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13 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

You've also got to keep in mind they're all licenced so there's thousands a year they get from the SFA through the dividend and Scottish Cup. They're also at the top of the non-league structure and so that helps to attract players as well.

Imagine that plus having a fan base.

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4 minutes ago, DanMan said:

They do... Rossvale have been going 9 years.. Despite the success they have had, as well as playing some decent football... The crowds still don't come... Very difficult for a new team to build a fan base...

Well they reached the pinnacle of the West Region and then had to move to Benburb. Its not quite as dramatic as ICT playing in Aberdeen or Gretna in Motherwell. That doesn't exactly halp does it.

Going by league averages in the attendance thread Rossvale would be in the Top 30. So they must be doing something right compared to half the region.

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2 hours ago, FairWeatherFan said:

They were who I was thinking of as I didn't have the tables for Rossvale and Gartcairn free to hand. But I did have the memory of the opening day 10-0 loss (their only truly poor loss in Conference play) and season finish of 12th. With this year's promotion push showing their growth.

That 10-0 was their first ever competitive match and was against Linlithgow Rose, who were in good form that day. Rose's problems were all at the back and we steamrolled a few of the weaker sides last season. Ruari MacLennan ran amok and set up a few for Tommy Coyne.

Inverkeithing had brought in some old pros to play among the young guys, and it was clearly the first competitive game in some time for a few of them. They were always going to take time to find match fitness and gel together, so facing a team that had finished second in the ERSJFA Superleague the previous season wasn't their ideal first opponent.  

2 hours ago, Tutankhamen said:

East Ren is indeed a big place.

 St Cadoc's are sharing with St Anthony's next season.

Yeah, saw that. I thought it was pretty far but of course it's only 15 minutes down the M77.

I suppose their rivals will be Arthurlie and Neilston now?

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4 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

Well they reached the pinnacle of the West Region and then had to move to Benburb. Its not quite as dramatic as ICT playing in Aberdeen or Gretna in Motherwell. That doesn't exactly halp does it.

Going by league averages in the attendance thread Rossvale would be in the Top 30. So they must be doing something right compared to half the region.

Only because of away fans, and only because we are in the Premier League... As you say we reached the top tier, playing some good stuff along the way, but as I said, still cant attract new fans.. I think it will be very difficult for the new clubs...

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26 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

Do you think there will be a club that wants to do that? Only ones I can think of would be a tenant at a groundshare on a plastic pitch and the ground owner not wanting to run a u20s team.

Any team with SPFL clubs nearby might be tempted to try it in an attempt to attract along some of the fans who might be otherwise engaged on a Saturday afternoon.

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34 minutes ago, DanMan said:

They do... Rossvale have been going 9 years.. Despite the success they have had, as well as playing some decent football... The crowds still don't come... Very difficult for a new team to build a fan base...

gutted to find out Rossvale blocked me on twitter for no apparent reason!

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9 hours ago, Tutankhamen said:

A lot of the LL seem to get by with next to no support, fan wise.

Think the funding comes from somewhere else, either a sugar daddy or mums and dads coughing up £50 a month.

The stats don't really show this, its only Caledonia Braves whose average home crowds can struggle to get to 100 but all the clubs including Caledonia Braves are seeing their average crowds growing.

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11 minutes ago, cmontheloknow said:

This 'next to no support' thing - it assumes all the West sides are well supported (even at top level) and they are not. Being a Lok or Bot fan at away games gives such a false impression.

Am i right that i seen someone post on here a while back saying the EoS and LL expect their clubs to publish attendance figures? What was the expectation in the West Juniors previously? 

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3 minutes ago, morley said:

Am i right that i seen someone post on here a while back saying the EoS and LL expect their clubs to publish attendance figures? What was the expectation in the West Juniors previously? 

I don't think there's the expectation. They've just been better at it than some others. @Burnieclub78 started a project to get head counts from the Lowland League area in 2018-19. This then expanded gradually to the Highland, NCL and Juniors this season. The vast majority have embraced the idea and I believe a lot of the figures are provided directly by the clubs.

The longer the project has gone on, the more professional it has become. So I think its more about the WoSFL clubs hopefully embracing the concept more than an official mandate.

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12 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

I don't think there's the expectation. They've just been better at it than some others. @Burnieclub78 started a project to get head counts from the Lowland League area in 2018-19. This then expanded gradually to the Highland, NCL and Juniors this season. The vast majority have embraced the idea and I believe a lot of the figures are provided directly by the clubs.

The longer the project has gone on, the more professional it has become. So I think its more about the WoSFL clubs hopefully embracing the concept more than an official mandate.

Thanks I wasn't sure. The power of stats can often be over looked, but @Burnieclub78 should be applauded for doing what must be a fairly time consuming exercise, as I believe it has helped evidence the "growth" of the LL and EoS in recent years, and so played a small part in the momentum to expand the pyramid. We'll done. 

 

Edited by morley
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Any team with SPFL clubs nearby might be tempted to try it in an attempt to attract along some of the fans who might be otherwise engaged on a Saturday afternoon.
I assume a lot of the clubs around Glasgow would look into this.
I can see Whitletts Vics and Bonnyton exploring that option too.
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46 minutes ago, cmontheloknow said:

This 'next to no support' thing - it assumes all the West sides are well supported (even at top level) and they are not. Being a Lok or Bot fan at away games gives such a false impression.

That's it in a nutshell -when  @Burnieclub78 started collating attendance figures it was a real eyeopener...it's a common myth that the juniors are/were consistently well-supported in comparison with the likes of the LL, and sobering to find out we're the best supported club in the bottom two divisions by a small margin.

And that's with an average attendance of about 135. Fans of the Premiership sides probably don't realise just how precipitously attendances drop off outside the top tier, as chances are the only time they visit lower league clubs will perhaps be in a cup where the terraces will be packed with fans of their club.

Any completely new club will at least initially find it difficult to muster up support outside of an initial wave of local interest and the inevitable one-off visits from an army of groundhoppers  - that's just the way of things. The former boys clubs have all had their struggles with building fanbases for a variety of reasons...most of them had expectations that with X hundred members or Y number of youth teams involved, they would have a ready made fanbase of whom a decent proportion could be enticed to start following the adult side, which invariably fails to happen for a variety of reasons, perhaps the most important of which being the fact that while parents are happy to ferry their offspring to the 10am game they're playing in, there is little appetite to burn a whole Saturday then going to watch the adult side in the afternoon.

I can remember someone on here involved with Gartcairn when they first stepped up fairly confidently predicting they would get maybe 2-300 consistently based on their first couple of (very well-attended) friendlies and urging caution saying they would be doing very well to get half of that on a regular basis.

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Wouldn't a 16 , 16 , 18 , 17 set up work slightly better.
Means only one division has an odd number with scope at the lowest division to add any later applications.
The slightly reduced numbers in top 2 divisions giving more leeway for teams potentially going further in cups.
Interesting times ahead.

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