Liverpool FC Forum

by **76-1174245250** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 9:06 pm

The problem is I can't see us filling a 72,000 seater stadium (or whatever it is).

I've been to games over the last few years where we've only had 42,000 or even 40,000 against the smaller sides in the league and thats just embarressing.

Its all well and good filling it on european nights and in the big games, but the fact is against the likes of Boro, Charlton, Wigan etc we aren't going to get the crowds. Which in turn will mean the gate prices will probably go up even further. It will be an embarressment to this club playing in a half empty stadium.

by **J*o*n*D*o*e** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 10:57 pm

its all well and good saying we`ll never fill the stadium of 70k week in and week out but its bloody crazy to build a stadium with a capacity of 61,000 with no way of adding to it.

plus i would sooner see some empty seats if it means everybody who wanted a ticket got one, if its managed properly any empty seats will be at the back of the stands anyway

hopefully the new owners are going to try and squeeze out of the council a few thousands more seats now and change the plans so if demand is still not met we can add to it in the future.

by **Woollyback** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 11:54 pm

Sabre wrote:According to the 2001 data I have, Liverpool has 439.473 population.

population figures for british cities (particularly the bigger ones) are very misleading. british cities are broken down into boroughs, the population of manchester for example is about 400,000

but "manchester" doesn't include where old trafford is (even though its only 2 miles from the city centre) and doesn't include salford which actually starts on the edge of the city centre. a better measure is to use "greater manchester" which includes all the suburbs and towns which have been swallowed up by them which gives a population of 2.5m

it's the same with liverpool but on a less exagerated scale. if you include birkenhead & the wirral, knowsley, sefton, halton & southport then the population is actually about 1.5m. the north west region of england (where there must be massive numbers of liverpool fans scattered around within 90 minutes drive of anfield) is just under 7 million - potentially a lot of people who'd love top go to the game

i think if we had 70/80k capacity then no it probably wouldn't be full for midweek early-round fa cup games but i reckon that's a fair trade-off to get a massive full house every other saturday and for all the european nights

by **Sabre** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 12:01 am

population figures for british cities (particularly the bigger ones) are very misleading. british cities are broken down into boroughs, the population of manchester for example is about 400,000

but "manchester" doesn't include where old trafford is (even though its only 2 miles from the city centre) and doesn't include salford which actually starts on the edge of the city centre. a better measure is to use "greater manchester" which includes all the suburbs and towns which have been swallowed up by them which gives a population of 2.5m

it's the same with liverpool but on a less exagerated scale. if you include birkenhead & the wirral, knowsley, sefton, halton & southport then the population is actually about 1.5m. the north west region of england (where there must be massive numbers of liverpool fans scattered around within 90 minutes drive of anfield) is just under 7 million - potentially a lot of people who'd love top go to the game

i think if we had 70/80k capacity then no it probably wouldn't be full for midweek early-round fa cup games but i reckon that's a fair trade-off to get a massive full house every other saturday and for all the european nights

Yeh, I get the idea, it happens the same here. You have the population of the city, and then the surrounding "belt" of towns that even could be considered as little cities.

So it's misleading in terms of the amount of the population that a club can grasp in it's influence zone, but not completely. My point is that the higher the population of a city is, the bigger it will be it's surrounding belt.

Bilbao has a population similar to Liverpool, but it's "belt" puts them at 800.000

San Sebastian is a 200.000, and it's belt puts us in 400.000

Madrid's belt is enormous. I'm not sure, you can confirm this as you're up there, but I think there's a direct relation between the official population of a city and it's surrounding "belt" of mini-cities and towns.

I agree your main point though (Peewee already stated it in a concise way), the amount of people of Liverpool's zone is not that 500K number, but bigger.

by **Woollyback** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 12:13 am

Sabre wrote:
population figures for british cities (particularly the bigger ones) are very misleading. british cities are broken down into boroughs, the population of manchester for example is about 400,000

but "manchester" doesn't include where old trafford is (even though its only 2 miles from the city centre) and doesn't include salford which actually starts on the edge of the city centre. a better measure is to use "greater manchester" which includes all the suburbs and towns which have been swallowed up by them which gives a population of 2.5m

it's the same with liverpool but on a less exagerated scale. if you include birkenhead & the wirral, knowsley, sefton, halton & southport then the population is actually about 1.5m. the north west region of england (where there must be massive numbers of liverpool fans scattered around within 90 minutes drive of anfield) is just under 7 million - potentially a lot of people who'd love top go to the game

i think if we had 70/80k capacity then no it probably wouldn't be full for midweek early-round fa cup games but i reckon that's a fair trade-off to get a massive full house every other saturday and for all the european nights

Yeh, I get the idea, it happens the same here. You have the population of the city, and then the surrounding "belt" of towns that even could be considered as little cities.

So it's misleading in terms of the amount of the population that a club can grasp in it's influence zone, but not completely. My point is that the higher the population of a city is, the bigger it will be it's surrounding belt.

Bilbao has a population similar to Liverpool, but it's "belt" puts them at 800.000

San Sebastian is a 200.000, and it's belt puts us in 400.000

Madrid's belt is enormous. I'm not sure, you can confirm this as you're up there, but I think there's a direct relation between the official population of a city and it's surrounding "belt" of mini-cities and towns.

I agree your main point though (Peewee already stated it in a concise way), the amount of people of Liverpool's zone is not that 500K number, but bigger.

yeah, liverpool is a big city by UK standards (about the 4th/5th biggest in the country if we're talking metropolitan areas) but not on the scale of places with truly enormous stadia like madrid, barcelona, milan, munich etc

we need to remember however that the north west of england is FANATICAL about football - and merseyside in particular is fiercely proud of its city, people & football meaning that we're mopre likely to fill a big ground than most cities of similar size

my only concern is that if we suddenly have 20,000 new seats then 5000 of them will be filled by people who deserve them and the other 15,000 will be filled with people who don't sing and only go for the hot dogs

by **Lando_Griffin** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 5:10 am

I could be wrong, but I would hazard a guess that it's not a lack of ticket sales which currently causes empty seats for the "lesser" games, but the season ticket holders not attending.

Whenever I try to get tickets, they are virtually always sold out, and on the odd occasion I've managed it, it's been by the skin of my teeth.

You also have to factor in the lack of away fans at certain matches. LFC can't be blamed for that dent in our attendance figures.

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