Stadium Development

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The massives have got all the support even though they are in a bad way, we should be attracting all the youngsters now but are still seen as a unfashionable club.
 

West Ham used to sell out the Boleyn (capacity 35k) to a similar level as we're currently filling Bramall Lane. They moved to the Taxpayers' Bowl (capacity 62.5k) and have had an average attendance in the PL of over 60k each year.

Obviously it helps that they were gifted a brand new stadium in what can only be described as state aid but they show what can be done.

Increase the capacity of Bramall Lane to 40k and if we're a competitive PL team we'd sell out regularly. The issue is that unless someone else pays for it we don't have the money to invest in upgrading the bits which need it.
 
Any increase in capacity (when we can afford it), should be incremental. The next logical step is to go to around 35k and then see how we go from there.

You need extra capacity to grow (and I'm not talking 1k restricted view seats), as we had and did up until the mid 00s. We probably had 40-50% spare capacity back then, which is of course, too much. But, we've steadily increased our average attendances and got 28k last year in the second tier - this with a reduced capacity for most of the season. That's 10k more than in one of our most fun seasons 02/03, 5k more than 05/06 promotion and 2k more than 18/19 promotion.
 
Old Programme seller said:
I’m not convinced we need a bigger capacity stadium but we do need something to create extra income ie more corporate
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Liverpool, who obviously has increased their corporate capacity through stadium redevelopments, have also either ownerships or agreements with local hospitality venues very close to the stadium. So you can sit in a nice venue a few minutes walk from the ground, have food / drink be given your programmes, have your bets placed, have Ian Rush come and do a talk etc etc and then at 2:30 walked straight up to the ground in at the front and off you pop to your seats. Obviously its not a full on corporate experience with the half time drinks / bowl of soup etc, but still allows people to entertain, a bit cheaper and still end up going to the match. With the venues such Panenka 2 minutes away, the hotel when that's sorted this year, in the short term you could always do something on the Kop car park, this couldve been a very easy way this season to have raised more income and interest. There's hundreds of seats in the Upper Tier available every game and that area has the old Fulham neutral stand feel about it. A missed opportunity as i doubt people will be that arsed watching Cardiff and Preston next season and paying £100+ for the privelidge
 
What the club have done brilliantly over the last 10-15 years is appeal to the large student population in Sheffield. What hinders us at the minute is getting these new fans on board due to the difficulty of buying a ticket as a new person on the ticketing system.

The poster suggesting our fan base is on the decline is respectfully talking bollocks. I had my first season ticket in the mid to late 90's and there would be games where there'd be entire rows of empty seats around us. Anything over 20k back then was a big crowd and only happened a couple of times a season with the help of an away team selling out the upper and lower tier of BL.

Ideally, we need to capitalise on increase of fans and up the capacity to 35k in the next decade so that we don't stagnate.
 
sufc323 said:
What the club have done brilliantly over the last 10-15 years is appeal to the large student population in Sheffield. What hinders us at the minute is getting these new fans on board due to the difficulty of buying a ticket as a new person on the ticketing system.

The poster suggesting our fan base is on the decline is respectfully talking bollocks. I had my first season ticket in the mid to late 90's and there would be games where there'd be entire rows of empty seats around us. Anything over 20k back then was a big crowd and only happened a couple of times a season with the help of an away team selling out the upper and lower tier of BL.

Ideally, we need to capitalise on increase of fans and up the capacity to 35k in the next decade so that we don't stagnate.
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If these students are struggling to work out how to sign up to our ticket website and buy tickets, then I don’t think they’ve got much chance of getting their degree! 🤣
 
YES Blade said:
If these students are struggling to work out how to sign up to our ticket website and buy tickets, then I don’t think they’ve got much chance of getting their degree! 🤣
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The issue is more around certain games, needing X amount of points to get a ticket. Which means that someone with no previous history of getting a ticket can't get one, as was the case at Wembley before it got changed to general sale around 2 days before the game.
 
finlaytheblade said:
Last 50000 + crowd = 1960
FA cup 6th round sufc v Swfc pigs won 2-0.
Wilkinson (derek) scored em both ,we battered them and lost,springett had a blinder!!
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1962 FA Cup 6th round v Burnley, thought attendance for that was 57,000, wall collapsed on Kop.
Was there that day.
 
LSF said:
1962 FA Cup 6th round v Burnley, thought attendance for that was 57,000, wall collapsed on Kop.
Was there that day.
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Spot on ! I remember that now I was on the Bramall Lane end in those days,no segregation problems then.
I thought the Burnley game came before the pigs game poor aging memory!
 
Talking only from memory and observation, with no evidence, I think the ground generally is much fuller than it was when me and Esteemed Forgeblade started going in the late 90's, first in the family stand, and from about 2001, the kop.
A good attendance was about 16000, with many around 13000 to 15000. There were huge swathes of empty seats in every stand, although the atmosphere seemed pretty good.

Whatever Warnock's faults, attendance rose during his period as manager, and it has never fallen to the previous levels, despite some of the crap served up after he left. This would seem to indicate that there is an "audience" for what United do, and that audience has grown. As in many positive things about how to run a football club, we should again look at Brighton. They lost their original ground (the rusting hulk of the Goldstone), and ended up playing at the Withdean athletics stadium, capacity about 6000. There was no tradition of top league football in Brighton, and any big crowds came in cup games (at the Goldstone).
The current situation of the club has been "grown" in well under 20 years.

I don't buy JJBlade's assertion that United is a dying club in terms of support, because I can see with my own eyes in the ground that it isn't. I do think that we could fill a 40000 stadium. BUT, and it's a big but, this can only be done by relative success on the field - the only relative success that counts these days an extended period in the top flight, and we just don't seem able to achieve that. If we could, I believe that the fans are there.
 

Inter_blade83 said:
Wasn't it revealed that during one of our PL seasons (either 2006-7 or 2019-20) that there were more than 70k or 100k different purchasers of home tickets? I can't remember the actual figure, but it was far in excess of our capacity.

Yes, there would be a few fans from other teams buying tickets in the home end, as we have all done at other teams, but not to the extent that the figure would be 3 times our capacity.

With a new stadium and PL football we'd easily attract 40k week in week out.

Also, I don't get this bollocks about giving more tickets to away fans. Every prem team give 3k. No more, as that's the requirement. It would never benefit us to give more in the PL, as the offer would not be reciprocated and the financial gain minimal.
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Nowadays there are not 49,000 people in the entire region that support Sheffield United. - where do we get these clowns from. The ground has never been set up for 50K plus crowds and when we have had them it we had to put plenty around the cricket pitch. As for getting 40k regular. I'll go along with that. We've never had a chance to show potential since the 1920's. Considering the Porcines ground size and there honours record it's amazing our historical average is only 1700 less than theirs. Hope we can average 30K this season as we'll be one in front of them. Amazing stat is that in their 150+ year history they've averaged 30K on 10 occasions., 7 coming in consecutive seasons 1947/54. That means in the other 143+ they've managed it 3 times.
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Don't understand how people on here can predict our attendances. Even not winning anything for nearly 100 years our Prem attendance stats have been 96/98% capacity. If we ever win something and show ourselves progressive then forget 40K, think 40/45K. The main drawback has always been the ground, from having to play at the side of a cricket pitch to being rebuilt ad hoc. Even now the Kop still has posts obscuring view. This on top of our pathetic honours record.
 
Bill puntin said:
The massives have got all the support even though they are in a bad way, we should be attracting all the youngsters now but are still seen as a unfashionable club.
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worra lodda bollox. This is their promotion season and their crowds are made up of about 2500/ 3000 average away fans and 23000 home. Just look around the ground at the next home game and check out the empty seats which average 6/8000. FFS.
 
Hanauer said:
worra lodda bollox. This is their promotion season and their crowds are made up of about 2500/ 3000 average away fans and 23000 home. Just look around the ground at the next home game and check out the empty seats which average 6/8000. FFS.
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Big thing about comparing attendances from the past is the number of away fans. I remember them expanding all around the old cricket ground. United’s home fans attendance of around 27000 is superb. I went to the autograph signing in the club shop the other day. The queue was snaking out of the car park. Queue full of youngsters. And we’re bottom of league! Superb.
 
JJBlade said:
I didn't say that. I said the stadium held 49,000 up to the Hillsborough disaster.
It doesn't really matter how many went during the worst 10 year period in our history, the stadium held 49,000.

In days prior to that it held even more, and was occasionally full to the rafters which means that Sheffield United fans did exist, even if waiting for the club to do something special instead of being shit.

Nowadays there are not 49,000 people in the entire region that support Sheffield United.

So maybe our attendance going fanbase has grown since the dark days of Billy McEwan, but our overall fanbase in the city and region has fallen.

We know this because even in the dark days of Billy McEwan, as bad as it was if Sheffield United had somehow managed to get to an FA Cup Semi Final it would have been absolute bedlam trying to get a ticket.
Nowadays were sending 6,000 - 7,000 back.
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You keep saying it held 49000 up to the Hillsborough, it didn’t. It was 45000.

You also state there are not 49000 fans to go at anymore. That’s just your opinion and not a fact.
 
Obviously that poster is massively exaggerating again, but I do think our fanbase should be much bigger than it is. We have rarely sold out this season, and in the last couple of home games the upper tier has been half empty. We sell very few single match tickets because we make it so insanely difficult for people to buy. That means we're not attracting any new fans into the ground. It's just a rotating cast of 30-35k who go regularly. We should be absolutely cleaning up the casual support in the city being in the Prem, but we're not. We're missing out on a huge opportunity with the nonsensical way we sell tickets.
 
Proper Blade said:
Obviously that poster is massively exaggerating again, but I do think our fanbase should be much bigger than it is. We have rarely sold out this season, and in the last couple of home games the upper tier has been half empty. We sell very few single match tickets because we make it so insanely difficult for people to buy. That means we're not attracting any new fans into the ground. It's just a rotating cast of 30-35k who go regularly. We should be absolutely cleaning up the casual support in the city being in the Prem, but we're not. We're missing out on a huge opportunity with the nonsensical way we sell tickets.
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Well we sell the number of tickets that aren't season tickets don't we? So some matches we are full. So people can buy tickets....
 
Addison said:
www.sufc.co.uk

Club Statement

In response to public statements being circulated by the Scarborough Group, Sheffield United Football Club regrets that it must update the statement it released on 20th January 2020 regarding the in principle agreement previously reached between the Club and the Scarborough Group over the transfer t
www.sufc.co.uk www.sufc.co.uk

Back in early 2020 the Club provided the attached statement that confirmed KM had renaged on an agreement to sell the Kop land sites referencing unreasonable demands as to the value of the property options (the assets Stadium, hotel etc). At the time I posted it was to be hoped the Kop Land sites would be included in arbitration to draw a line under the dispute. They weren't and 4 years later they are still a point of contention.

I'd say its fair to argue after all this time KM has little intention of selling the land to the Club whilst PA is in situ. unless his financial situation is so precarious he has no alternative. The very fact he engineered their exclusion from the original partnership agreement suggests he always intended to keep a little piece of BDTBL for himself possibly in the hope he would one day come charging over the hill on a white horse to save the Club.

SUFC back in 2020 stated the building of any high rise dwellings would be vigorously contested as it would cause ground access issues so there is the potential for further disputes to occur which we can ill afford.

KM genuinely may be in financial difficulty and has no option but to sell. Part of me feels this is just another annual look at me exercise in a desperate attempt to remain relevant.
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McCabe is actually a full weight twat, isn't he
 
Hanauer said:
worra lodda bollox. This is their promotion season and their crowds are made up of about 2500/ 3000 average away fans and 23000 home. Just look around the ground at the next home game and check out the empty seats which average 6/8000. FFS.
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How the fuck can they get away with returning crowds of 28 and 29 thou then
 
It's the 2 parts covered in yellow here isn't it.
The one at South Stand Side (originally pencilled as Club Shop), is far enough away from the Kop.

The John Street Side is the problem.

Depends how far these "pockets" go. If they extend into the blue, we have a big problem.

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These residential builds appear to have been drawn up in the original designs.

Build them exactly as shown in the image above, keeping inside the yellow and then everybody's happy, aren't they ? 🤷‍♂️
Fucknut McCabe gets his apartments and SUFC don't encroach.

Seems strange they were drawn into the plans - granted that was when 1 company owned both parts of the land
 
Bill puntin said:
The massives have got all the support even though they are in a bad way, we should be attracting all the youngsters now but are still seen as a unfashionable club.
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Where've you pulled that nonsense from?

Last 21 seasons, with the exception of 2019/20 & 20/21 covid seasons, AVG attendances are ~23.4K United versus ~23.0K Pigs

Last 10 seasons, except covids, AVGS are ~24.8K United versus ~24.2K

Last 5 seasons, except covids, AVGS are ~28.1K United versus ~23.8K

Just look at 17/18 and 18/19. Both in the Championship together and w beat them both times.
Worth noting that their away end is MUCH bigger than ours too so their attendances are inflated by a few games a season when they get >5K away fans in.

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Harry's Game said:
We could not get 49k in the 1980s no chance, not even for a Sheffield derby.. first game back in the top flight in 1990. vs Liverpool? 22k..

And Man U and Livperool did not sell out their grounds very often in the 1980s… also Wednesday on the top flight in the 1980s struggled to get 20k
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Official attendance v Liverpool on 29th August 1990 was 27,009

We averaged between 20-25k that season.

I know a number of people who tried to get season tickets for this season and couldn't, so that would suggest that the demand has definitely increased. I've also been asked on numerous occasions if I can get tickets for people because they couldn't get them via the normal routes.

I think that now we'd easily sell between 25-30k in season tickets, then add away support and casual supporters and we'd probably average about 35k particularly if we're doing well.
 
mattbianco1 said:
Where've you pulled that nonsense from?

Last 21 seasons, with the exception of 2020/21, AVG attendances are ~23.7K United versus ~22.8K Pigs

Last 10 seasons, except 20/21, AVGS are ~24.8K United versus ~23.6K

Last 5 seasons, except 20/21, AVGS are ~27.2K United versus ~22.5K

Just look at 17/18 and 18/19. Both in the Championship together and w beat them both times.
Worth noting that their away end is MUCH bigger than ours too so their attendances are inflated by a few games a season when they get >5K away fans in.
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You also have to factor in that the massives all bought 5 year season tickets so they are obligated to go and watch that shite whether they want to or not 😂
 

Harry's Game said:
Nope the housing plans are to use the current area where the kop entrance and exit is on John Street seen bottom right below…




the new entrance exits would be onto Shoreham street at the back of an expanded Kop.. Which we currently cannot afford to build.. we would have a serious problem here
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It would obviously cost but would it be that much to put some new steps down where I've marked in yellow, and move the turnstiles? Would lose a part of that car park mind.

Edit: a bigger issue might be us getting planning permission to extend the kop back if there's flats there

BLcorner.png
 
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