Where should away fans be seated?

[Winchester Royal]

Cram them under the scoreboard and get rid of the ambulance entrance thing and turn it into a concourse. They can then have Y26-R27, and then when you need to give a little more, just take more of the South Stand.

That way, there aren't away fans behind the goal and when there's less of them, they can be shoved in the corner.

^ This.

I'm sure I saw this advocated on this board before. This is the where the away fans are at Cardiff's new ground.

Yeah, screw the oxf*rd ambulances

Honestly i think they're fine where they are. The problem is that there's no Reading noise on the other side of the south. Push those as season ticket seats and give the day trippers half of the North Stand.

Yeah, because there isn't another one at the other end of the ground, is there?

[Royal Ginger]

The building I work at only has around half the footprint of the mad stad and only holds 2500 people, but i have to provide 2 clear access routes for the emergency services. It's probably not as simple as, "there's another one over there".

[bobby1413]

Just been having a look at Online Ticketing and saw that Leeds, Birmingham and Brighton home tickets on sale.

Seats available in all parts of stadium except the whole of the south stand. I expect Leeds to sell out, and possibly Birmingham. I'm not sure how many Brighton usually take away, but do you think all three clubs will sell out the whole of the south?

[Winchester Royal]

Just been having a look at Online Ticketing and saw that Leeds, Birmingham and Brighton home tickets on sale.

Seats available in all parts of stadium except the whole of the south stand. I expect Leeds to sell out, and possibly Birmingham. I'm not sure how many Brighton usually take away, but do you think all three clubs will sell out the whole of the south?

Brighton will probably sell a good 2,500+ tickets, but I doubt they'll do the whole 4,400, especially as its on TV. We should give them half the stand and sell the rest to home fans.

[Cureton's Volley]

Just been having a look at Online Ticketing and saw that Leeds, Birmingham and Brighton home tickets on sale.

Seats available in all parts of stadium except the whole of the south stand. I expect Leeds to sell out, and possibly Birmingham. I'm not sure how many Brighton usually take away, but do you think all three clubs will sell out the whole of the south?

Brighton will probably sell a good 2,500+ tickets, but I doubt they'll do the whole 4,400, especially as its on TV. We should give them half the stand and sell the rest to home fans.

Plus its an early KO on a Sunday, they'll all still be on a comedown from a hedonistic night at Revenge

[One8Seven1]

Just been having a look at Online Ticketing and saw that Leeds, Birmingham and Brighton home tickets on sale.

Seats available in all parts of stadium except the whole of the south stand. I expect Leeds to sell out, and possibly Birmingham. I'm not sure how many Brighton usually take away, but do you think all three clubs will sell out the whole of the south?

I don't expect Birmingham will, but Brighton and Leeds might, especially the latter. I think it's a massive mistake giving them the whole south stand. They will both make twice as much noise as we'll generate, and that feeds to their team and gives them a lift. It's great for the coffers but it's a negative on the field of play.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

Just been having a look at Online Ticketing and saw that Leeds, Birmingham and Brighton home tickets on sale.

Seats available in all parts of stadium except the whole of the south stand. I expect Leeds to sell out, and possibly Birmingham. I'm not sure how many Brighton usually take away, but do you think all three clubs will sell out the whole of the south?

I don't expect Birmingham will, but Brighton and Leeds might, especially the latter. I think it's a massive mistake giving them the whole south stand. They will both make twice as much noise as we'll generate, and that feeds to their team and gives them a lift. It's great for the coffers but it's a negative on the field of play.

The logical extension of that is to just ban any away fans and have the South Stand completely empty.

[bobby1413]

Just been having a look at Online Ticketing and saw that Leeds, Birmingham and Brighton home tickets on sale.

Seats available in all parts of stadium except the whole of the south stand. I expect Leeds to sell out, and possibly Birmingham. I'm not sure how many Brighton usually take away, but do you think all three clubs will sell out the whole of the south?

I don't expect Birmingham will, but Brighton and Leeds might, especially the latter. I think it's a massive mistake giving them the whole south stand. They will both make twice as much noise as we'll generate, and that feeds to their team and gives them a lift. It's great for the coffers but it's a negative on the field of play.

Don't Birmingham usually travel fairly well though?

[handbags_harris]

Just been having a look at Online Ticketing and saw that Leeds, Birmingham and Brighton home tickets on sale.

Seats available in all parts of stadium except the whole of the south stand. I expect Leeds to sell out, and possibly Birmingham. I'm not sure how many Brighton usually take away, but do you think all three clubs will sell out the whole of the south?

I don't expect Birmingham will, but Brighton and Leeds might, especially the latter. I think it's a massive mistake giving them the whole south stand. They will both make twice as much noise as we'll generate, and that feeds to their team and gives them a lift. It's great for the coffers but it's a negative on the field of play.

Because Leeds, Brighton and Bimingham have all had tremendous success at the Madejski haven't they? Including one FA Cup game:-

P13 W2 D5 L6 F11 A21

Only eight of those games had away attendances that "spilled" over into the other half of the South, so to further emphasise the point:-

P8 W0 D5 L3 F5 A11

Birmingham probably could have sold 4k in 07/08 and 08/09, however home demand for tickets was such that we opened up half of the South to our own. Birmingham won one and lost the other FTR...

[No Fixed Abode]

Corner of the east/south. Many clubs stick away fans in the corner to optimise home advantage and not having away fans behind the goal.

[M Brook]

Newcastle Utd fans should be made to sit on the roof of the South Stand, right at the back, and see how they like it!

[Winchester Royal]

Newcastle Utd fans should be made to sit on the roof of the South Stand, right at the back, and see how they like it!

I doubt the Newcastle fans had any influence on where away fans were made to sit at SJP. But yeah, I get your point!

[One8Seven1]

Corner of the east/south. Many clubs stick away fans in the corner to optimise home advantage and not having away fans behind the goal.

Our stands are so close to the pitch it wouldn't matter where they were, they'd still make a decent amount of noise. Where they are now is perfect, but at the 2,300 and not offering the whole South Stand when the noise they generate then gives them an edge (imo).

[Alexander Litvinenko]

Newcastle Utd fans should be made to sit on the roof of the South Stand, right at the back, and see how they like it!

Yeah, because that would really teach that Ashley bloke a lesson he'd never forget, wouldn't it?

[M Brook]

Newcastle Utd fans should be made to sit on the roof of the South Stand, right at the back, and see how they like it!

Yeah, because that would really teach that Ashley bloke a lesson he'd never forget, wouldn't it?

Oh dear. SoH bypass alert!

[One8Seven1]

Watford have almost sold their allocation and are likely to ask for the remaining 2000. They're going to be noisy on Saturday! I doubt this one will be the traditional dire affair.

[No Fixed Abode]

Corner of the east/south. Many clubs stick away fans in the corner to optimise home advantage and not having away fans behind the goal.

Our stands are so close to the pitch it wouldn't matter where they were, they'd still make a decent amount of noise. Where they are now is perfect, but at the 2,300 and not offering the whole South Stand when the noise they generate then gives them an edge (imo).

Clubs tend to put fans in the corner so it's not off putting for the home goalkeeper. It's called making the most of home advantage. HTH.

[Jerry St Clair]

The assumption that reducing/relocating away fans benefits the home team is an absolute crock of shit.

The only people who are obsessed with the noise of opposition supporters are other football supporters and marketing people in football clubs who encourage this myth.

[Cypry]

It'll be interesting to see what happens in the event that we go up and the stadium expansion goes ahead, IMO noting will change until that point, and if a travelling club can sell out the whole south stand, whilst we can't fill it, then we'd be silly to turn away the revenue....
Ultimately I'd like to see the away fans in the corner where the scoreboard is, and I suspect that a stadium expansion would give us the opportunity to revise the concourses in a way that would make that configuration possible (i.e. a concourse above the tunnel, with the away fans from Y25/26, round to a quarter/third of the way along the South stand), something similar to the Cardiff layout....

[Alexander Litvinenko]

Yes, one of the features of the expansion design as previously submitted is that there was complete flexibility in the concourses, and that the boundaries of the away support could be moved in either direction as required, so it could be increased or decreased to virtually anything up to the whole stand. Lots of movable netting to provide segregation.