I'd honestly be very surprised if many fans see us as a PL club.
For most of my lifetime we were a run of the mill second tier side and i think that would be about our level, (as the 50/40/30/20 year averages in the original post kind of confirm).
There are PL clubs I don’t see as PL clubs and even some of the biggest are often only a bad season or a bad owner away from losing that crown.
Charlton has to be in that top tier of potential in terms of its catchment area, location (ie London and access to a young and affluent fanbase) and room for expansion of the ground. Most clubs can’t tick two of those boxes, let alone all three.
As it stands, the stadium with all its faults is light years ahead of many others, including the PL. Sparrows Lane could probably accommodate the facilities available to half the league.
Are we a big club ? I suspect we are a lot bigger than people realise, including our own fan base.
I’m not sure Charlton really tick any of those boxes. Being in London is a gift and curse, the market is saturated with more professional football teams than any other city on earth. You are also competing for finite disposable income with some of the greatest cultural attractions in the world too.
Also, is there really room to expand the stadium anymore? Thought it had mainly been sold off.
This is very true. Sadly, it’s palace who have the biggest catchment area out of all the south London clubs. They’re right on the edge of south London so have most of Surrey as well as their part of south London. And as we know Surrey is full of people who would like to get in to “the footy” in this day and age, and have the disposable income to do so.
Unfortunately I can only see them going from strength to strength
Very hard to disagree with that, but I couldn't hit the like button because the only words in it I liked were 'sadly' and 'unfortunately'. In fact, at points I found myself hankering after the old flag button.
Man Utd Man City liverpool Arsenal newcastle Chelsea spurs everton Leeds Aston Villa
there’s probably another category actually who r deffo bigger than us: sheff wed ,Sunderland, forest etc but is their potential any bigger? Probably not - the London factor closes that gap
I was with you up until the London factor bit, which I think is often overstated. Sure it must help recruitment that it's one of the World's best known cities and that its famous for its culture, but there's a couple of big buts. It's a city with an overabundance of clubs. Three of which are huge, and half a dozen are, at least for the moment, on par or doing better than us. The other thing is that most of the provincial clubs come from single (or at most) two club towns and cities. We are never going to get the same levels of local support as them because there's too much competition and the population is too fluid.
but there is a much bigger local floating support - which explains why fulham, brentford and even ourselves managed to sell out in the prem - wycombe or bournmouth or exeter would struggle - a one city club will have a much more consistently sized support - norwich and ipswich's gates don't change much regardless of division
I don't think there is bigger local floating support. I think there's a bigger population who may be attracted given the right conditions. But we haven't sold out The Valley for 16 years. There's a missing ingredient in making the most of that bigger local population; top flight football. People will turn up to watch a familiar team (ie one that's regularly on the telly) playing close to their home, and they may be sympathetic towards Charlton but that doesn't make them fans, nor does it make it easy to convert them into fans.
Is it true we have not sold out the Valley for 16 years? Doncaster Play-off semi final I am pretty sure was a sell out. During 19/20, Blackburn also came within a few hundred of a sell out crowd (albeit cheap tickets). I think the does help to prove that there is a paying audience there, if the team are successful.
Yes, sadly it is true. Doncaster was 25,428. So that's over 1,500 empty seats. Blackburn was 25,363, which is again close but a little bit more down on the max. The last time we fully sold out was 21 April 2007. We did it five times in two seasons in the Premiership. Haven't managed it since.
Also over half the population of London were not born in the UK. So we do not have a demographic that has historical al links of family watching Charlton
They will have come here with allegiance to the team in the home country they have come from, And the big 6 prem teams they watched on TV. So it will be a struggle to build a fanbase for us.
I didn't want this nonsense not to be called out, so I'm doing so.
This is nonsense.
Chizz I take it you don't live in London ? Sorry to do this on this thread but I can't let Chizz call something nonsense when the 50% will be reached possibly by 2030. I have many friends and neighbours who weren't born in the UK.
London has become one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world where over 300 languages are spoken in Greater London. At the 2021 census, London had a population of 8,799,720. Around 37% of the population were born outside the UK.
I take Chizz criticism as friendly. So I have checked the ONS population estimate for London as of 2023 and they now estimate 41% of the Lindon population not born in the UK. The point Chizz is that people with other origins bring with them their own histories and habits such as the football teams they support including the experience of watching European football on TV. Gues what Charlton have little exposure from this. We therefore have an uphill task in winning new supporters.
Also over half the population of London were not born in the UK. So we do not have a demographic that has historical al links of family watching Charlton
They will have come here with allegiance to the team in the home country they have come from, And the big 6 prem teams they watched on TV. So it will be a struggle to build a fanbase for us.
I didn't want this nonsense not to be called out, so I'm doing so.
This is nonsense.
Chizz I take it you don't live in London ? Sorry to do this on this thread but I can't let Chizz call something nonsense when the 50% will be reached possibly by 2030. I have many friends and neighbours who weren't born in the UK.
London has become one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world where over 300 languages are spoken in Greater London. At the 2021 census, London had a population of 8,799,720. Around 37% of the population were born outside the UK.
This is why it's nonsense to suggest "over half the population of London were not born in the UK".
Surely we will have attracted some fans from abroad when we were in the Prem and on TV. @jessie for one as I recall.
Yes indeed. Some people here followed Charlton during the Prem years, especially when Zheng Zhi joined. Today I still occasionally receive comments like "when will you return to the Premier League" from people on the social media account which I run for updating Charlton news.
Charlton Athletic live in a house of mirrors which is disorienting and confusing. Reality is lost and the truth is elusive. We look like the alien with the monster head or Peter Crouch after another growth spurt with legs longer than ladders.
I'm worried we might disappear in the smoke.
"who the effing hell are we" "who the effing hell are we"
Middling second tier team is how I view us, which is what we have been historically and why I will not be backslapping any ownership until they get us out of this league hopefully for a good long time.
My fear is that after a series of atrocious owners since it went wrong under the Spivs leading to the Belgian turning up that we are slowly being downsized as a club even in the minds of fans.
If it was not for the The Valley as a reminder I believe more and more fans would be slipping in to the mind set that we are happy as a middling third tier club with aspirations to get promoted.
Middling second tier team is how I view us, which is what we have been historically and why I will not be backslapping any ownership until they get us out of this league hopefully for a good long time.
My fear is that after a series of atrocious owners since it went wrong under the Spivs leading to the Belgian turning up that we are slowly being downsized as a club even in the minds of fans.
If it was not for the The Valley as a reminder I believe more and more fans would be slipping in to the mind set that we are happy as a middling third tier club with aspirations to get promoted.
Except from ‘37-‘57 when we were top tier, and upper top tier at times. (Interrupted by WW2 of course, unfortunately). It’s easy to forget that.
Comments
Chizz I take it you don't live in London ?
Sorry to do this on this thread but I can't let Chizz call something nonsense when the 50% will be reached possibly by 2030.
I have many friends and neighbours who weren't born in the UK.
London has become one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world where over 300 languages are spoken in Greater London. At the 2021 census, London had a population of 8,799,720. Around 37% of the population were born outside the UK.
The point Chizz is that people with other origins bring with them their own histories and habits such as the football teams they support including the experience of watching European football on TV. Gues what Charlton have little exposure from this.
We therefore have an uphill task in winning new supporters.
Charlton Athletic live in a house of mirrors which is disorienting and confusing. Reality is lost and the truth is elusive. We look like the alien with the monster head or Peter Crouch after another growth spurt with legs longer than ladders.
I'm worried we might disappear in the smoke.
"who the effing hell are we"
"who the effing hell are we"
My fear is that after a series of atrocious owners since it went wrong under the Spivs leading to the Belgian turning up that we are slowly being downsized as a club even in the minds of fans.
If it was not for the The Valley as a reminder I believe more and more fans would be slipping in to the mind set that we are happy as a middling third tier club with aspirations to get promoted.