The Kraken

You seem to dismiss certain facts and instead provide complete speculation and hypothesis of your own. You refer to games selling out long in advance yet offer no evidence to back up your claims. You say "many" fans were unable to get a ticket yet provide no indication of how many. And then you pluck a potential figure of 45K fans turning up to watch Man Utd. You say that we only failed to sell out for a quarter of the least attractive games. First of all, without being in posession of the exact figures I would suggest it was more than that we didn't sell out for. The 25% figure referred to the number of games that dipped below 30K. Here’s the figures I previously provided. In 2001/02 we had 8 home league games with less than 31K (that's almost half). In 2002/03 we had 6 home league games with less than 31K (that's just about onethird). In 2003/04 we had 1 home league game with less than 31K. In 2004/05 we had 8 home league games with less than 31K (that's almost half). Now it’s impossible to tell from those figures whether the attendance was diminished through the away team not filling their allocation, or whether they had a smaller allocation but we couldn’t sell the home allocation. But the signs don’timmediately look good. And we have the 25% of games figure where the attendance was below 30K. As for your last post; of course the stadium expansion issue is complex. But if the evidence is indeed there that we need a bigger ground, and if it takes a lot of time and planning to get it sorted, I'm wondering why we have not started this by now so that by the time we get to the Premier League within our 5 year plan we can maximise revenues from those 45K crowds you talk about straight away. I have had a consistent approach throughout this thread, but I'll repeat it for you. If we get back to the Premier League, and if we're selling out week in week out, then that will be evidence for an increase in capacity. Until then, I think we've got bigger fish to fry trying to sell out our current stadium. Now I know you have an overwhelming desire to be seen to right about anything and everything. But in this case, I simply do not believe that there is any worthwhile evidence for the club to proceed in any substantial manner towards achieving a higher capacity of stadium (beyond actually talking about the fact that they're not ruling it out). Not yet. It may well happen in the future, I’m not for a minute saying it won't happen, but I think if the club have any sense whatsoever they will gauge supporter levels only when we get back to the Premier League, and then over a period of at a bare minimum of 2 or 3 years.

Of course I don't haave the ticketing database. I am going by the evidence to hand, which shows that we have failed to sell out the home allocation on many times even when at our peak. And I think you must have difficulties in reading what I've previously said if you think I've said we would never sell more than 32k. I have never said that. What I have said is this. There is plenty of evidence to show that we couldn't sell out the home allocation in previous years. I'm not going to go back over the figures I've previously provided, but they show a very significant proportion of games did not sell out. I've also said that the most season tickets we have sold is 23k. So there has never been a waiting list and plenty of fans of who cannot get an ST. I have also previously said that, for the big games, we definitely could have sold more than 32K. However, I have clarified that and said that any assessment of how many more tickets we could sell is purely hypothetical. And (I've previously said this so I'm continually going over old ground) I think it is telling that some people have come into this thread and explained that they live far away, but on the occasions they came back to try to see a game they very rarely had problems in getting a ticket. If the evidence does exist, I would ask why the club are not already expanding the stadium in line with their 5 year plan. We're upgrading the training ground, after all. A stadium expansion would likely take 1 or 2 years, so it would fit in with our timescale to start building now.

I don't doubt for a minute that Cortese will have investigated the possibilities of a capacity increase or stadium move, and he'd be utterly stupid to come out and say "we're ruling out the possibility of a bigger stadium". He's the owner and will want to know what the potential future scenarios could be. But that's not what I'm talking about. It simply makes no logical or business sense to increase our capacity until there is evidence that there is the demand to fill such a new stadium. And despite what you want to believe, we have not seen that evidence in our past, and it doesn't look like we're going to see it in the next year at least. Until then, a stadium increase is just talk.

Where has Cortese said this? And the "evidence" that I have, I have already provided you with earlier in this thread. We did not have season ticket sales above 23K, fact. Over a 4 year period in the Premier League we did not sell out a very significant number of games, fact.

I'm not forgetting Hampshire's size; I just don't think its entirely relevant given the geographical size of the county. You can drive 40 or 50 miles north of Southampton and still be in the county. But people born and raised in Basingstoke, Fleet etc simply are not going to have the same affinity to Saints as those from Southampton; in fact, Basingstoke and Fleet are closer to Reading than they are to us. And we also (unfortunately) share Hampshire with another Championship club. You say that a 10K expansion is "realistic", but I'm not sure what you're basing this on other than a gut feeling. There is simply no evidence to support a claim that, at our Premier League peak in 2003 there were around 10,000 who couldn't get a ticket for games. Or that this would happen if we were to reach the Premier League again. I'm not saying it won't happen in the future, as no-one can predict that. What I am saying is that its entirely pointless starting some form of clamour for a bigger ground right now, or as soon as we get back to the Premier League. First of all we have to get there; until we do our current stadium is too big for us. Then we will need to display over a period of a very minimum of 2 or 3 years that we are selling out the home allocation for just about every game. Then we need to have some form of accurate assessment of just how many customers are unable to get a ticket if they want one. Until we have a waiting list for season tickets and thousands of customers shut out every week, its a redundant exercise. We are nowhere near that mark at the moment; at best we're 4 or 5 years away from it. Which is why I think talk of a bigger stadium is fantastically premature.

You only have to look at the early posts of the like of #22 and #24 to see that some are calling for a bigger stadium for as soon as we get back to the Premier League. Granted that's not immediately now, but the inference is that the club should be putting plans in place right now so that a bigger stadium is ready for us as soon as we achieve promotion. And this from #41.

If there is a business case to support such a late launch of the home kit, I have no idea what it is. Particularly as the club got it pretty much spot on last year, and last year's launch date was mid-June. Yes, anticipation is increased a bit by a late launch; but this is a Saints shirt, its not as if thousands of people are going absoloutely stir crazy just because they can't buy it yet. It's a very odd decision to not get the shirt out there right now.

Have you actually read what has been said? No-one is saying its an impossibility in the future. But there is absolutely no evidence on past and current figures to suggest we need a stadium increase now. There's not even enough of a motive to start planning for it now, if you have a modicum of sense. As you say, Cortese has business sense. Of course he will investigate the possibility of expansion, he'd be stupid not to. Thankfully what he won't do is ignore all current evidence to suggest how big we are as a club in favour of spending millions of pounds on extra seats that we don't need right now, or in the immediate future. No-one can predict what will happen in 5 years time. We may be challenging near the top of the Premier League. We may still be in the Championship. But the fact remains; until we have had a few years of consistently proving we are far too big for our current stadium, the football club will thankfully not pander to the egotistical nonsense of a handful of fans who think we're bigger than we actually are.

Another quote from Wikipedia for you: "Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside,England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. As of 2001 Liverpool had a population of 435,500, and lies at the centre of the wider Liverpool UrbanArea, which had a population of 816,216. Southampton has a city population of 234,000 and an urban population of 304,400."

I'll have a go Tel, although I feel I'm going over old ground here. Firstly, it's not a "pessimistic" view. I don't believe anyone is saying that we will never need to expand the ground. If people were indeed saying "we will never outgrow our current stadium", then that could probably be seen as pessismistic. However, the reality of the situation is that there is currently no evidence to suggest that at any point in our history, our present, or our near future we will consistently need an expanded stadium. Some posters on here are pointing to statistics from 8 years ago and suggesting that they already demonstrate a need for a bigger stadium. The evidence that needs to be shown for a bigger stadium are: A season-ticket level above 25K or 26K. A sell-out of home tickets for every single game. A large contingent of ticket applications after games have sold out. There is simply no arguing the fact that we have never filled those criteria. Could we in the future? It's completely hypothetical, and I don't think that anyone denies that for the very big games we could probably see crowds of at least 35K, and perhaps even higher. How high the crowd could go is, as I say, completely hypothetical. What isn't hypothetical is that, per the 3 main criteria I outlined above, se haven't yet come close to fulfilling them. Our season ticket sales peaked at (from memory) around 23K. We sold out the home allocation of a number of games, but there were also a considerable amount of games when we clearly didn't. And there is certainly no evidence to suggest that there were thousands of people who wanted to but couldn't get a ticket for the bigger games. In fact even people who live away/abroad have commented that they rarely failed to get a ticket for the bigger games, which perhaps suggests that our capacity may well just be about right. So until we sell out the ground every game over a consistent period of 3, 4 maybe 5 years, raise our season ticket level and see many people locked out of games, talk of the need for a bigger stadium is completely premature. But again, historical evidence shows that if we cannot sell out a 32,000 seater stadium for a very significant amount of games the need for a bigger stadium just for a handful of "bigger" games is questionable, given the massive financial outlay it would require. And I find the comparisons with climbing Everest completely bizarre.

The way I understand stadium expansion at St. Mary's is this; the Itchen stand cannot be redeveloped. The Northam and Chapel stands can have 4,000 extra seats added to them. the Kingsland can have 8,000 seats added. So the choices would be either add 4K behind one of the goals to go to 36K or add 8K on the side and go to 40K. I think this thread is rumbling on and perhaps some are missing each other's view point. I don't think anyone is predicting that we will never, ever need to consider a stadium capacity increase. 10, 20 years is a long time in football; we've all seen how our fortunes have dramatically changed in the past 8 years since we were flying high and at an FA Cup final. However, I think (or certainly what I was trying to convey) we and the owners will want to see a few years of sustained sell-outs in the Premier League before considering a stadium increase. Cortese is a businessman and won't be looking to increase the stadium just on a vanity exercise or **** measuring competition. So I think, for now, talk of a capacity increase at St Marys is fanatastically premature. First we have to get to the Premier League. Then we would have to show at least 4 or 5 years of sustained capacity crowds, with a high level of season ticket sales.If/when we do get back to the Premier League I imagine Cortese will be looking very carefully at a number of factors, including: What is our average home attendance; are we consistently selling out of home tickets pretty much every single week (even against the lower ranked teams)? If we are selling out, how many enquiries for tickets are we receiving after the sold out date? What is the level of season tickets sold? Persoanlly, I think we'll only ever increase the capacity if a number of factors are met: If we sell out the home allocation every single week (not 3/4 of the time, every single week for 2 or 3 seasons running). If we seem to be receiving hundreds, thousands of ticket enquiries after tickets have sold out. If our level of season tickets sold reaches 25K or 26K. From past history we clearly haven't ever reached those levels, which is why it is extremely premature to contemplate an expansion right now. 5 or 10 years time, who knows? But until we hit those years of sustained evidence for a need for a bigger ground, we have one perfectly suited to our needs right now.

And tickets will be cheaper, apparently.

I'm going to end here, because all you're providing is speculation. Of course a successful side will attract more customers, that's common sense. However, Cortese is a businessman and will surely look at the fact that we didn't used to sell out week in week out, and only averaged between 30K and 31K whilst also ahving a considerable number of games in the league and cups that fell well short of that. A capacity increase up to 40K would cost at least £25M. To justify that outlay, we would need to be sure of filling that every single week, which we clearly haven't been able to do even in the current size of stadium. And the possibility of having 4 or 5 games a season where we're more than 10K adrift of capacity is not a great incentive to such a huge outlay of cost. I'd love to see us in a bigger stadium, and filling it every week, of course I would. I just think we're at least 5 or 6 years away from proving that there is a need for a stadium increase. And with that I'm off.

I've already answered this. Against the big sides there's no doubt we used to sell out. How many more tickets we could have sold is entirely hypothetical though. And I would suggest that 4 or 5 games a season out of 19 that get nowhere near capacity (our lowest crowds of 26,794, 25,714 and 27,343 in 01/02, 02/03 and 04/05) is a very indicator to the fact that we're not hitting capacity "week in week out over 4 years" or however you put it. And in the fact that our home FA Cup ties were pitifully attended (even in cup final year we played at home 3 times and for two of those games against Spuds and Millwall we had crowds of 25, 589 and 23,809). There's no doubt in my mind we could sell out 35K against the big sides consistently. Maybe even get towards 40K for 1 or 2 games. But against the lesser teams our level was consistently around the 30-31K mark, we just didn't have a complete sell out over any sort of extended time frame. Given the massive costs in taking our capacity up, I don't see a justification for it using past records.

Its not nonsense at all. I chose a figure of 31K because the away end had a maximum size of 3,200. We didn't always give that size allocation to every club, for some games extra home seats would go on sale and the home figure ate into that 3,200. I used to sit in the Northam and can remember quite a few games when the away fans were very close (large proportion of tickets) and equally many games when there was an entire block of Saints fans to the left that had eaten to an unwanted away allocation. If you want another stat, 5 games in 2001/02 had less than 30K. 4 games in 02/03 had less than 30K. And 5 again in 04/05. You can't plame away attendance on those, we simply couldn't fill the ground.

For the bigger games; no doubt. But I think you're maybe losing track of how many games didn't sell out. If you take into account fluctuations with the away segregation, you can probably say that a crowd of 31K might be achieving home capacity (and that's being very generous). In 2001/02 we had 8 home league games with less than 31K (that's almost half). In 2002/03 we had 6 home league games with less than 31K (that's just about one third). In 2003/04 we had 1 home league game with less than 31K. In 2004/05 we had 8 home league games with less than 31K (that's almost half). So really we have just one season where you could argue we hit capacity, and another 3 where our stadium was the right size for us.

Rupert Lowe was obviously in charge during the 4 years you keep referring to; he maintained that there was no point in considering an increase in capacity until we regularly achieved more than 25K season ticket holders. Not once did we achieve that. Despite our average being around 31.5K, we also used to get gates of 30K - 31K on quite a regualr basis (against the lower ranked teams). If we had sold out the ground week in, week out, year in, year out then that would be evidence we need a bigger ground. We had one year when attendances were close to capacity, the other years proved that our ground was the perfect size for us. If we get back to the Premier League, and if we're selling out week in week out, then that will be evidence for an increase in capacity. Until then, I think we've got bigger fish to fry trying to sell out our current stadium; with the price hikes we've seen this year I think subsequent hikes in the Prem to around £35 - £40 a ticket could well have a detrimental effect of higher numbers.

A lot of Premier League clubs have dropped their prices, in order to actually try and fill their ground. The price change has been forced upon those clubs (particularly in the north-west where there is massive local competition) as they are continually seeing empty seats every week. There's simply no point building a new stadium to then have an enormous struggle to sell tickets for the increased capacity. Your second point is one I have been making for a while. Increased stadium capacity for Saints is just an exercise in vanity. The real additional revenues come in prize money, television rights and sponsorship. When compared to the massive earning potential of those three, the extra revenues gained from an additional few thousand tickets on a matches pales really equates to small change.

Why would it? Why would spending many millions of pounds on an increased capacity mean that we would then lower our prices? It makes no commercial sense whatsoever. The only point of increasing capacity would be to satisfy an increased demand; and if demand is there, again it makes no commercial sense at all to sell tickets at a lower premium than could be achieved. I'm sure Arsenal fans would love it if your business model was applied to ther ticket pricing; unfortunately they found the very opposite to be true upon departure of Highbury and arrival at the Emirates.

Anyone who thinks we need a 45K -50K stadium is a bit mental. The only way we'd fill that would be to let in huge numbers of away fans; that's just not going to happen. Besides, there's probably only 5 or 6 clubs that would bring more than 7K or 8K away fans, if the tickets were available. A larger stadium wouldn't impinge on the number of away fans who would come to matches, by the rules anyway. Premier League rules dictate 10% of the stadium capacity or 3,000 seats be made available to away fans, whichever is lowest. So any stadium capacity increase would have no bearing on how many extra tickets we'd have to provide for away teams. With that in mind, it's sheer folly to suggest there are up to an extra 18,000 fans who would just come out of the woodwork and attend every game. Not going to happen. The best case scenario (IMO at least) is for a stadium increase to 40K. With a mid-table or above team I think we'd fill this against Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs and Man City. After that, maybe looking at up to 36K against the likes of Villa and Newcastle (again, if we're mid-table or above). Games against Wigan, Bolton, Blackburn, Sunderland, Wolves, West Brom, we'd be doing well to get 32K.

Remind me how many first team strikers (without Guly) we went into last season with.

I'd be very disappointed if that were the case; IMO we need 4 or 5 to be competing in this league. Plus the "quotes" attributed to that scout fella go along the same lines (whether he is joining us or not is another matter altogether).

Yep, very much this. Gekko's design also includes the scarf, which I think is a really nice touch, and the wave, which is also a great improvement. The distressed lettering on my old design only really worked with that previous image; Gekko's is much cleaner and brighter and therefore works much better with a clean, bright lettering. I do very much agree with the idea of making the image as big as possible, but there's obviously a limit to when the lettering becomes too small. I'm sure a decent designer, even the flag manuafcturer maybe, can advise to exactly what that is. In short; I think Gekko's image is perfect for this: I think it needs to be sorted out with the size and style of lettering, but overall I think it's a great effort so far.

Number 2 for me; although number 1 is also very good. EDIT: And please not with a halo; I think it cheapens it. Top work (yet again) Gekko.

Gekko's is definitely the best image so far. I'm not sure the size or style of font works exactly right, but it's nearly there. In any case, the image is all important and this is definitely the way it should be IMO.