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It's a sad inditement



One Teddy Maybank

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Aug 4, 2006
21,483
Worthing
Yeah, there are only about five or six, but without wishing to sound TOO pedantic that's still more than a 'one-off'. And there are only 8 NFL home games in a regular season - assuming you don't lose one to London!

How pedantic!!! [emoji2][emoji6]
But we’re talking terms of NFL in London rather than in the US....
Similar amount of games to national team, yet better crowds......



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Jul 7, 2003
8,573
Actually you do get loads of away fans. Sadly at Fed Ex too often the opposition will have anywhere between 10-20,000 fans in attendance and if it's the Steelers around 30,000!

The transient populations in several major towns means you quite often get large numbers of away fans. Steelers, Cowboys, Packers, Raiders, Seahawks, Patriots etc are de facto national teams with fans everywhere. Even the Skins dominated the crowd at the recent game against the Rams in LA.

Saw the Broncos in Jacksonville last season and I would guess that around half the crowd were wearing orange. Broncos took over San Diego last season and it was more like our home game (home fans were boycotting at the time). There are a few places where you always get a large number of away fans.

There are 4 NFL games this season. I actually don’t think all of those will sell out based on the number of emails I’m getting.

All four games were sold out. New batch of tickets just been released for Twickenham which are those from the teams involved which were not sold in the US or used by family and friends etc.
 


Ceej

Active member
Feb 1, 2013
328
Manchester
If it felt like the team were a "team" it would be more exciting and involving. Getting them together once in a while and non stop tinkering means each match just feels like an add on to the Premier League. Can get more exciting once a tournament's underway though.
 




W.C.

New member
Oct 31, 2011
4,927
Haven't read beyond page one so sorry if I'm repeating things.

Wondered myself what attendances were like in the past so had a look here; https://www.11v11.com/teams/england/

Had a quick random look at some 70s 80s attendances and can't see much of a difference with now.
 


Guy Fawkes

The voice of treason
Sep 29, 2007
8,187
I've turned over to watch Scotland at least they are giving it a right go and there is an atmosphere

Scotland had to win to give themselves a chance to qualify, so there as far more riding on it and of course that will raise atmosphere levels and the intensity of play

Only Germany of all the big guns are any good and that includes Brazil and Argentina.All the big nations have declined rapidly while small nations have improved possibly.

Players from smaller nations are being picked up and brought into the better leagues around the world, which has raised their standards compared to what they would have been if they had stayed in their own countries top flight. English players tend to stay in the Premier League.

We used to have an advantage in that our game was based around pace and foreign players didn't usually play that way and this advantage made up a bit for our lower technique and skills compared to some countries. Now they have the players with the technique and skills who are playing, and therefore able to apply, our pace of the game to their national side and we don't seem to have enough in place to bring our youngsters skill levels up to that of the youngsters abroad

Add in that they have a settled side as there is less competition for places, meaning they play far more games together than England players do. (some of these countries play more internationals anyway which will help but we are too focused on league football that we are reluctant to let players go off to play international football and raise the standards there because of the fear of burn out or injury

It also means they can build patterns of play and levels of understanding far easier and be able to play more like a club side rather than a national side

International football started to decline so many years after the big wages and sky etc come along,pretty ironic that these coincide.
Italia 90 was great but world football has been turgid since....look at Brazil and Italy etc.

Money has clearly ruined domestic and international football :)

1-0 at long last :)

Football saturation may have a lot to do with the decline in interest in the England team.

People watching teams that have the best players in from all around the world, who get the chance to work and train together for far longer than the national team players get to gel as a side and expect the national side to be as fluid as a club side and if they can't reach that expected standard, people lose interest in watching (until a big tournament) as they think it's very poor

Fans can't decide on whether we should pick players based on form which means chopping and changing and therefore makes it harder to build an understanding and patterns of play or stick by the tried and tested players and try to get some of the interplay and understanding going that is found at club level

I feel we chop and change too much, especially in the friendlies leading up to a major tournament, experimenting with players and formations rather than find a method and work on it so we are good at and are comfortable with playing it.

Come a major tournament, the fans who had little interest in the team during qualification and friendlies suddenly start watching and start to question the tried and tested systems that have been used up to know by the team (who takes set pieces for example) rather than let them just do what they have been practicing at and are comfortable with (media and fan pressure ramps up and players are more likely to panic and resort to safer football rather than to take the risks that may be needed to win games
 


Guy Fawkes

The voice of treason
Sep 29, 2007
8,187
I just picked a season at random to see what England's attendance figures were like (1961-1962) as i though they used to be quite poor


22 Nov 1962 - England vs Northern Ireland (Wembley stadium) - 30,000
09 May 1962 - England vs Switzerland (Wembley Stadium) - 35,000
04 Apr 1962 - England vs Austria (Wembley Stadium) - 50.000
25 Oct 1961 - England vs Portugal (Wembley Stadium) - 100,000

https://www.11v11.com/teams/england/tab/stats/option/attendances/season/1962/


Attendances weren't always that high, so the showing for our last match in what was always going to be a fairly non-competitive game in terms of who would / could win the match and what the opposition would offer as a challenge was a decent turn out imo
 




Brovion

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Jul 6, 2003
19,322
How pedantic!!! [emoji2][emoji6]
But we’re talking terms of NFL in London rather than in the US....
Similar amount of games to national team, yet better crowds......



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Yeah, I did seem to trash my own argument there! :dunce:

Thinking about it I've come to the conclusion that actually you're right, or at least 'more right' than me. 60-odd thousand to watch a poor England side play a match that we all knew would be 'attackers v defenders' against a team ranked about the level of Saudi Arabia IS a good crowd - but by recent England standards (when until quite recently the ground used to sell out) it's not so good. It would be like the Amex crowds dropping to 20,000 - still good by historical Brighton standards but disappointing nonetheless.
 


One Teddy Maybank

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Aug 4, 2006
21,483
Worthing
Yeah, I did seem to trash my own argument there! :dunce:

Thinking about it I've come to the conclusion that actually you're right, or at least 'more right' than me. 60-odd thousand to watch a poor England side play a match that we all knew would be 'attackers v defenders' against a team ranked about the level of Saudi Arabia IS a good crowd - but by recent England standards (when until quite recently the ground used to sell out) it's not so good. It would be like the Amex crowds dropping to 20,000 - still good by historical Brighton standards but disappointing nonetheless.

[emoji106][emoji2]
Whatever the good and bad attendance wise, the whole England situation feels so frustrating....

Thank goodness we support Brighton where everything is so simple [emoji57][emoji6]


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Beach Hut

Brighton Bhuna Boy
Jul 5, 2003
71,906
Living In a Box
[emoji106][emoji2]
Whatever the good and bad attendance wise, the whole England situation feels so frustrating....

Thank goodness we support Brighton where everything is so simple [emoji57][emoji6]


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Plain sailing watching BHAFC, not one complaint about away tickets......
 




Brovion

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Jul 6, 2003
19,322
I just picked a season at random to see what England's attendance figures were like (1961-1962) as i though they used to be quite poor


22 Nov 1962 - England vs Northern Ireland (Wembley stadium) - 30,000
09 May 1962 - England vs Switzerland (Wembley Stadium) - 35,000
04 Apr 1962 - England vs Austria (Wembley Stadium) - 50.000
25 Oct 1961 - England vs Portugal (Wembley Stadium) - 100,000

https://www.11v11.com/teams/england/tab/stats/option/attendances/season/1962/


Attendances weren't always that high, so the showing for our last match in what was always going to be a fairly non-competitive game in terms of who would / could win the match and what the opposition would offer as a challenge was a decent turn out imo

Also when England played Uruguay in the very first game of the 1966 World Cup the crowd was about 12,000 UNDER capacity! That seems almost unbelievable now, can you imagine the opening game of any World Cup, let alone one in England, not selling out?

However unlike today football's appeal then was largely white, male and working class. And even then it didn't have the full attention of working class men. One of the little-known facts about the 1966 WC was that all the games in England's group involving England, Uruguay, Mexico and France were supposed to be played at Wembley. However one of them (Uruguay v France) was scheduled for a Friday night - and Friday night was Wembley's greyhound racing night. A standard Friday night greyhound meeting was FAR more important that watching a load of foreigners play football (who was interested in that?), so the game was switched to White City.
 




Not Andy Naylor

Well-known member
Dec 12, 2007
8,787
Seven Dials
But that's just a quirk of the rules, if you reduced a football match to 60 mins but stopped the clock every time it went out of play you would get 100% exactly as in American Football. The only thing that would change is that, as in the tedious bore-fest that is live American Football, the actual action would be spread over a much longer period as there would be no urgency to get the ball back in to play

Whereas England matches are thrill-a-minute, of course ....
 






BHAFC_Pandapops

Citation Needed
Feb 16, 2011
2,844
I love watching England, don't get me wrong. But the way we've been playing and the rut we've been in is certainly less exciting that a game of American Football with all the pageantry, pomp and craziness of it all.
 


DumLum

Well-known member
Oct 24, 2009
3,772
West, West, West Sussex.
International football is awful.

I would fix it like this:
Make the smaller nations qualify for the the qualifications.
Make the qualifications at the end of the season a year before the tournament.
People wouldn't get annoyed with the international breaks and the season would finish earlier. They might even show more interest when no other football is on and there are less games against smaller nations.
 







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