Same old, same old.

We are by far the biggest team in our catchment area, so it's a real puzzle why our crowds are so low.

Third Lanark glory-hunters?

On a slight tangent but sticking with catchment areas - does anyone think that a team's name alone has an influence on who you'd have an allegiance to?

For example, would Ross County have as many distant fans outwith the Black Isle if the were 'Dingwall FC'? Would someone in Glenrothes be less likely to support Raith if they were Kirkcaldy Rovers, would more folk in Coatbridge be tempted to follow the Albion if they became 'Sporting Coatbridge' and the biggest question of all... does anyone from St Andrews / 'nice places' in East Fife actually support East Fife???

Steve's right enough with Brechin though... sweet FA catchment. Nearest places with population over 10 folk are called Forfar & Montrose! (Except the mighty fanbase that is Edzell and my trips from Aberdeen of course!)

Interesting point made earlier though about Dunfermline as I used to live in one of the satellite villages and there was most definitely a higher percentage of Pars fans per head of population than in Dunfermline itself. Even I used to pop over to East End Park a fair bit.

A few things to wonder about there...

When I was in my late teens a few of my friends from Edzell were regulars at the football. Unfortunately for Brechin, with the exception of one, all of them had season tickets for Aberdeen. The other one had a season ticket for Dundee United

Are there many more teams with their record attendance more than actually live in the town? I can't imagine there are too many about.

Ross County & Brechin are the two clubs that immediately spring to mind.

It should also be pointed out that the Ross County/Dingwall thing is a 'bit' skewed, as there is a town and village within a mile or so that actually have a greater population than Dingwall itself (for Brechiners, think of 6,000* people staying at Little Brechin or Stracathro)

* I've just looked this up and found a source that gives the population of Cononbridge and Maryburgh as 8,155, although not sure how accurate that would be. I remember discussing this elsewhere a good while back and was told that Cononbridge had about 5,300 people and Maryburgh was about 1,000

since no team was mentioned i assume thats brechins record attendance you're speaking about... and you must be going back many a year, probably before i was even born. and definately before the ground regulations came into play. even when grounds were all standing there were limits on how many people could fit, but i'm pretty sure any town with population under 15k and big enough stadium will have come close to matching their population attendance wise.

EDITED to add:

Come to think of it i'd imagine all the angus sides will be close to having record attendances higher than population...

It was something like 8,123 against Aberdeen in the cup around 1973 I think.

well thats over a decade before i was born... that is quite high though, higher than todays poulation so it was probably 2k over brechins population back then. montroses population must only be 10-12k today and forfar not too much above that so both must have done similar back in those days. i think brechins tiny just now, but what must it have been like back in 1973...

The 1971 census gives a figure of 6,578. This climbed thru the 70's and 80's to a peak of (est.) 7,800 as more personnel were added to Edzell base and the overspill moved to Brechin, then started dipping when it and a few factories closed. Biggest population I could find was 9,031 in 1881, but this was the parliamentary burgh, which included much of the small outlying villages.

Brechin also had some games in the mid 80s that had a good few thousand at them (most notably 6,250 v Hearts in 85 and 7,350 v Dundee United in 87)

It is actually Ross County, I think we are actually the largest supported team in the UK per population ratio.. Our highest attendance is officially 10,000 but I don't know how official than can be as it seems very rounded! On four occasions since the last Census has taken place Ross Country have had attendances greater than Dingwall's population, and now with the demise of Gretna we might just be the only team with a ground capacity larger than the town in Scottish football.



Conon Bridge does not have a larger population than Dingwall. In fact it is about half the size of Dingwall. Dingwall, Maryburgh and Conon Bridge would have a combined population of around 8300 approx. In the last Census Dingwall had a population of 5026 and Conon 2561. I can't source an official population for Maryburgh but it would be around 500-1000 give or take 10%

Someone raised the point that would Ross County be as popular if we were called Dingwall Thistle? Well I don't think we would. However we were first formed to give football to the County of Ross, as at that time they though Dingwall's population alone could not support a Highland League side, never mind a SFL side. The north was denied a place in the SFL for so long that when Ross County were admitted to the league it allowed us to maximise interest very quickly. THis interest hasn't waned yet. If Caley came down and we remain in the First the interest in our club will explode in popularity again, and the first Highland derby at Victoria park would again see a crowd greater than Dingwall itself.

Rovers' record crowd is over 31,000 for a game against Hearts in the 60's (I think). Not sure what the population of Kirkcaldy was back then but I imagine the crowd was a fairly healthy proportion of the population.

Morton's highest crowd was 133,629 against Rangers in 1948. Know your place.

That's fair enough. As I said, I wasn't at all sure how accurate the figures were (Internet and all that).

The previous source (from another discussion) that stated Cononbridge had a population of 5,300 was possibly taking Maryburgh into account as well, although they then went on to say that Maryburgh had a population somewhere around 1,000. I assumed they meant as a separate entity. Even taking that into account, it's still a fair bit of a difference from the figures you've stated, with a difference of 2,500-3,000.

Only 23,500 at your own ground though

What diddies

Yeah but we take more than that to away grounds near you each and every week. We prefer to be on the road.

East Fife's record attendance is 22,500. That must be more than live in Methil, then or now.

Yep, fair point. Who in their right mind would choose to stay in the environments in & around Greenock when they could enjoy a day out to the Kingdom in the East.

Fresh air, open spaces, beaches....all available to Greenockians for the price of shoeing your horses.

Yeah - our buses and other automobiles were stolen and worshipped as Gods last time we visited Kirkcaldy.

We weren't bowing: we were putting wheels on them.

That was the point I was trying to make. If Aberdeen was to 'officially' link in with Brechin, and loan them say 5-6 youth/reserve players, would your pals start going if it was on a different day to the Dons, and the cost to get in was a fiver?

Edited to add - not that I'm getting involved in the crowd w**k between Morton and wraith, but I've always thought that Morton was a far bigger club than the linolickers.

Aye, but they've always lied about the crowd at Bayview, at both Old and Nou!!!

Looking at that our average is really pretty shit , Im sure since the 2001 census around 3 thousand have moved here so Arbroath is around 25,000 so 633 is really shit, we do have places like Carnoustie (5 k) and Friockheim ( guessing around 1.5k ) very close so add that up around 30 thousand.

Saying that there is Dundee and Dundee Utd 17 mile away and Also Montrose , Forfar and Brechin not far away aswell which will attract people , plus the Old Firm too. But generally Arbroath is full of Gloryhunters , the week Arbroath played Rangers a few years back i was just in primary and all you saw were Arbroath scarfs and hats everywere and the home end was sold out.

And also down at berwick 2 years ago in the 3rd when we had a chance of winning the league every bus was booked out and everyone was jumping on the bandwagon with hats scarfs etc and we must have took around 1500 to England when we struggle to take 100 - 200 to somewere relatively close like East Fife.

Carnoustie is much bigger than 5,000. It's certainly bigger by far than Brechin, I would say closer to Montrose, perhaps even bigger.

Also, most people I know in Carnoustie support Dundee, Dundee Utd, Rangers or Celtic. In fact, the only Arbroath supporter I know of from Carnoustie is my daughter.

Edit: re your point about gloryhunting, it's a fact of life within football. We took about 700 to Cowdenbeath a few years back on the last game of the season and also 2,400 to Rangers in the Scottish Cup about 8 years ago. For these games, you generally get whole families mobilising for matches, i.e. people that would not normally attend a football match at all. Ever.

not exactly a place i've visited a lot, but i agree its probably closer to the size of montrose or forfar. certainly 10k upwards

I wouldn't necessarily say far bigger but they are certainly bigger.

Their proximity to the bigots, their recent poor form (over the last few years generally) and the fact that it's not a place swimming in money make their attendance figures pretty decent.

Carnoustie's population must be about 13,000 now. They've built loads of houses since the 2001 census when the population was 10,500.

What what it's worth I don't see Morton as any bigger than Raith.

You returned to Glasgow the following week to play Hamilton and took 46 fans. But you're right about the gloryhunting, it happens at all levels of football. And if Brechin Vics reached the final of the Scottish Junior Cup there would be hundreds of people cheering them on who didn't know the players from Adam.

But I've never had the impression that Brechin are a poorly-supported club. The town itself is tiny and there are three other Angus teams not far away, not to mention two big clubs in nearby Dundee. But there is always a decent wee gathering at the Glebe.

Away and clean your specs.

Getting awfly comfy down here are you not?

I'm making myself at home.

Haha that'll be the day. Brechin in the SPL before that...
They probably would get a decent crowd if they did well in the cup, probably not cause of 'gloryhunters' but more because of the players (who are mainly Brechiners) asking folk to come along.