Oldham (A)

[Elgrande]

Brighton have much less local competition (35 mile radius) and have historically played at a higher level than us. The demographic of the Medway towns has changed so much that probably less than 60% are originally from the area and with so many big teams an hour away most of the kids would rather have a Sky season ticket than go to a cold Priestfield Stadium. The Championship will attract against the big names, but not as much as many think and Marketing really won't make a huge difference unless it is making tickets really cheap and with our gate average that is not a real option.
If this was 35 years ago things would be different, wage differences were not as great and the demographic and type of fans were much different. The club has now gone for a family type crowd and that is much harder to attract than it was to attract the working class "Dockyard worker" type fan of the 70's and early 80's when we had on occasion gates of 16,000. Charlton did a great job of nicking our fans when they were in the premiership, but have very little impact now.
The clubs that attract bigger gates than us at our level have either been at a higher level historically or have a catchment area where people do not move away so much.

[Garawa]

And ironically a major rival very close by which bizarrely instead of diluting the crowd it helps to keep it unusually high as fans are desperate to maintain the rivalry (Wolves, Sheff Utd, Portsmouth, Bristol City to name a few). We have no-one close by to be proud of being better than so it doesn't matter if people go to Upton Park instead. Could you imagine a Liverpool or Everton supporter ever going anywhere else?

[gillsfan1066]

Ok I agree with everything you say, I just wonder home many fans are decked out in West Ham, Chelsea, Fulham , Arsenal or any of the other London Clubs playing home games at 11 o clock on a Saturday morning at Gillingham Railway Station, heading for the games, very few I would imagine.
No chance of us getting a new stadium, that will never happen in any of our life times, and yes maybe I am a very hard person to please, I have always had a certain dislike for mediocrity, and that's all GFC have ever been, that was OK when I was 12, I knew no difference, now I find it a bitter pill to swallow, week in ,week out.
Millwall have been up and down, but have spent a lot more time in the Championship than we ever did, and all on gates hovering around the 10,000 mark , so it can be done if the club is manged properly. I beleive there are almost 250,000 people living in the Medway Towns and we can only get 6000 to turn for home games ? I just long to see us out of these dam lower divisions, and playing some "proper teams" .