[Archived] The Catchment Area Debate

[yoda]

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?

It looks to me like he had a quiet shift one day, looked at the map and thought what if I did this and added up the people living in the area. No research as Jim says to preferences etc.

I am sure some Firemen are capable of doing research as in this case, all be it very limited. To describe him as a statistician (as in the 1st post) is way of the mark don't you think.

To survey in this context would be described as or carried out within a methodology to give meaningful results i.e.

"A field of applied statistics, survey methodology studies the sampling of individual units from a population and the associated survey data collection techniques, such as questionnaire construction and methods for improving the number and accuracy of responses to surveys"

I don't think any of that methodology has been used in this case.

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.

Like I said earlier it does have some merit

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

[oldjamfan1]

It looks to me like he had a quiet shift one day, looked at the map and thought what if I did this and added up the people living in the area. No research as Jim says to preferences etc.

I am sure some Firemen are capable of doing research as in this case, all be it very limited. To describe him as a statistician (as in the 1st post) is way of the mark don't you think.

To survey in this context would be described as or carried out within a methodology to give meaningful results i.e.

"A field of applied statistics, survey methodology studies the sampling of individual units from a population and the associated survey data collection techniques, such as questionnaire construction and methods for improving the number and accuracy of responses to surveys"

I don't think any of that methodology has been used in this case.

See SKH's post above.

The word survey covers a very broad spectrum of work, from the very basic to the very complex. Therefore it is a survey, albeit not what you yourself would describe as one, obviously.

[yoda]

See SKH's post above.

The word survey covers a very broad spectrum of work, from the very basic to the very complex. Therefore it is a survey, albeit not what you yourself would describe as one, obviously.

Right then,

I think we have a few MB members who are statisticians, wonder what they will make of it.

[Mike E]

Quite why his profession mattered is beyond me.

Sir Patrick Moore was a journalist, but mapped the moon for NASA!

[yoda]

Quite why his profession mattered is beyond me.

Sir Patrick Moore was a journalist, but mapped the moon for NASA!

Has anyone actually used that map ?

just saying!

Anyway the piece of work has a plus to it, the Dingles must be furious

[Steve Kean's Hypnotoad]

Michael Faraday had virtually no education, worked in a bookshop in London and such were his contributions to electricity and magnetism that Einstein had a picture of him on his wall.

Going back to the survey, I can understand why people say its limited in so much as it doesn't acknowledge the historical importance of a club. I live closer to Accy Stanley's ground than Ewood but they weren't even a professional club when I was growing up. Which is why its main use is the potential fanbase of clubs as opposed to what the current number of fans should be. Which league teams are in change and over enough time their historical importance changes too. 20 years ago people would have laughed their backsides off at the idea that Brighton could get consistently higher attendances than Leeds but this survey could have predicted it.

[JHRover]

Any piece of 'research' which concludes that Accrington Stanley have almost the same catchment area as Blackburn Rovers and that information is in some form relevant isn't worth the paper it is written on.

There's probably more Blackburn fans live in Accrington than Accrington fans. That's why its a pointless exercise.

[tomphil]

You'll also find though that a lot of fans both we and Burnley have in Accy may not have grown up following either had their hometown club been any good.

[yoda]

You'll also find though that a lot of fans both we and Burnley have in Accy may not have grown up following either had their hometown club been any good.

Nail on head, hence my car sales reference

[K-Hod]

Some good points about Accy. I'd have to say it is largely Rovers and Burnley with a few plastics scattered about. Burnley fans in Accy are often people whose family are from Burnley/Pendle and have moved to Accy (though not always the case).

[Steve Kean's Hypnotoad]

For the data to have any relevance, you have to imagine every team in the same league, now and historically. If that were the case then that slice of the map that is Accy Stanley would in all likelihood mostly support Accy Stanley.

Obviously all teams aren't in the same league with the same history but nothing is frozen in time, things can change. Who would have thought in the glory days of Blackburn nightlife with people going to the Cavendish from all over Lancashire that Darwen would one day end up as a busier and better night out than Blackburn? Like I said Brighton are a great example of how clubs fanbases can explode with success, Swansea and Norwich are other clubs with puny historical fanbases who are now considerably bigger hitters than Rovers.

[tomphil]

For the data to have any relevance, you have to imagine every team in the same league, now and historically. If that were the case then that slice of the map that is Accy Stanley would in all likelihood mostly support Accy Stanley.

Obviously all teams aren't in the same league with the same history but nothing is frozen in time, things can change. Who would have thought in the glory days of Blackburn nightlife with people going to the Cavendish from all over Lancashire that Darwen would one day end up as a busier and better night out than Blackburn? Like I said Brighton are a great example of how clubs fanbases can explode with success, Swansea and Norwich are other clubs with puny historical fanbases who are now considerably bigger hitters than Rovers.

Exactly. What it really says is IF a team like Accy got huge investment and shot up the leagues and stayed there then naturally a lot of the next generations from those areas would probably choose them as their team. Therefore it is potentially their catchment area on paper although we know reality is a bit different.

There'll be plenty though around those areas who won't ever go and watch Rovers or the other lot and probably sit at home watching TV football. If their local club suddenly got it's act together they'd potentially go there. Similar in Darwen or any place I suppose.

[JHRover]

For the data to have any relevance, you have to imagine every team in the same league, now and historically. If that were the case then that slice of the map that is Accy Stanley would in all likelihood mostly support Accy Stanley.

Obviously all teams aren't in the same league with the same history but nothing is frozen in time, things can change. Who would have thought in the glory days of Blackburn nightlife with people going to the Cavendish from all over Lancashire that Darwen would one day end up as a busier and better night out than Blackburn? Like I said Brighton are a great example of how clubs fanbases can explode with success, Swansea and Norwich are other clubs with puny historical fanbases who are now considerably bigger hitters than Rovers.

Don't really think Swansea can be considered considerably bigger hitters than Rovers. Their ground only holds 20,000 and often isn't full. If they dropped to the Championship their gates would quickly end up similar to ours after a few seasons.

Interestingly Brighton's gates have started to drop also. In the first few seasons at the Amex they were selling out and had to expand capacity to meet demand. These days they are still getting 20 odd thousand but there are empty seats scattered around the ground despite them challenging for automatic promotion. A huge part of their fanbase explosion has been the move to the Amex and finally getting a proper home after years at the Withdean rather than sustained on the pitch success. A few more years treading water in the Championship will no doubt see another drop in their crowds.

[RoverCanada]

The writer/fireman/statistician asked the question: "If everyone supported their nearest football club, who would have the most fans?"

Seems to have accomplished answering that specific question. Now, as with every stat, make with it what you will.

[mustard]

Are people actually criticising this guy's work? This isn't his opinion on catchment areas but demographic data based purely on location to nearest football club.

These are simply statistics, people. Sure, it doesn't account for a number of factors but if it did it would get very messy and would quickly lose credibility as there's no exact science to determining should-be support.

[yoda]

Are people actually criticising this guy's work? This isn't his opinion on catchment areas but demographic data based purely on location to nearest football club.

These are simply statistics, people. Sure, it doesn't account for a number of factors but if it did it would get very messy and would quickly lose credibility as there's no exact science to determining should-be support.

Correct, that is why we should be happy as we are punching above our weight, according to the stats

[mustard]

Correct, that is why we should be happy as we are punching above our weight, according to the stats

That was exactly my interpretation from looking at it. Happy to see us below Burnley in this table.

[McClarky]

Interesting. Obviously teams from the south east are higher up as they have a huge population of people who don't support them and less teams. Looks about right to me. Shows our support isn't as bad as some think.

[VinjayV4]

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.

Well I can't be bothered digging up the article right now (only mentioned it recently) but in 1998 Williams stated "we must see our catchment area as Lancashire." Since Williams never appeared to say that again after Jack died it has to be assumed he was following Jack's orders. I would have included parts of West Yorkshire/Cumbria as well. Carlisle recently played at Ewood as it was one of the nearest facilities available while their ground was damaged by floods. Of course thanks to the last few years there's little point trying to expand the catchment area right now. Club needs to get promoted and then completely rebuild the whole marketing operation. That's before we can even think about global marketing and Venkys haven't kept their promise to develop facilities like "Blackburn Academy Pune" either.

Has that survey taken places like Darwen (30,000) into account? Plus the population in Accrington is around 45,000 (urban area over 70,000) so people should include that as well. Too many people only seem to include Blackburn boundaries but everyone should consider Accrington and Darwen as well. Hardly anyone in Darwen supports them because the majority of football fans still want to dream. Accrington of course have more but they certainly aren't a threat.

[Stuart]

It shouldn't be referred to as catchment in this context. It's simply a musing to say, if every person in England visited their nearer ground (in a straight line).

It has long been stated - and frequently by Gordon - that there are far too many teams in the North West - and that's ignoring the allure of United, Liverpool and more recently City on our doorstep.

FFP might finally put paid to this fact and Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Dagenham & Redbridge, or ironically Rushden & Diamonds teams migh become more common as league clubs become less and less sustainable.

Lancashire County FC will have to wait for a few clubs to die because nobody is going into it willingly. But there again, even then, fans would rather dream of 'doing an AFC Wimbledon' rather than the more (theoretically) long term sustainable option.

Yet it's not a problem for fans to ignore Blackburn Cricket Club and trek to Old Trafford in the Summer months...

[JAL]

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.........

I'm saying that a good team will pull fans in from far away at the moment and over the past five years Rovers have never had a good team despite the hundreds of players signed that's all.

[davulsukur]

Has that survey taken places like Darwen (30,000) into account? Plus the population in Accrington is around 45,000 (urban area over 70,000) so people should include that as well. Too many people only seem to include Blackburn boundaries but everyone should consider Accrington and Darwen as well. Hardly anyone in Darwen supports them because the majority of football fans still want to dream. Accrington of course have more but they certainly aren't a threat.

Yep but probably not for Rovers and why would it? For people who live in Accrington their closest club is Accrington Stanley.

[Davenport Nice]

The survey doesn't pretend to do anything that it doesn't. It does what it says in the title. It provides as much information as any other studies of it's type. it by no means tells the full story but is still interesting. If we had the number of 'potential' fans as Brighton we would probably get more fans.

Also our support has been judged far too often based on the fact that we were a Prem club and won it, especially when clubs who are deemed as the same size as us are getting bigger gates and away support (eg Boro). We know that is garbage but at least this study pulls it back the other way a bit.

[Baz]

Theres a failure in the Newcastle area, as Berwick English town, playing in Scottish leagues) would be the local team for a lot of that area.

[jim mk2]

"Rushton" & Diamonds (que?) and Blackburn Cricket Club (who) ?.

Amalgamations are common in the semi-pro game but I cannot see them happening at pro level. Tribal loyalties run too deep.