How big a Club is Bradford City?

Bradford is a big City that sells cheap season tickets = decent L1/L2 attendances.

That's about as far as it goes. Our history is proof we are a perennial lower league club and our size & potential is a complete and utter myth.

 

We had the 39th highest average attendance last season out of the entire FL and prem, that was in the 4th div with nothing to play for and no real away fans.
If we were in the champ we would easily improve that with the away following from most of the club's in there so I would say top 30 to 35 so easily mid table in the champ as you alluded to.

 

I have always found history quite irrelevant as it can be used to suit any agenda. For instance in the 60’s when we were bottom of the FL did our fans say 50 years ago we were top end division one fighting for titles and the FA Cup(only silverware at the time)? It’s now been longer than 50 years since the 60s so what defines a club size by the division it’s in or historically has been in? Brentford have always been lower league to me as Bournemouth but there are supposed ‘big clubs’ like Sunderland and Sheffield Wednesday who haven’t won anything of note since footballers were plumbers on the side to get a good wage.

We aren’t really a big or small club and shouldn’t let history dictate what we should be, the only thing that matters is the here and now and future. Get that sorted and we’d average over 20,000 in the championship. You could argue club size now comes down to ownership as cash is king in football, without it it doesn’t matter how big you are you may over achieve for a spell but it’ll come crashing down eventually.

 

I would compare our potential to clubs like Barnsley and Rotherham lower end of the championship

 

Bang on mate. End of thread.

 

Absolutely Massive. Especially in Heaton.

 

Bit like wagon wheels. The size and potential of them was a complete and utter myth as well. Bigger than both of us my arse.

 

Because the club and fans have banged on about it for 20 years and we have slipped and slid.

We are going nowhere near the Prem or possibly Championship without money and investment.

 

Or based on all time attendance, second in League One
Swansea – 10,854
Bradford – 10,590
Reading – 10,550
Luton – 10,514
Bristol Rovers – 9,693
Brentford – 9,470
Barnsley – 9,254
Swindon – 9,213
Oldham – 8,871
MK Dons – 8,218
Wigan – 8,157
Leyton Orient – 8,155
Grimsby – 7,742
Rotherham – 7,412
Bury – 7,319
Bournemouth – 7,278
Oxford – 7,249
Port Vale – 7,195
Doncaster – 7,168
AFC Wimbledon – 6,936
Southend – 6,849
Northampton – 6,667
Tranmere – 6,434
Carlisle – 6,408

 

It would be interesting to see what these figures would look like if we were paying average league two season ticket prices judging by attendances for cup matches where people pay full price I would say we would not be top of the tree

 

Our fans just aren’t that interested in the cup, we averaged 3,000 pay on the day at £20 for 23 league games but got about that against Exeter in the first round of the cup. It shows that it’s more a cup thing than anything else.

 

Still think if they charged ten pounds we would probably double the crowd.

 

Not a chance.

We've had admission for a tenner in cup games and it barely makes any difference whatsoever.

 

League status and salary are what mainly attracts a player, yes there's geographic location, fan-base and other variables. However the main attraction is money.
Having said that, if City and any league two club were offering a player very similar contract, they'd opt for City the vast majority of the time.
That's as big as we get.

Regards fan-base, we can easily compete with 50% of Championship clubs.

 

Not true. Wagon wheels used to be twice the size in the 70s

 

League one is properly citys level .

 

I'm talking about the 70's. The advertising slogan back then was that they were bigger than both of us, and it was a lie! They don't use that slogan anymore because like you say, they've shrunk in size even further to the point where not even Fordy's midgets would classify them as anything other than an average sized biscuit.

 

One thing that has changed is the number of fans attending games.
Back in the 90's when we started to climb the leagues under GR we struggled to reach the attendances we attain even in this league.
A lot has been debated about cheap season tickets and how this artificially inflates our fan base.
This argument would stand up if we had only done this over a couple of seasons. But we've sold over 10k of season tickets now for several seasons including the last 3 in this league. If our prices were a gimmick then surely those who initially bought into the gimmick would have drifted away as our league status deteriorated?
Despite serving up poor performances in a khazi league for the last 3 seasons we still continue to attract a sizeable fan base. So I'd use that as proof our support is not just predicated on cheap tickets.