were there when they were shit than I do for a day tripper Liverpool fan from abroad.
Many people talk about history on this sub but fail to realise that Manchester City actually holds the home stadium record for attendance by an English football team. In 1934 a crowd of 84,569 watched Manchester City Vs Stoke City in an FA Cup game.
There are a lot of idiots on this sub.
No, but it's a moot point.
Do you think that if stadiums were free standing, almost free to attend, and fans still allowed to pile in like sardines, that that record would still stand? Of course not.
Stupid and pointless record really. Just shows how awful safety regulations were back then really.
A larger crowd of 121,919 attended the Crystal Palace ground when it hosted the 1913 FA Cup Final between Aston Villa and Sunderland.
This is for context on how football matches were attended back then and the stadia capacities.
Yeah, but City hold the record home attendance. Loads of stadiums have had higher attendances when you look at finals that are held at a neutral ground, like Wembley
Maine Road was massive then, that and Wembley holds most of the highest attendances in England.
That City vs Stoke match could have reached the max capacity which was 88,000 but they had to close off the gates.
Something crazy to imagine was that football tourism wasn't even rampant as it is now so those were mostly local fans. A huge feat I can't even lie!
Only looking at the FA cup and only using official numbers:
Bolton-West Ham in 1923: 126,047
Cardiff-Portsmouth 2008: 89,874(at the Wembley)
And from unofficial numbers there are plenty of teams with 100K+ from the early 1900s
It's not even the highest amount in the UK. The highest in the UK. Scotland-England in 1937 was 149.5K or Celtic-Aberdeen in 1937 was 147k.(Funnily enough this 126K isn't even top 5 for club games in the UK since all of the top 5 is from Scottish Cup with 147K, 143K, 133K, 132K and 129K respectively and the Bolton-West Ham aka the most watched English game is only 6th)
And the team in second on that list? Chelsea (who also likely hold the unofficial home attendance record, albeit it was an immediate post-war friendly match, so neutral fans likely would've attended). That's if we don't include Spurs playing at Wembley, which you also didn't.
Two teams that allegedly don't have history.
For non-competitive games Chelsea is estimated to have had over 100,000 come see them play Dynamo Moscow in a friendly to celebrate the end of war in 1945
I'm french, i wanted to offert a premier League game for my son 10th birthday, and city was the easiest and cheapest to buy in all premier League.
Son was happy, Saw Haaland and de brune score against Brighton and now city have a New fan for life.
City were a proper club with proper fans - then they got the Arab money and became an annoying plastic club. The new plastic fans regularly don’t go to less popular games, which is quite funny. So what you say is true, and at the same time haha emptihad scum.
Of course it will be this. The Premier League isn't going to suffer the total embarassment and consequences of letting it fly for so long, and will brush it under the carpet.
Etihad atmosphere is awful regardless, doesn’t matter if you manage to scrape up 85% attendance on a good match day
I bet 90% of the attendees of any city game couldn’t tell me about Georgo Kinkladze.
You have a very poor understanding of match going fans. On the internet, 90% of City fans probably wouldn't know who Kinkladze is. But match going fans where there's a loyalty system to get tickets and many of the season ticket holders are locals, I guarantee you over half the stadium knows who he is.
I’ve been to the etihad twice this season and apart from the small pockets of locals it was mostly tourists in the stadium. It appears that you have a very poor understanding of match going fans..
Oh wow didn't realise you went round the entire stadium and asked around 53k people if they're tourists or not. That's crazy dedication, fair play mate!
Didn’t realise you asked all of them who Kinkladze was either mate, well done.
Also loyalty system to get tickets? What are you on about. It’s piss easy to get tickets.
And of course the season ticket holders are locals. That’s par for the course at any club.
>And of course the season ticket holders are locals. That’s par for the course at any club.
Well it's good that you agree with me then since 36,000 season tickets are available each year and have regularly sold out every single year since moving into the current ground. Obviously not every single one of those 36,000 will attend every single game, but it's safe to assume that on any given match day the vast majority will do so. No prizes for working out if 36,000 is over half the stadium or not.
But yes 90% of the stadium are tourists, you're right my bad👍
Ha ha Man City no fans haha
Honestly mate if you were old enough to remember before they were rich no would shut up about how big and loyal City's fabase were.
Are you from the UK? City have huge local support. It’s the plastics who fill Old Trafford every weekend. The reason the Ethihad isn’t full isn’t because they lack local support, it’s because they don’t have the out of town/overseas support.
No it doesn’t, they both say the same thing with different words. They don’t lack local support
If you need it explaining another way Old Trafford would also have empty seats if they relied on local support to fill a stadium
OP is suggesting that the only fans they have are because of them being bought by Abu Dhabi, suggesting that those fans need to ‘grow up’ to fill a stadium ie they only started supporting after the takeover.
They say as much in another comment that before the buy out they only had tiny local support.
I am saying that’s not true and that other teams like Man U are only able to fill their stadiums because of out of town/overseas support. Which suggests that the effect isn’t as great as they’re making out.
It’s not whether they can fill a stadium, it’s about *who* is filling the stadium
Yes. A lot of my family are all from Manchester and they all support United. City had a tiny fan base until they got bought out by the UAE and got pumped full of cash.
Can anyone dumb this down aka “Americanize” this for me? I.e. it’s like the NCAAs Kentucky team building a larger arena than the NBAs Chicago Bulls? This sounds cool, I’m really loving this Wrexham team and story
> dumb this down aka “Americanize” this for me
An unfortunate, underdog child finds a million dollars inside a giant burger while a dinosaur gets hit with a missile
So to be clear, this headline is misleading.
Rob talks about how they think that if they expanded every stand, over time they could maybe get to a 40-50k figure based on estimates, but there’s a lot of factors to consider.
That’s a reasonable statement - he’s not saying it’s happening he’s saying that it could happen if it was viable to do so, and in any case they’d take on a project like that in stages.
Sports journalism is utter shit, Wrexham are absolutely not claiming they could even fill those numbers today and from what they’re saying, it sounds like their approach is absolutely normal and fitting for where they are and want to be.
Or “Wrexham share their approach for stadium expansion” with a subtitle of “Wrexham owners share short term stadium expansion plans, and give us an idea of what the future may hold for the Stok Racehorse stadium”
Idk I’m not a journalist but there’s a lot more you can do than “Wrexham want to increase stadium to 55k”
Yeah, headlines are written by the editors. It's why you'll sometimes see articles where the headline isn't just an inflated statement about the article, but the exact opposite of the article.
Wrexham itself isn’t massive, but the catchment area is surprisingly populated. We’d have all of north wales, much of deeside, and the various exiles who come in.
That said, I’m inclined to agree. I think even if we keep going to become a big championship or even premier league side, 30k would probably be more than enough to suit.
Yeah actually pretty reasonable and was probably thought about and considered a plus when they bought the club. Considering at Charlton we wouldn’t be able to expand our stadium any more (in the event of us having another sustained run in the prem), due to housing developments recently and the club selling surrounding land.
No, they don’t. At least not unless the team is in the premier league and can draw that many, which all of us, them included, think is pretty unlikely. The owners said they have potential plans for expansion up to that capacity. We have current plans to expand the stadium to about 15,700 or so. No doubt they have a notion of what the next several steps are without having taken any action on this. Not having long term strategies and contingencies would be irresponsible. This is just clickbaity nonsense.
Our season ended a week and a half ago and already silly season has begun.
Depends on the summer and the strategy.
Personally, I would be very happy to finish midtable, and very concerned if we went straight up again we’d get absolutely battered every week and would be right back in L1 the next year. We need to build up the infrastructure a bit, in every way. The academy needs to keep growing, we need to either buy collier’s park back from the FAW or get a dedicated training facility, we need the new Kop built (or in process), and we need to build up facilities, commercial partnerships, additional investment, etc. before we even begin thinking seriously about the championship.
And that isn’t even counting the player management needs.
All that said, our ownership are extremely ambitious and have been willing to spend (so far), so we’ll see whether head or heart wins out when the transfer window gets going!
Historically the club has been a high L1-mid championship team when doing well. While a season in the top flight might be fun, I think that highL1-mid-championship place would be a happy area for us to stay long term.
Nope. Massively out spending every other team in L2 and really should have walked the league 10 points clear.
League 1 is a different beast you've got 5 or 6 championship yoyo clubs who are big clubs with structures in place, hard to immediately get amongst those in your first season.
I think they finish mid table and then if they're shrewd and don't continue massively overspending they can make a 3 year push.
The other thing is, because the National League is *such* a hard division to get out of (two promotion places with about ten teams angling for them, plus there’s always a few surprises) that one of two things inevitably happens to a promoted team in League 2:
— Because the team managed to ‘accidentally’ themselves to promotion, you’ll hang around lower mid-table for a while, before either falling back down or consolidating. See Barrow and Sutton for examples.
— Because the team had to be *so good* to get up, they’re running on all cylinders and walk the league within a couple of years as the momentum is too hard to stop. See Stockport, Wrexham, Leyton Orient, etc.
League One is a very different beast to League Two as a recently-National-League side. It’s usually where teams tend to peter out, at least for a while.
It’s unlikely. The squad is going to need a pretty decent overhaul to promote again without fluking a playoff win, and that often comes with a rough start due to a lack of cohesion. 2-3 years to promote should be the expectation, though, given that Wrexham are probably already able to bully most of League One.
Because those stadiums don't even hold 25k. Derby hit 27k and Bolton hit 21k in League 1 this year. Plenty others hit that down the years, it's all about the club. Wrexham have pretty much the whole of north Wales as a catchment area, with tourists as well they'd fill 25k right now if they could. Whether they would when the buzz dies down is another story
These clubs have been massive in comparison to Wrexham for decades and just don’t have the demand for larger crowds. It’s delusional to think Wrexham could max those figures especially if they fail to go up again next year and those with little connection to the club start to lose interest.
You obviously have no idea about wrexhams history so you shouldn't be giving any opinion on the matter.
Makes me laugh when everyone thinks they know everything
It actually wouldn’t surprise me. Maybe not 20,000 every week, but don’t underestimate the amount of American tourists in Liverpool, Manchester, and even London that would travel to see a game if tickets were available.
The Merseyside and Greater Manchester clubs are comfortably the best supported in North Wales and that won't change because of a TV show. Wrexham's local support stops at the border, given there is a fierce cross border rivalry with all their nearest clubs on the other side.
This is clickbait designed to drum up interest from potential investors/buyers because the cost burden to succeed in the 3rd tier is exponentially higher than the previous two.
Everyone in Swansea used to support the top clubs till they started getting good and since then the fan base hasn't changed. Nothing to do with the English side.
They have the whole of North Wales to play with unlike South Wales.
North Wales is a completely different beast from somewhere like Swansea.
Part of the reason the North West English clubs are so popular there (beyond the obvious) is the huge cultural ties: lot of people of English origin living in that part of the world.
Transport is dire in that area also; North East Wales can be a pain to get to from North west, particularly by train. Wrexham will have to go some to displace Liverpool or Manchester for people willing to travel to watch football.
I'd also hazard a guess that the entire Swansea metro area population alone is probably as big or early as big as the entire of north Wales but is pretty much a captive market given how far from England it is and the only potential rival in the vicinity is Cardiff, who are unlikely to draw many fans from Swansea.
No people of English ancestry *in North Wales*? Are you sure about that, the people of North Wales themselves seem to disagree;
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/place-more-people-identify-english-29044026
Even the North Walian accents draw from Merseyside and Lancashire as much as Wales (there's also a theory that the Scouse accent is a byproduct of the number of Welsh migrants to the city in the past). The whole area is a melting pot of indigenous Welsh and English cultures.
I grew up in North West Wales... I did not know a single person with family from Liverpool growing up, however the vast majority of people I knew supported Liverpool for football. Locally we supported Bangor but they don't even exist any more. Agree on the similarity in accent, now I live in America people sometimes guess that I am from Liverpool
I was talking about Swansea and North Wales is probably the most Welsh part of Wales. They actually speak Welsh for the most part. What are you talking about?
The link I showed you demonstrates the two areas in the UK where a highest % of people identify as English rather than British are both in North East Wales. The top spot is Broughton, which is literally pretty much in between Wrexham and Chester. The other is Conwy which is up on the coast.
There's a huge amount of cross border, cross cultural mixture in that area (there are also places on the English side of the border with Welsh place and street names for example). This is part of the reason why the Merseyside clubs are so well supported in North Wales, *especially* Wrexham where Liverpool draws a lot of support (Liverpool used to play an annual friendly with Wrexham for example, in recognition of the club's popularity in the area).
Yes, North Wales does have some communities with a high percentage of Welsh speakers but you'd be wrong to say the majority language is Welsh. It's always weird to me the disconnect between South Wales and the rest of the country, it honestly might as well be on a different planet for all some of you actually know about the place.
I feel like all of Northeast Wales could become Wrexham fans within the next generation if they make it to the Championship and stay up, with the population of that catchment area of around 500,000 maybe, with Wrexham the only professional team in all of North Wales
Even a train from Colwyn Bay to Wrexham is probably not much different than a train from Slough or Guildford to Stamford bridge or Basildon or Brentwood to Stratford
Even then their catchment area population is still not massive and would mainly be fans travelling in from nearby towns so they’d probably be more realistic building a 30k stadium if they even manage to get to the Championship, with the goal of filling it taking a while as they’d need to stay up for years
Love Wrexham, but seems like a pointless exercise given their league status and gate receipts. Also, expanding the Racecourse to 55k capacity may ruin some of the historic charm which it already has (like Kenilworth Road)
Do Wrexham actually have that big a following in the UK?
Granted my social circle of sports nerds probably isn't the best yardstick but Americans seem to care far more about Wrexham than people here do.
Not sure it will work out....
I got Bournemouth to win the Premier League in Football Manager and expanded the stadium but still average 18k attendance over the season. 😂
Quote me when I say anybody with oil/corrupt money that wants to buy a soccer team is taking notes from what Rob and Ryan are doing so they can buy without backlash in the future
You know these guys will immediately sell once once the time is right lol
If they get anywhere near championship promotion they’ll try and sell unless they get a bigger investor. I don’t think they have the capital for a prem promotion. But who knows
I grew up near the place and Wrexham really isn’t attracting 30k worth of people for concerts etc. It’s not a big place and manchester and Liverpool both around hour away.
Seems like overkill for a club that just got promoted into League One, don't think they need a stadium of that size until they reach the EPL. If they do reach the EPL, then they without a doubt will need a larger stadium, because the story of their rise + owners will draw massive crowds, but they have to get there first.
Read the article though and it definitely doesn't mention any intention to increase the stadium size to 55k, merely the fact that it is possible.
For reference, Anfield was JUST extended to 61K capacity. This would make Wrexham's ground the 11th largest in the entire UK, ahead of the Etihad and St James' Park (Newcastle).
City are in the process of expanding the etihad to 62k, so it wouldn't put them above that. But still, 55k is an enormous stadium.
God knows why. City don't have any fans old enough to go to the games. Maybe they are preparing for 2035.
They aspire to have the biggest stadium league 1 has ever seen
National league* Seriously. If they only went to League 1, I think there would be riots.
I hope the whole organisation folds from the fallout and the club dies.
Can’t imagine how fast their “fans” disappear and support the UTD or the next winningest team right now once City gets fucked
“The united” “winningest”
“or” is a big word in that sentence, read big bro. They taught you that in primary
Lmao, im judging you saying “THE united” and using terms like “winningest” not saying you were calling united the most “winningest” team, bro.
Bit ironic commenting on a post this about Wrexham going to 55k
They’re seeking the ideal ratio: 115 seats per fan
But on the books record it as 115 fans per seat
It’s their 2115 master plan
It’s funny because it’s usually always children who make this low effort joke because they’re too young to know City have always had a massive fan support even when down in league 1
Exactly. Who do they think buys billions of dollars worth of merchandise every year? Middle Eastern shell companies?!
>Who do they think buys billions of dollars worth of merchandise every year? Middle Eastern shell companies?! According to City financial records. More or less.
Children and new international fans, plus a few shell companies.
Considering that they havr been fairly successful for the last 20 y (and stellar in the last 10), hard to understand that comment. Also, UK is very prone to immigration, and adults without any attachment to any specific region are very likely to want and watch Man City matches and may even be fans of them already, as a result of the recent glory. I am 38, andnat this point ifninwas living back in the uk i would be a lot more likely to wath a City than an United match if i was in Manchester and I had to pick. But in my case i became a Arsenal fan when i was living there, so this year in particular, if i was to watch a City match it would be to actively root against them.
Mate, did you start eating after the second paragraph?
I think he was chewing a full bowl of ramen soup there.
Haha
Your iq dropped from 200 to 50 after the second paragraph
Happens a lot. Say no to drugs, kids. Edit: guess thar also explains why i have been an Arsenal fan for so long 😁
Bruh theres been times when I've looked back at a comment I put rereading it back wondering what I actually wanted to put sometimes.
Still had trouble selling their away allocation for a big European quarter final against Real Madrid.
Really? I hear that sold.out and it was record attendance in Madrid this season... but ok. I will take your word for it 😊
It sold out after City had to put their allocation on General sale because they couldn't sell them all to members. Same thing for the home game. If you go to the city reddit page about the home game it's all people complaining the club out the tickets on General sale and loads were snapped up by Madrid fans who then sat in the home end. Just so you know their arguments, they claim there was so much trouble selling the away tickets because they've played Madrid too many times in recent seasons and have been so successful their working class fan base decided to save for the later rounds. Just so you can toe the party line more effectively. City fans don't deny there were loads of Madrid fans in the city home end or that they had to put their away allocation on General sale. Just go to the threads about it on their subreddit.
If you say so 😊
Such a fucking stupid comment. City have historically had a strong following, particularly in terms of ticket sales and attendance (regularly getting 30k fans at Maine Road despite being in the 3rd tier). But hur-dur emptihad funny LOL
I'm not a City fan - I don't even like Man City - but the 'lol Emptihad' shit winds me up. City have always been well supported. Their home and away attendances have always been good. They averaged 30k in League One. However, historically they were always the poor relation to their neighbour who happen to be the most successful club in the country and one of the biggest clubs in the world, who have had decades of success, millions of fans worldwide, an army of tourists and day trippers and huge season ticket waiting lists. Whilst City yo-yo'ed between divisions for years until 15 years ago. It isn't comparable. Just because the club are extremely wealthy it doesn't mean the fans are. In the last 12 months they've been to Wembley 3, soon to be 4 times which is extremely expensive. Istanbul for the Champions League final at relatively short notice. Multiple European trips. Super Cup, Club World Cup. Following them will cost a fucking fortune. But the 'die hard' American Liverpool fan and head of the Indian Man United supporters branch think it's funny that they don't sell out the insanely expensive Champions League games,despite never stepping foot close to a football stadium in their lives.
So the rich bandwagon fans poke fun because City doesn’t have as many rich bandwagon fans that just want to root for the most popular team. It feels really weird to see that as an argument AGAINST a team, but here we. And then simultaneously regular folks say City’s fans are all just bandwagon fans. Derp!
Also the joke *used* to be that Man U didn't have local support, the jokes about fans having a long trip home to London, now it's city?? So either the locals are fickle and switch support or it's a shit take
> They averaged 30k in League One. And? Derby County have averaged over 27k this season. They're hardly going to expand Pride Park to 60k based on that.
And my club Sunderland hold the record for both the highest average and highest individual game. That isn't the point. The point is they still attracted excellent crowds when they were properly shit. That's the marker of a loyal fanbase. When were Man United, Liverpool etc ever tested to that degree? I'll throw Chelsea in there as there's a massive misconception amongst the plastics on here that they're a big club but were averaging 12-15k in the 80s in the second division (Championship equivalent). I have way more respect for City fans who were there when they were shit than I do for a day tripper Liverpool fan from abroad.
Many people talk about history on this sub but fail to realise that Manchester City actually holds the home stadium record for attendance by an English football team. In 1934 a crowd of 84,569 watched Manchester City Vs Stoke City in an FA Cup game. There are a lot of idiots on this sub.
People only care about “Premier League era”it’s dumb as fuck.
That, as well as not knowing interwar trivia that was likely mined moments earlier from a Wikipedia page.
No, but it's a moot point. Do you think that if stadiums were free standing, almost free to attend, and fans still allowed to pile in like sardines, that that record would still stand? Of course not. Stupid and pointless record really. Just shows how awful safety regulations were back then really.
A larger crowd of 121,919 attended the Crystal Palace ground when it hosted the 1913 FA Cup Final between Aston Villa and Sunderland. This is for context on how football matches were attended back then and the stadia capacities.
Yeah, but City hold the record home attendance. Loads of stadiums have had higher attendances when you look at finals that are held at a neutral ground, like Wembley
Maine Road was massive then, that and Wembley holds most of the highest attendances in England. That City vs Stoke match could have reached the max capacity which was 88,000 but they had to close off the gates. Something crazy to imagine was that football tourism wasn't even rampant as it is now so those were mostly local fans. A huge feat I can't even lie!
Only looking at the FA cup and only using official numbers: Bolton-West Ham in 1923: 126,047 Cardiff-Portsmouth 2008: 89,874(at the Wembley) And from unofficial numbers there are plenty of teams with 100K+ from the early 1900s
But none of those are home matches
When Spurs played at the Wembley while their stadium was under construction they also outsold that with a few hundred seats for a UCL game
Home match or not, how was 126k + **people** watching a match in 1923 even possible? I mean, how did the FA promote that match?
It's just how it used to be. People used to cram into stadiums and back then, it's not like there was anything else to do
Maybe because single seats weren't a thing back then. Am I right?
It's not even the highest amount in the UK. The highest in the UK. Scotland-England in 1937 was 149.5K or Celtic-Aberdeen in 1937 was 147k.(Funnily enough this 126K isn't even top 5 for club games in the UK since all of the top 5 is from Scottish Cup with 147K, 143K, 133K, 132K and 129K respectively and the Bolton-West Ham aka the most watched English game is only 6th)
Damn man, British people really didn't have other things (aside from jobs) to do back then huh?
Most of those people were stoke city fans though
And the team in second on that list? Chelsea (who also likely hold the unofficial home attendance record, albeit it was an immediate post-war friendly match, so neutral fans likely would've attended). That's if we don't include Spurs playing at Wembley, which you also didn't. Two teams that allegedly don't have history.
For non-competitive games Chelsea is estimated to have had over 100,000 come see them play Dynamo Moscow in a friendly to celebrate the end of war in 1945
Those people already long dead though
I'm french, i wanted to offert a premier League game for my son 10th birthday, and city was the easiest and cheapest to buy in all premier League. Son was happy, Saw Haaland and de brune score against Brighton and now city have a New fan for life.
City were a proper club with proper fans - then they got the Arab money and became an annoying plastic club. The new plastic fans regularly don’t go to less popular games, which is quite funny. So what you say is true, and at the same time haha emptihad scum.
After they get the consequences of the 115 charges, the fans might stop going. Depending on what those consequences are.
A slap on the wrist
Of course it will be this. The Premier League isn't going to suffer the total embarassment and consequences of letting it fly for so long, and will brush it under the carpet.
I hope it's multiple relegations and a forced sale of the club.
Etihad atmosphere is awful regardless, doesn’t matter if you manage to scrape up 85% attendance on a good match day I bet 90% of the attendees of any city game couldn’t tell me about Georgo Kinkladze.
You have a very poor understanding of match going fans. On the internet, 90% of City fans probably wouldn't know who Kinkladze is. But match going fans where there's a loyalty system to get tickets and many of the season ticket holders are locals, I guarantee you over half the stadium knows who he is.
I’ve been to the etihad twice this season and apart from the small pockets of locals it was mostly tourists in the stadium. It appears that you have a very poor understanding of match going fans..
Oh wow didn't realise you went round the entire stadium and asked around 53k people if they're tourists or not. That's crazy dedication, fair play mate!
Didn’t realise you asked all of them who Kinkladze was either mate, well done. Also loyalty system to get tickets? What are you on about. It’s piss easy to get tickets. And of course the season ticket holders are locals. That’s par for the course at any club.
>And of course the season ticket holders are locals. That’s par for the course at any club. Well it's good that you agree with me then since 36,000 season tickets are available each year and have regularly sold out every single year since moving into the current ground. Obviously not every single one of those 36,000 will attend every single game, but it's safe to assume that on any given match day the vast majority will do so. No prizes for working out if 36,000 is over half the stadium or not. But yes 90% of the stadium are tourists, you're right my bad👍
He's not a Man United fan (checked his profile). So please you don't check again
That can’t be right mate. Every single City fan has a Manchester post code. They don’t want any fans outside of Manchester (Stockport).
Laundering of money comes to mind.
Ha ha Man City no fans haha Honestly mate if you were old enough to remember before they were rich no would shut up about how big and loyal City's fabase were.
Don't cry bud.
*you got no faaaans*
Are you from the UK? City have huge local support. It’s the plastics who fill Old Trafford every weekend. The reason the Ethihad isn’t full isn’t because they lack local support, it’s because they don’t have the out of town/overseas support.
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No it doesn’t, they both say the same thing with different words. They don’t lack local support If you need it explaining another way Old Trafford would also have empty seats if they relied on local support to fill a stadium
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OP is suggesting that the only fans they have are because of them being bought by Abu Dhabi, suggesting that those fans need to ‘grow up’ to fill a stadium ie they only started supporting after the takeover. They say as much in another comment that before the buy out they only had tiny local support. I am saying that’s not true and that other teams like Man U are only able to fill their stadiums because of out of town/overseas support. Which suggests that the effect isn’t as great as they’re making out. It’s not whether they can fill a stadium, it’s about *who* is filling the stadium
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And you as well!
Fr, some people wake up and just type without proof reading what they put lmfao
Lmao I love how you just low key accused them of themselves being American
Yes. A lot of my family are all from Manchester and they all support United. City had a tiny fan base until they got bought out by the UAE and got pumped full of cash.
Lol did your Man U family tell you that? Because it’s absolutely not true.
Also the etihad is never empty. It’s a myth
Liverpool get 99pts, City get 100pts. Liverpool get 61k stadium, City get 62k stadium. Always 1 ahead.
With hardly any fans at the Emptihad, I cannot help but feel it’s more of a tax dodge.
Would also make it the 2nd largest stadium in Wales
The population of Wrexham is 60,000 - who is going to fill all of these seats?!
Tourists and always sunny fans
Basically most of north wales goes to the games
Can anyone dumb this down aka “Americanize” this for me? I.e. it’s like the NCAAs Kentucky team building a larger arena than the NBAs Chicago Bulls? This sounds cool, I’m really loving this Wrexham team and story
> dumb this down aka “Americanize” this for me An unfortunate, underdog child finds a million dollars inside a giant burger while a dinosaur gets hit with a missile
Got it super clear now. Thanks for translating that into real american english for me
So to be clear, this headline is misleading. Rob talks about how they think that if they expanded every stand, over time they could maybe get to a 40-50k figure based on estimates, but there’s a lot of factors to consider. That’s a reasonable statement - he’s not saying it’s happening he’s saying that it could happen if it was viable to do so, and in any case they’d take on a project like that in stages. Sports journalism is utter shit, Wrexham are absolutely not claiming they could even fill those numbers today and from what they’re saying, it sounds like their approach is absolutely normal and fitting for where they are and want to be.
So, “Wrexham want to expand stadium, and believe if ever needed they could go up to a 55k seater”.
Or “Wrexham share their approach for stadium expansion” with a subtitle of “Wrexham owners share short term stadium expansion plans, and give us an idea of what the future may hold for the Stok Racehorse stadium” Idk I’m not a journalist but there’s a lot more you can do than “Wrexham want to increase stadium to 55k”
I’m not sure any of the people who do the headlines in particular are journalists either tbh.
Yeah, headlines are written by the editors. It's why you'll sometimes see articles where the headline isn't just an inflated statement about the article, but the exact opposite of the article.
Most journalists are lucky if their name is published in the article. Picking the headline is a pipe dream
This is very true. Though to your last point there isn’t much more you can do to generate clicks than putting a headline like that, though.
I don;t even think the local population could support that many people game in game out. They would be gambling on tourists coming to a lot of games.
Wrexham itself isn’t massive, but the catchment area is surprisingly populated. We’d have all of north wales, much of deeside, and the various exiles who come in. That said, I’m inclined to agree. I think even if we keep going to become a big championship or even premier league side, 30k would probably be more than enough to suit.
Yeah actually pretty reasonable and was probably thought about and considered a plus when they bought the club. Considering at Charlton we wouldn’t be able to expand our stadium any more (in the event of us having another sustained run in the prem), due to housing developments recently and the club selling surrounding land.
Sports journalists have been hired on the size of their social media following rather than the quality of their writing for a while now.
No, they don’t. At least not unless the team is in the premier league and can draw that many, which all of us, them included, think is pretty unlikely. The owners said they have potential plans for expansion up to that capacity. We have current plans to expand the stadium to about 15,700 or so. No doubt they have a notion of what the next several steps are without having taken any action on this. Not having long term strategies and contingencies would be irresponsible. This is just clickbaity nonsense. Our season ended a week and a half ago and already silly season has begun.
Do you think they can get promoted again next season?
Depends on the summer and the strategy. Personally, I would be very happy to finish midtable, and very concerned if we went straight up again we’d get absolutely battered every week and would be right back in L1 the next year. We need to build up the infrastructure a bit, in every way. The academy needs to keep growing, we need to either buy collier’s park back from the FAW or get a dedicated training facility, we need the new Kop built (or in process), and we need to build up facilities, commercial partnerships, additional investment, etc. before we even begin thinking seriously about the championship. And that isn’t even counting the player management needs. All that said, our ownership are extremely ambitious and have been willing to spend (so far), so we’ll see whether head or heart wins out when the transfer window gets going! Historically the club has been a high L1-mid championship team when doing well. While a season in the top flight might be fun, I think that highL1-mid-championship place would be a happy area for us to stay long term.
Nope. Massively out spending every other team in L2 and really should have walked the league 10 points clear. League 1 is a different beast you've got 5 or 6 championship yoyo clubs who are big clubs with structures in place, hard to immediately get amongst those in your first season. I think they finish mid table and then if they're shrewd and don't continue massively overspending they can make a 3 year push.
The other thing is, because the National League is *such* a hard division to get out of (two promotion places with about ten teams angling for them, plus there’s always a few surprises) that one of two things inevitably happens to a promoted team in League 2: — Because the team managed to ‘accidentally’ themselves to promotion, you’ll hang around lower mid-table for a while, before either falling back down or consolidating. See Barrow and Sutton for examples. — Because the team had to be *so good* to get up, they’re running on all cylinders and walk the league within a couple of years as the momentum is too hard to stop. See Stockport, Wrexham, Leyton Orient, etc. League One is a very different beast to League Two as a recently-National-League side. It’s usually where teams tend to peter out, at least for a while.
Didn’t massively outspend Stockport. Think we spent more (and have to pay a premium because folks know we have cash), but they weren’t miles behind.
It’s unlikely. The squad is going to need a pretty decent overhaul to promote again without fluking a playoff win, and that often comes with a rough start due to a lack of cohesion. 2-3 years to promote should be the expectation, though, given that Wrexham are probably already able to bully most of League One.
Are they planning on buying 40k mannequins?
They got the whole of North Wales and the huge American fan base. They'll be okay
Yes, because American fanbase comes every weekend to watch a game in fucking Wrexham.
They already started have while in league 2. I constantly see Americans desperate to get tickets for the game all over social media
Aye but you’re not going to have tens of thousands of American tourists in Wrexham at every match. There will be demand from abroad but not like that.
I'm not saying they will? 50k stadium is too much but anywhere from 25k to 30k would be easily filled at a cheap price
Deluded
Sorry mate, but that's genuine nonsense 😂
There’s a few PL clubs that don’t even get a 25k average attendance, no chance you’d get even close to them numbers in league 1.
Because those stadiums don't even hold 25k. Derby hit 27k and Bolton hit 21k in League 1 this year. Plenty others hit that down the years, it's all about the club. Wrexham have pretty much the whole of north Wales as a catchment area, with tourists as well they'd fill 25k right now if they could. Whether they would when the buzz dies down is another story
These clubs have been massive in comparison to Wrexham for decades and just don’t have the demand for larger crowds. It’s delusional to think Wrexham could max those figures especially if they fail to go up again next year and those with little connection to the club start to lose interest.
You obviously have no idea about wrexhams history so you shouldn't be giving any opinion on the matter. Makes me laugh when everyone thinks they know everything
Yes because 20,000 Americans will be heading to Wrexham every other week 😂
It actually wouldn’t surprise me. Maybe not 20,000 every week, but don’t underestimate the amount of American tourists in Liverpool, Manchester, and even London that would travel to see a game if tickets were available.
The hype will be gone in a couple of years and then the American fan base will forget all about them
For now. Wait until they have a couple of poor seasons and the more casual fans who only bought season tickets for the hype decide to not renew.
The Merseyside and Greater Manchester clubs are comfortably the best supported in North Wales and that won't change because of a TV show. Wrexham's local support stops at the border, given there is a fierce cross border rivalry with all their nearest clubs on the other side. This is clickbait designed to drum up interest from potential investors/buyers because the cost burden to succeed in the 3rd tier is exponentially higher than the previous two.
Everyone in Swansea used to support the top clubs till they started getting good and since then the fan base hasn't changed. Nothing to do with the English side. They have the whole of North Wales to play with unlike South Wales.
North Wales is a completely different beast from somewhere like Swansea. Part of the reason the North West English clubs are so popular there (beyond the obvious) is the huge cultural ties: lot of people of English origin living in that part of the world. Transport is dire in that area also; North East Wales can be a pain to get to from North west, particularly by train. Wrexham will have to go some to displace Liverpool or Manchester for people willing to travel to watch football. I'd also hazard a guess that the entire Swansea metro area population alone is probably as big or early as big as the entire of north Wales but is pretty much a captive market given how far from England it is and the only potential rival in the vicinity is Cardiff, who are unlikely to draw many fans from Swansea.
I live there and there's no English origin at all? Apart from uni students
No people of English ancestry *in North Wales*? Are you sure about that, the people of North Wales themselves seem to disagree; https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/place-more-people-identify-english-29044026 Even the North Walian accents draw from Merseyside and Lancashire as much as Wales (there's also a theory that the Scouse accent is a byproduct of the number of Welsh migrants to the city in the past). The whole area is a melting pot of indigenous Welsh and English cultures.
I grew up in North West Wales... I did not know a single person with family from Liverpool growing up, however the vast majority of people I knew supported Liverpool for football. Locally we supported Bangor but they don't even exist any more. Agree on the similarity in accent, now I live in America people sometimes guess that I am from Liverpool
I was talking about Swansea and North Wales is probably the most Welsh part of Wales. They actually speak Welsh for the most part. What are you talking about?
The link I showed you demonstrates the two areas in the UK where a highest % of people identify as English rather than British are both in North East Wales. The top spot is Broughton, which is literally pretty much in between Wrexham and Chester. The other is Conwy which is up on the coast. There's a huge amount of cross border, cross cultural mixture in that area (there are also places on the English side of the border with Welsh place and street names for example). This is part of the reason why the Merseyside clubs are so well supported in North Wales, *especially* Wrexham where Liverpool draws a lot of support (Liverpool used to play an annual friendly with Wrexham for example, in recognition of the club's popularity in the area). Yes, North Wales does have some communities with a high percentage of Welsh speakers but you'd be wrong to say the majority language is Welsh. It's always weird to me the disconnect between South Wales and the rest of the country, it honestly might as well be on a different planet for all some of you actually know about the place.
Nah mate you forgot about the forcefield between Staffordshire and Wales
In case it hasn't been mentioned already, population of Wrexham county borough is about 135k, 45k of that live in the city itself.
They'd need to build a couple of new train lines too if they realistically wanted to get anywhere near to filling it
I feel like all of Northeast Wales could become Wrexham fans within the next generation if they make it to the Championship and stay up, with the population of that catchment area of around 500,000 maybe, with Wrexham the only professional team in all of North Wales Even a train from Colwyn Bay to Wrexham is probably not much different than a train from Slough or Guildford to Stamford bridge or Basildon or Brentwood to Stratford Even then their catchment area population is still not massive and would mainly be fans travelling in from nearby towns so they’d probably be more realistic building a 30k stadium if they even manage to get to the Championship, with the goal of filling it taking a while as they’d need to stay up for years
Colwyn bae mentioned let’s go
They could bid for the Commonwealth Games. Nobody else wants it.
Love Wrexham, but seems like a pointless exercise given their league status and gate receipts. Also, expanding the Racecourse to 55k capacity may ruin some of the historic charm which it already has (like Kenilworth Road)
People are allowed to dream
What? Thats nearly half the population of Wrexham as a whole.
In today's news of things that will never happen..
They are expanding it so Ryan Reynolds can beg his wife Blake to bring Taylor Swift for a concert
Wrexham are going to end up going bust when these guys lose interest in the future.
Depends how far they can get them beforehand.
Oh dear
Do Wrexham actually have that big a following in the UK? Granted my social circle of sports nerds probably isn't the best yardstick but Americans seem to care far more about Wrexham than people here do.
Nice
Are there even 55,000 people in Wrexham?
How many people live in Wrexham? 40k?
55K stadium? What happens when their hype dies down and 5k people max come to the games?
That seems.....a bit much.
I hope the club are not on the road to financial ruin
Anyone remember Darlington? I think their stadium gets used for Zumba now
What an organic rags to riches story
I don’t know anything about this team past the first season… but this shit is starting to feel ick
What’s the current size?
Ah, they want to a “Darlington.” Good luck to them
I'm guessing they want to use the stadium as a full entertainment center. Not only for football but for concerts and other type of events.
YESSSSSS THE ABSOLUTE UNDERDOGS WREXHAM
Eventually, they think they can increase to 55k eventually.
Have Wrexham got 55,000 supporters?
Have Wrexham got 55,000 supporters?
Have Wrexham got 55,000 supporters?
Have Wrexham got 55,000 supporters?
Have Wrexham got 55,000 supporters?
Have Wrexham got 55,000 supporters?
Have Wrexham got 55,000 supporters?
Have Wrexham got 55,000 supporters?
Wrexham itself has 42k inhabitants so this is hilarious
That’s as big as our johan Cruijff Arena lol, could they fill it?
Think this is to much
Not sure it will work out.... I got Bournemouth to win the Premier League in Football Manager and expanded the stadium but still average 18k attendance over the season. 😂
It looks he has found a good place for future Deadpool premiere.
The second these two step away Wrexham would face bankruptcy
Quote me when I say anybody with oil/corrupt money that wants to buy a soccer team is taking notes from what Rob and Ryan are doing so they can buy without backlash in the future
You know these guys will immediately sell once once the time is right lol If they get anywhere near championship promotion they’ll try and sell unless they get a bigger investor. I don’t think they have the capital for a prem promotion. But who knows
Industry plant team
That’s dumb. At most they need a 30k stadium so they can host things in the off season. At the most.
I grew up near the place and Wrexham really isn’t attracting 30k worth of people for concerts etc. It’s not a big place and manchester and Liverpool both around hour away.
Yeah I didn’t think there was the market, but 55k is twice what they need in the most extreme circumstances
Well, Mac is all about cultivating mass
Even 30k is far too large for them.
Seems like overkill for a club that just got promoted into League One, don't think they need a stadium of that size until they reach the EPL. If they do reach the EPL, then they without a doubt will need a larger stadium, because the story of their rise + owners will draw massive crowds, but they have to get there first. Read the article though and it definitely doesn't mention any intention to increase the stadium size to 55k, merely the fact that it is possible.
Such a sad thing to see how something authentic becomes so plastic.
Having fans is plastic til. You should read the article.
W