Repeat after me: The Premiership is the best league in the world.
This is the mantra we are constantly being asked to believe. It's rammed down our throats by Sky and others with a vested interest.
The trouble is while some clubs are expanding their grounds, building new stadiums and are soon to be surfing in on a tsunami of big TV money next year, others are finding it very hard to pull in punters to their home games.
At places like Wigan, Bolton, Villa, Blackburn, Fulham and my own Middlesbrough, there's a crisis coming; a crisis of support.
The Premiership don't want to talk about that of course. They'd much rather have us believe their Brave New World is a flawless empire of satisfied customers all enthralled by the fabulous entertainment on offer. The acres of empty seats are quietly ignored and the focus is forever on the glories of the big clubs. The figures are startling. Fans are worried. Hopefully these clubs are as well.
Bolton, on average, is 20% empty every game, and yet they have never been more successful in the league. At Villa's game with Man City there was a massive 12,000 empty seats at Villa Park and this at a time of renewal and hope under O'Neill.
Boro regularly play to a ground that is 25% empty. On Saturday, due in part to local circumstances only 23,000 were in the 35,000 capacity stadium. It gets worse. Wigan and Fulham regularly fail to fill 30% of their grounds. Wigan can point to recent growth from small crowds but it's Blackburn who are in the middle of a real, genuine, crisis of support.
Ewood Park, on occasion, has been half empty and rarely gets over 20,000. Their European game against FC Basel attracted a paltry 13,189 leaving 18,178 seats empty. But surely, as everyone tells us over and over again, a European place is worth fighting for. Isn't it the only thing for all clubs to aim for now that winning the league is beyond almost everyone?
"We're hoping to get into Europe," fans say - we hear it all the time - and yet Blackburn is evidence that at some clubs, very few fans give a shite really. Boro famously attracted 9,000 for a UEFA cup game last year. Not even the mythical status of European football makes a difference to these clubs' attendances. Thousands of people in recent years have just stopped going.
So why is this happening? None of these clubs are in a relegation place and almost all of them are going through a period of at least relative success. Other clubs like Charlton and Watford and West Ham are still virtually selling out each game and they're at the bottom. I got in touch with some fans of all these clubs and asked them to find out what's going on. Yes, actually I've done some research, or more precisely I asked some people to do the research for me.
The same issues came up time and again from club to club. I've included some quotes from the responses I got to illustrate them. They make fascinating reading, I hope you agree.
Tickets are too expensive. "You could enjoy eight pints and chips on the way home instead for the price of a ticket to see us play Charlton." "I used to watch Villa when I was on the dole in the early 80s but no one on the dole could afford to do that now."
The quality of the football isn't good enough. It's regularly said to be "defensive, negative and generally crap." "Not losing is more important than winning these days, that's why its so negative and it's why the excitement has diminished at a lot of games." "It's all about being well organized, there's not enough flair to get fans excited, so they just stop coming."
Hatred of greedy footballers has put people off the game. "I stopped going because the players are paid so much and usually do so little for it. It makes me f**king furious so I stopped before I had a heart attack. There are loads of people like me. We just hate most of the players. Maybe it's jealousy, but I just don't respect half of them as men, let alone as footballers."
"I stopped going to home games because I didn't want to help pay Djemba-Djemba's wages and because I had developed an almost pathological hated of O'Leary who was just stupidly inept."
There are too few or no local players in the team. "We don't even have an academy at Wigan."
"It's all about money now. There's no local culture to the club like there used to be. I know it's an old-fashioned idea, my kids tell me often enough, but I'd like to see some kids who grew up in the back streets of Blackburn playing for the club - like they do at Villa and Middlesbrough." Ironically, this isn't actually helping attract fans!
Kids don't go to the match as much. Unfashionable clubs are thought to be 'uncool'. "Tugay's face frightens my youngest!" "My kid gets the piss taken out of him at school for supporting Wigan and not Liverpool. It's seen as an inferior choice. A stigma almost - like the dole coats we used to have to wear."
Kids tend to support big 'brands' of Man United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool rather than their local club "My lad isn't interested in seeing Andy Todd. He'd rather watch John Terry on the telly." "My daughter asked me why I would choose to watch poor quality football at Ewood Park rather than stay in and watch Man United on Sky. It's all a product to kids now. The history and culture of smaller clubs means less than it ever has."
There are so many other things for kids to do. "Try telling my kids that it's more fun going to watch Robbie Savage kick people than it is to play a beat 'em up on their play station and they just laugh at you."
Going to away matches is difficult. "When we played on Saturdays at 3pm you didn't have to worry about work in the morning so fans could take their time getting back home. But if you are playing at 7.45pm on a Monday, there's no way most people can travel a few hundred miles to watch the game, then get back for work the next day without snorting speed and staying up all night."
Fans who continue to support their clubs regularly are concerned at the dwindling numbers. "I sometimes wonder just how much our presence matters to the players or even to the club."
"The downward spiral is worrying - especially when you put it against the big increase at Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal - it is the showbiz X Factor thing of supporting the celebs."
"I think we're at the leading edge of a trend. We've just realised quicker than most that there's only so much fun to be had watching your side play in a league that they will never, ever have a chance of winning or even finishing in the top four. The same teams win everything, so what's the point of the Premiership?"
Lack of loyalty by players has made fans less loyal to the club. "If they can't be arsed for the club why the hell should we?" "I feel that some players take the p*ss out of loyal fans and that's put a lot of people off. They take our money, kiss the badge and then disappear at the first opportunity to make even more unearned money. I'm talking about you, Zenden!"
Crowd numbers are apparently up at non-league matches. "I'd rather watch the Northern league where the football is played by real men, not prima donnas."
"I can drink, smoke, have a decent pie and it only costs me £5-£7 to get in. I don't have to sit on a cheap plastic seat, keep quiet or get told off by a toe-rag steward for standing up. That's why I watch non-league football these days. It's just a better experience. It's real."
The glimmer of hope for these unpopular clubs is that the fans themselves have loads of great ideas, and if clubs had any sense they'd listen to them.
"Blackburn should reduce ticket prices by 50% - the club would still make as much money as they do now but the place would be full, they'd sell more merch, more food, more drink and the players would respond to a better atmosphere. How hard is it to realise that? It's basic business sense. We've got a crap product; we need to make it more appealing."
"Players should be seen to be working in the local community. A lot of them do great things but it's hardly ever talked about. We need to counteract the cynicism that the Hello! obsessed players such as Ashley Cole have infected the game with. What he is and what he represents is a disease that is killing football."
"Boro are trying to push the idea of Boro nation and I think that is our best hope....this idea that we are a special local club - no big foreign investors here, run by a local man, built around local young players etc. Almost a fans' club."
As ever, the fans are the lifeblood of the game. And it's with fans that the solutions to many of these problems of poor attendance lie. These failing clubs would do well to listen to the wisdom of people who have spent thousands of their wages supporting the club.
Maybe too many are blinded by the TV money and see that as more important than attracting capacity crowds, maybe they've forgotten that its supposed to be fun, but the time will come when the TV money will dry up because they will not want to pay to broadcast a game of football played out to acres of empty plastic seats.
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Originally Posted by boro_boy 
