[Archived] The Catchment Area Debate

[Davenport Nice]

A statistician has worked out a league table which calculates:

If everyone supported their nearest football club, who would have the most fans?

Brighton come top but we come 4th from the bottom of the top 5 leagues. Gives us a bit of amo when folk say our crowds are poor

https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=1kbfJuQbAYLo8tu1yMFenesVl9Xkem_AnU85qwver#rows:id=1

[VinjayV4]

A statistician has worked out a league table which calculates:

If everyone supported their nearest football club, who would have the most fans?

Brighton come top but we come 4th from the bottom of the top 5 leagues. Gives us a bit of amo when folk say our crowds are poor

https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=1kbfJuQbAYLo8tu1yMFenesVl9Xkem_AnU85qwver#rows:id=1

Well that's complete nonsense look at Aston Villa compared to Birmingham City.

[oldjamfan1]

Well that's complete nonsense look at Aston Villa compared to Birmingham City.

Yeah that one does look a bit odd - would West Brom's presence influence Villa's stats in a different way to Birmingham's?

[VinjayV4]

Nothing with a catchment area debate but lets discard that link LOL!

[davulsukur]

The description says: "Based on nearest straight line distance between 2011 Census LSOA population centroids and 116 English-league football clubs."

[VinjayV4]

A statistician has worked out a league table which calculates:

Tell him/her to get a new job!

[JHRover]

I find it difficult to take seriously tbh. Dagenham & Redbridge are in the top 4 whilst we are barely any higher than Accy Stanley.

I'm not sure what 'statistics' the bloke who came up with that has used, but to suggest that Accy Stanley have a catchment area of 150,000+, Rovers 160,000+ and Burnley 200,000+, simply doesn't add up. Its completely meaningless.

Also far more important than simply numbers of people living nearby is a clubs historical standing and success.

The reason Leeds have so many people following them is that beyond the city, into West Yorkshire and further around the country they have loads of fans, many who started following them in the 70's when they were successful.

Rovers should have more people following them than similar sized towns and areas because of the unprecedented success enjoyed over the last 20 years when compared to places like Preston, yet that doesn't seem to be the case.

[K-Hod]

I think they could have used better parameters tbh.

[Mattyblue]

It's a tough one to quantify.

Because in theory Dagenham do have a massive catchment area, however everyone in it will support West Ham, Tottenham, Arsenal or be a Lpool/Man Yoo 'fan'.

Whose catchment area is Hyndburn? I'd say Rovers but then you'll have Burnley and Stanley fans knocking about.

[ABBEY]

Man city

[tomphil]

I worked in Rawtenstall for a while and even though it's only over Grane road to Blackburn it seemed most were drawn to Burnley from there, which again is only a few mins directly up the main road. Them and Man Yoo of course.

It can be argued to death but the dingles do have a large area to draw from as once you get there then going out the other side there's nothing till Leeds football wise.

It's all arguable of course but unless a club is doing really successfully or is plonked in the middle of nowhere or at least on the fringes then most clubs hardcore support comes from a few miles within it's locality. We are very condensed and hemmed in in that respect. There's a genuine reason why Blackburn Rovers support has always been on the small side despite the standing and achievements of our club.

[Steve Kean's Hypnotoad]

Don't see anything wrong the stats myself. As it states its based on centroids of LSOAs, which are just a way of splitting areas up into blocks of around 1,500 people, picking the central point of that block and measuring from there to the nearest professional football club. Short of measuring the distance from every single house in England, its the only way you can do something like this and should still be a pretty accurate representation of a club's catchment area.

Obviously the attendance tables are quite different from the table in the article but that's simply down to all the many, many fans out there who don't support their local club. So that table is about potential crowds. If a club can achieve success, its got that number of fans on its doorstep to convert from whoever they currently gloryhunt.

If I was a rich foreigner hoping to make money out of owning an English football club, that's exactly the type of thing I'd be looking at. Pump some money into say Gillingham or Plymouth, get them in the PL, and their grounds would be bursting at the seems with fans. Not surprising to see Rovers where we are, makes it all the more baffling as to why Venkys bought us when the only possible way to grow the fanbase is to get Asians down to the games in big numbers.

[Ewood Spark]

For anybody struggling understanding these statistics, it helps if you look at the pictorial representation of the data on the 'Potential Supporter zones' on the 2nd page. This clearly shows how small the area of Blackburn Rovers potential support is, based purely on geography. Anybody outside the zone lives closer to another club ... that is all the data is saying!

[JAL]

The catchment area for Rovers has to be the whole of the north west.

If you put a good team together people will come from all over to watch sadly this club doesn't seem to want or be capable of putting that good team together.

[Lancaster Rover]

It also depends on the amount of FL clubs at any given time, in the last 15 years there has been a few gained and lost. i.e. Morecambe and Fleetwood in the gains, Stockport, Macc, Tranmere in the losses. Historically the people of Fleetwood would have been in the catchment for Blackpool, them gaining a FL club has probably shrunk blackpools catchment by about 50'000.

[stuwilky]

It's a tough one to quantify.

Because in theory Dagenham do have a massive catchment area, however everyone in it will support West Ham, Tottenham, Arsenal or be a Lpool/Man Yoo 'fan'.

Whose catchment area is Hyndburn? I'd say Rovers but then you'll have Burnley and Stanley fans knocking about.

In terms of closest league club - which is all that table does - its Accy for pretty much all of Hyndburn.

Its like any other set of stats, pretty meaningless, although Its much lower than I thought it would be.

[oldjamfan1]

In terms of closest league club - which is all that table does - its Accy for pretty much all of Hyndburn.

Its like any other set of stats, pretty meaningless, although Its much lower than I thought it would be.

I wouldn't say meaningless. I think it would be fair to say that it doesn't take all factors into account - I'm not sure it ever could - but it still paints a picture and makes a point, in respect of the Rovers. As usual, JAL misses the point of it by stating that Rovers' catchment area is the whole of the north west.........

[stuwilky]

Fair point, meaningless in isolation is probably more accurate. It gives a simple illustration I guess so is useful in that respect. Id prefer conference to not be in it though!

[yoda]

The table is far to lacking in any real information to be used for anything, think about car sales for example, how many dealerships in the area/catchment area.

JAL has a valid point when he says the North West is our catchment area

[oldjamfan1]

JAL has a valid point when he says the North West is our catchment area

Not in the context of the survey, he doesn't.

If he means "We should be targeting people in the whole of the north west to come to Ewood" then I agree with him 100%. But that is not really what he said, even if it is what he meant.

[yoda]

Not in the context of the survey, he doesn't.

If he means "We should be targeting people in the whole of the north west to come to Ewood" then I agree with him 100%. But that is not really what he said, even if it is what he meant.

What he said was

"The catchment area for Rovers has to be the whole of the north west."

What survey are you referring to ?

The guy who has produced this table is a fireman after all

[jim mk2]

Catchment area in this context is pretty meaningless and far too narrow in its parameters and doesn't take into account local nuances, such as there has always been a floating support among the Lancashire towns that doesn't happen elsewhere. With Rovers near the bottom the survey as it stands would appear to give support to the arguments for a combined Lancashire town team, the so-called Lancashire United or similar. The fact such arguments have been dismissed down the years because they ignore the emotional elements is another reason why the survey should be disregarded.

[yoda]

Catchment area in this context is pretty meaningless and far too narrow in its parameters and doesn't take into account local nuances, such as there has always been a floating support among the Lancashire towns that doesn't happen elsewhere. With Rovers near the bottom the survey as it stands would appear to give support to the arguments for a combined Lancashire town team, the so-called Lancashire United or similar. The fact such arguments have been dismissed down the years because they ignore the emotional elements is another reason why the survey should be disregarded.

It's not a survey though (although the fireman has probably used an Ordnance Survey map in compiling the numbers) and being at the lower end of the table for potential customers just shows how well we have performed over the years attendance wise re the percentage of actual customers to potential customers the table suggests.

It does blow the dingles claim completely out of the water with their wild dream to be the best supported team in England

[oldjamfan1]

What he said was

"The catchment area for Rovers has to be the whole of the north west."

What survey are you referring to ?

The guy who has produced this table is a fireman after all

What are we saying here, firemen aren't also capable of doing research?

I repeat, JAL missed the point of the survey(probably deliberately so, as is his wont).

NB - Survey - look closely at or examine (someone or something). The 'fireman' may not have looked at it as closely as some might have liked, but he did look closely at it. I'm not sure why you don't think my use of the word 'survey' is appropriate - maybe you'd care to enlighten me?

As a noun, survey can mean a detailed study of something, but it also means a short summary with a broad view.

[Steve Kean's Hypnotoad]

What he said was

"The catchment area for Rovers has to be the whole of the north west."

What survey are you referring to ?

The guy who has produced this table is a fireman after all

Is that implying that a survey would have more weight? I can't get my head around why people think opinions are more valid than stats, fair enough stats only portray certain information, but they do it without bias, preconceptions, misunderstanding and general lack of intelligence. Surveys, anecdotes, widely held assumptions, rumours, opinions, in fact anything human related is subject to far more reasons why it could be completely wrong than stats are.

The table and the map on the page after are very enlightening and useful to anyone who wants to deal in realism and not some unachievable idealism like our catchment area is the north-west. You may as well say our catchment area is the planet for all the usefulness you can get out of thinking that. I can only assume the fact that the table doesn't make encouraging reading for Rovers is the reason why its being received negatively. Personally I think its excellent work, the bloke has geographically connected 35,000+ LSOAs with over a hundred football clubs. In fact scratch excellent, its bloody brilliant and I don't see what his profession has to do with it. Good on him.