A lot of people don't realize how small crowds in Europe usually are. With the exception of the "big clubs" most teams usually attract numbers that would be deemed tiny in the States...
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=387529&cc=5901
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5 comments:
I think your comments are perhaps a touch misleading.
Crowd numbers in Italy and France are pretty low, but in other countries like Eng, Germany and Holland they're quite high.
Certainly there are few teams in Euroland that match the crowds seen at NFL or college football games, but the picture is different when you factor in the number of teams.
London is a good example. Arsenal, Chelsea, Fulham, Palace, West Ham, Charlton, Millwall, Tottenham, QPR, Brentford, Leyton Orient, Barnet [not to mention teams from almost suburb cities like Watford, Luton and Reading] are all from London.
And you've also got to think of population. Take sad old Derby County. The pop. of the Derby area is 230,000, the Rams' crowd average last yr was over 24,000. Derby were shite last season, as usual [4th bottom], but still one in ten of the local pop. went to their games. While showing Derby fans are a sad bunch, I think that's pretty indicative of many Euro cities.
Sure, all of those things are true. But so are my comments - I don't think they are misleading. Just a quick statement about how a lot of folks in the States assume Old Trafford is the norm when it's probably closer to a 15 - 20,000 seat venue.
But I thank you for breaking that all down, TSB. Good to have the facts out there. Where are your trainers??
The trainers are on the way. According to tracking they're in Greenboro.
Maybe 'misleading' is too strong, sorry. You're spot on re. Italy, France, etc. It's just that your comments could be seen as saying 'not many people go to watch soccer in Europe', which isn't the case.
What's more amazing is the difference between college sport. At a college game in Europe you're lucky if an old man walking his dog stops and watches 10 minutes. Not quite the same as The Big House.
True indeed. I've been completely unable to explain the attraction of American College Football to Bjorn. He simply does not get it. It's interesting because I can understand his view.
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