Brad Smith

[Neil Dawson]

We didn't sack him though did we. He left. No catchment doesn't always mean success like with Bristol clubs and Plymouth but it means there's more hope than alot of clubs out there who think they're bigger and to compare us to these small Manchester suburb teams who have reached they're ceiling is deluded. Brentford now have a bigger stadium than us doesn't mean they're a bigger club

Population of Rochdale 211,000
Population of Bournemouth 187000

You still miss my point. All I was trying to say was that a lot of the outside world don’t understand the magnitude of ours and Eddies achievement because they don’t understand how small a club we actually are/were and what a non football town he galvanised.

Putting us on the map was harder than putting Hull on the map. It’s a compliment to Eddie. So when radio pundits were saying he needed to be sacked to preserve our status I think they were misjudging the situation.

 

[OLDSKOOL]

Judging by performances over recent years there's every chance they had a clause requiring them to play like sh*t in FA cup 3rd round games and he definitely did that.

Judging by performances over recent years there's every chance they had a clause requiring them to play like sh*t in FA cup 3rd round games and he definitely did that.

Quite a few of the squad had that clause inserted ...

 

[langham]

Population of Rochdale 211,000
Population of Bournemouth 187000

You still miss my point. All I was trying to say was that a lot of the outside world don’t understand the magnitude of ours and Eddies achievement because they don’t understand how small a club we actually are/were and what a non football town he galvanised.

Putting us on the map was harder than putting Hull on the map. It’s a compliment to Eddie. So when radio pundits were saying he needed to be sacked to preserve our status I think they were misjudging the situation.

Strange - we’ve always been supported by people across the conurbation. As a Poole boy I travelled to Boscombe for games without thinking I’d crossed a border at County Gates. And now the combined population across BCP and suburbs is touching 400,000. It’s not just “a non-football town” but an under-achieving football area. The same could be said of Bristol, which is even bigger in terms of population, or the Medway conurbation, with 300,000.

Eddie’s released some of the potential. If only we had a Board ready to invest in a decent stadium - that could cement the fanbase and take the club further forward.

 

[Neil Dawson]

Strange - we’ve always been supported by people across the conurbation. As a Poole boy I travelled to Boscombe for games without thinking I’d crossed a border at County Gates. And now the combined population across BCP and suburbs is touching 400,000. It’s not just “a non-football town” but an under-achieving football area. The same could be said of Bristol, which is even bigger in terms of population, or the Medway conurbation, with 300,000.

Eddie’s released some of the potential. If only we had a Board ready to invest in a decent stadium - that could cement the fanbase and take the club further forward.

Yep agree with that.... a stadium would have been a game changer which is why it is so frustrating we blatantly wasted that opportunity as a club.

Yes there are a lot of Poole people that go to games but there are also a lot of people across the three towns that support Southampton as any train headed that way on match days will sadly show.

It’s not a football area. We didn’t sell out a 11,000 seater stadium until the very latter days of the championship. I’m not saying I’m proud of that, quite the opposite.... but it is factual.

 

[tedisking]

I think a stadium makes all the difference. ..........in the Elm Park days Reading were always on an equal footing with us, but now I count them as a bigger club than Boscombe .

 

[SlowDownDerek]

The population of Rochdale is 107,000. The Population of Rochdale Metropolitan Borough, which includes a number of other satellite towns is 222,000.

I'm sure Neil would never try to be selective in his facts to try and prove a spurious point but if you want to compare like with like you'd compare 107,000 with the 187,000 population of Bournemouth or the 222,000 with the 395,000 population of the wider BCP council area.

Both are part of a larger conurbation but theirs has one or two other professional football clubs whereas ours has only one.

Obviously just an error.

 

[northstandmark]

I was also a bit surprised when I heard Neil make that comment about Rochdale and Exeter. I get the point he was going for, I just think he over cooked it. Not sure why you're working so hard to defend it Neil?

Had you said 2 slightly bigger clubs (we're not talking giants here!), let's say Bristol Rovers or Plymouth down south and maybe Rotherham or Crewe up north - then that would have been about right for me.

 

[Deleted member 47]

BCP conurbation- 500k population. Only club in Dorset, big potential.

Rochdale share a city with 2 of the biggest clubs in the world, they have reached their ceiling Neil, we're completely different. Bury went bust, Stockport dropped from the face of the earth, nearly everyone in or around Manchester is either United or City.

 

[Deleted member 47]

I was also a bit surprised when I heard Neil make that comment about Rochdale and Exeter. I get the point he was going for, I just think he over cooked it. Not sure why you're working so hard to defend it Neil?

Had you said 2 slightly bigger clubs (we're not talking giants here!), let's say Bristol Rovers or Plymouth down south and maybe Rotherham or Crewe up north - then that would have been about right for me.

I think we're bigger than Rotherham and Crewe tbh. If I was to say any teams we're same size as it would be Swindon or Luton.

Rovers and Plymouth are sleeping giants to a degree that they've never been PL for their populations.

 

[northstandmark]

I think we're bigger than Rotherham and Crewe tbh.

I hope so now, we might have to see where we stabilise at in the coming years. But we've always been bigger than Rochdale or Exeter!

 

[Brian Hutchings]

However big we think we are...we can't guarantee we will be in a league above Weymouth in 3 years time !
It all happens on a grass rectangle !

 

[langham]

Puzzled by your views on this Neil. We always attracted fans from across Dorset ... and we could do so much more extensively now ... if we had the capacity. Said it a dozen times - can’t even get tickets for my kids, drives me mad. There are thousands of people out there who want decent quality live football but AFCB says: “ You can’t come here.” It’s nuts.l

 

[Neil Dawson]

I was also a bit surprised when I heard Neil make that comment about Rochdale and Exeter. I get the point he was going for, I just think he over cooked it. Not sure why you're working so hard to defend it Neil?

Had you said 2 slightly bigger clubs (we're not talking giants here!), let's say Bristol Rovers or Plymouth down south and maybe Rotherham or Crewe up north - then that would have been about right for me.

I’m not working hard to defend it! It’s what I believe. In March 2014 while late in season going for the championship title we had 9700 odd in for a home game with Wolves. Many, many empty seats in our temporary stand. It’s not just that game either that didn’t sell out but it was the most surprising one given its position in the run in.

Put together a list of sides that wouldn’t sell 10,000 home tickets (if they had that stadium size) while going for the championship title playing the greatest football seen in a century.

If you think Plymouth and Bristol Rovers would be on that list you have become too detached from our roots! Plymouth regularly get more than that while pushing for the league two title. Crewe and Rotherham, I agree with you:

 

[davidwhitehead]

We got 20,000+ crowds half a century ago when we were pushing for the Div 3 title.

Since then, watching football as a leisure pursuit has become more popular, and the BCP area has grown in size too. I'd also hazard a guess that there are more young people around now than in 1970. So, the market has grown.

If we had extended the stadium in 2015, and backed that up with a lively marketing campaign to proactively attract new/lapsed fans, we could easily have got gates of around 20,000 on a regular basis.

 

[cockbeard]

^ FACT!

I was massively surprised that we didn't sell out that season for Forest, Leeds, or Derby either. All big clubs, and clearly an important and super entertaining season

edit: outta the way DW curse my slow fingers

 

[red_house]

You still miss my point. All I was trying to say was that a lot of the outside world don’t understand the magnitude of ours and Eddies achievement because they don’t understand how small a club we actually are/were and what a non football town he galvanised.

There was me thinking you've spent the last five years telling us we're no longer a small club ? I wonder how the 'small club sub section of fans ' you referred to feel about this

 

[Neil Dawson]

There was me thinking you've spent the last five years telling us we're no longer a small club ? I wonder how the 'small club sub section of fans ' you referred to feel about this

We weren’t when we were getting and spending 100m a year. We are smaller now. When the parachute payments end we won’t be in much different a position to Wycombe.

 

[SlowDownDerek]

We weren’t when we were getting and spending 100m a year. We are smaller now. When the parachute payments end we won’t be in much different a position to Wycombe.

What a hill to chose to die on.

We're are now exponentially bigger in terms of support than we were. The reason any club from a similar sized town has traditionally larger support that we do is because most if them have had a purple patch that helps to garner support. Take ipswich - they would be the same as AFCB, Peterborough etc if they'd never had their glory years. They did and now they command good support in their region. We never had a purple patch of any significance before. We have now and the club has changed forever. Howe has done that - and if that's part if your point I agree with that bit.

 

[Neil Dawson]

There was me thinking you've spent the last five years telling us we're no longer a small club ? I wonder how the 'small club sub section of fans ' you referred to feel about this

We weren’t when we were getting and spending 100m a year. We are smaller now. When the parachute payments end we won’t be in much different a position to Wycomb

What a hill to chose to die on.

We're are now exponentially bigger in terms of support than we were. The reason any club from a similar sized town has traditionally larger support that we do is because most if them have had a purple patch that helps to garner support. Take ipswich - they would be the same as AFCB, Peterborough etc if they'd never had their glory years. They did and now they command good support in their region. We never had a purple patch of any significance before. We have now and the club has changed forever. Howe has done that - and if that's part if your point I agree with that bit.

The difference is that we didn’t get our extra support in the habit of going, we didn’t get them hooked. We couldn’t so I’m not attaching any blame to that.

You know that if we’re are in the bottom six of the Championship we won’t sell out don’t you?

 

[red_house]

Officially small again, that's a relief. Still bigger than Wycombe, Rochdale and Exeter will ever be.