Socio-economic size relative to football league status

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I think its a really good point regarding players, socioeconomics applies to players too, at the end of the day London lower league clubs have a bigger pool of players to choose from locally, but also have more competition for fans, and more competition to keep their good players. IMHO Brentford are a Championship club because they are London based, they pick up all the u23s that get rejected from Chelsea academy, Fulham academy, Arsenal academy etc etc.

If the North East was the same as London socioeconomically, you'd be in a place where Newcastle were pushing Champions League every season, Sunderland were going for the Everton cup, Boro was a top half Premier League team every season and Hartlepool, Grimsby and Gateshead were pushing Championship.

I agree with that- access to youth players not the same here
 


acurate in places - but you did a poll for everybody in the north east and asked the who they support, about 60% around 900k would be NUFC. We can probably draw upon 400k. Which is why our support is better. City centre quality does make a difference as well. Kids growing up in Durham, Northumberland want to go out in Newcastle so why select SAFC to support if you have no connection to town. SAFC.
Growing up in Durham it was always easier to get to Newcastle on the train so that where we went, only time as a kid I went to Sunderland was matchday. The problem with Sunderland is good public transport south and west into it main catchment area is poor with long bus journey and unreliable old trains. Even in the early seventies went to the match by car like many other did, if I could get to Sunderland by train or metro like others the place has a lot going for it beach, bars and not to many shops, the towns suffer as the metro and trains take people out rather than in.
 
I think its a really good point regarding players, socioeconomics applies to players too, at the end of the day London lower league clubs have a bigger pool of players to choose from locally, but also have more competition for fans, and more competition to keep their good players. IMHO Brentford are a Championship club because they are London based, they pick up all the u23s that get rejected from Chelsea academy, Fulham academy, Arsenal academy etc etc.

If the North East was the same as London socioeconomically, you'd be in a place where Newcastle were pushing Champions League every season, Sunderland were going for the Everton cup, Boro was a top half Premier League team every season and Hartlepool, Grimsby and Gateshead were pushing Championship.

You would have thought though that teams like Swindon without another club near them for a 30 mile radius could pick up from a decent catchment area,
Not seen a decent homegrown talent since Nathan and Louis Thompson.
Both still well liked in these parts.
 
Growing up in Durham it was always easier to get to Newcastle on the train so that where we went, only time as a kid I went to Sunderland was matchday. The problem with Sunderland is good public transport south and west into it main catchment area is poor with long bus journey and unreliable old trains. Even in the early seventies went to the match by car like many other did, if I could get to Sunderland by train or metro like others the place has a lot going for it beach, bars and not to many shops, the towns suffer as the metro and trains take people out rather than in.


Go into politics my friend the city needs people with your vision. What your saying has been obvious for decades....and it suits the mafia in Newcastle to keep it like that.
 
You would have thought though that teams like Swindon without another club near them for a 30 mile radius could pick up from a decent catchment area,
Not seen a decent homegrown talent since Nathan and Louis Thompson.
Both still well liked in these parts.

The thing is Swindon youngsters get picked off by the likes of Reading, Bristol City etc, and the team isn't really big enough to bring in youngsters from elsewhere, which is what Sunderland did in the past with Maja and Asoro etc, and what Pompey do with teenagers from Europe (mostly Northern Ireland and the Republic, but also a teenage goalie from Croatia, Petar Durin). Sunderland are a special case at this level because they have a category 1 academy instead of a Cat 2/3 like everyone else. It's not only the catchment, but the loyalty you have within that catchment that matters if you are not a Category 1 academy, because the Cat 1s can sign players from anywhere in the UK below age 16, so the likes of Chelsea can come in for the good players near you (for example Mason Mount is from Portsmouth and was an STH as a kid)

Louis Thompson a very decent Championship player, Nathan probably more limited in terms of actual ability, but really good skills in defensive aspects of being a fullback and game management (he's hated by the Sunderland fans on here because he kept falling over whenever we played them).
 
Brighton = Tony Bloom, Portsmouth = Spending themselves/Milan Mandaric to the wall, Bournemouth = the Russian guy who happens to live in Sandbanks. See also John Madejski, Flavio Briatoire, Mohamed Al-Fayed/Shahid Khan.
Southampton is a big (and growing), rich enough place that it should be fairly good (yet also nearly spent itself to the wall). Brighton too.

What you could say is very rich folk are more likely to buy southern clubs because they're more likely to live near to and thus have an affinity for them. Then they're easier to run because it's easier to attract high calibre local sponsors like AMEX UK than your traditional post-industrial football town.

Amex is the biggest employer in Brighton (a railway town) replacing the steam locomotive business which closed at the end of the fifties with mega-recession, unless you could move to the electric depot at Selhurst. It is immediately obvious that if you in work, Newcastle is richer than Brighton by the age of the cars. Amex ticket prices are through the roof to pay for the stadium(£200 m debt).
 

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