Howe - we can be bigger than Arsenal

[Ian Royal]

The club won't have to be that shrewd to sell out 38,000 week in week out should we continue to be around the edges of Europe each season and get a few good cup runs going, maybe a bit of silverware.

Our global brand is already growing almost exponentially with interest in Ireland, Asia (notably Korea) and across the pond in the US. If we can keep some of Seol, Convey, Doyle, Hunt, Bennett, Long and Hahnemann playing reasonably regularly and doing well then that is only going to improve.

We have a potentially huge catchment area with Oxford, Swindon, Wycombe and Bournemouth all slumming it at the moment. The only local clubs even close to resembling rivals are in London and Portsmouth now.

Lets not forget that 10 years ago people would have laughed at you if you suggested Chelsea would win back to back Premiership titles with a potential hat-trick still on and be competeing seriously in the Champions League on a yearly basis.

Look at how Bolton have done. They are consistantly knocking around towards the bottom of the CL places despite finishing below us in Div 1 12 years ago. They don't have the potential we do because of the huge clubs in their part of the country.

[Bowman's Quiver]

Unless we find a rich billionaire who will match Chelsea's spending in terms of players with wages, then the Top 4 will be the 4 getting CL football season in, season out (unless Platini gets his way and England gets 3 sides in the CL).

Financially, how will we cope with Man Utd 75,000 gate reciepts, Arsenal's 60,000, Liverpool's 60,000 (New Anfield), Chelsea's (60,000 Potential Stadium move).

As discussed on the thread on Club Policies, the club will have to be very shrewd and lucky to sell out 38,000 week in week out.

The wonderful thing about football is that it's in a permanent state of flux. It may not seem so at the moment but you've only got to go back a few years to see a very different picture.

During the 70's and 80's Manchester United and Arsenal won very little between them despite United's massive support.

Go back in living memory and United weren't even the biggest team in Manchester, Chelsea had won nothing, Liverpool were in the old second division and Man City, Arsenal, Charlton, Portsmouth and Huddersfield were dominating much of the proceedings.

With the money in the game now and the big club established worldwide brands it will be more difficult for the equilibrium to be disturbed but it will be somewhere and somehow.

What happens I wonder when the bubble bursts and some of the money sloshing around dries up? What happens if RA walks out of Chelsea or Glazer gets his fingers burnt at Utd? (ditto the Liverpool and Arsenal investors).

It might seem a bit far fetched at the moment but I'm sure their's a few Leeds fans that would have said the same thing only 6 years ago when Risdale was in his pomp.

That doesn't mean to say we'll end up bigger than those particular clubs but it's not out of the question that another club somewhere won't dominate the game for a few years.

[Harold]

What have you got to do with RFC?

Now, now!!

Well?

what have you got to do with RFC?

[Katie Marsden]

Howe must be off his head, last week saying Reading could get 100,000 for a home game and this week thinking we could be bigger than Arsenal.

What a numpty. All that talk of brand crap, sums the prick up. Reading FC today is not the same club it was just 9 years ago. Advances have been made on the off the pitch but at the cost of the clubs soul.

[shadesrwrf]

Can't disagree with much he says there. As brighton_royal has said, it's good to see there are people within the club who can see the potential. There's no reason to think it isn't possible.

[Ian Royal]

Howe must be off his head, last week saying Reading could get 100,000 for a home game and this week thinking we could be bigger than Arsenal.

What a numpty. All that talk of brand crap, sums the prick up. Reading FC today is not the same club it was just 9 years ago. Advances have been made on the off the pitch but at the cost of the clubs soul.

Why don't you forget about Reading and stick to United then? Or do you need a spare team to follow whenever United have a duff result?

[Harold]

reading are definitely a club with no soul these days - there is just no character to the place like there was in the Elm Park days.

[Dirk Gently]

From purely marketing point of view, you can't argue with it.

As Robert Maxwell knew all those years ago, as successful club in the Thames Valley could clean up.

There's not another Premier League club in all of the Home Counties West of London as far as Bristol and as far North as nearly Birmingham - only Portsmouth in the same area and as they're on the coast they're a different proposition transport-wise.

Bear in mind that this massive catchment area is also about the most affluent area in the country and you can see the reasoning.

[Katie Marsden]

It's funny how the same people who knocked clubs like United for the last decade for selling out and ruining football with all this brand rubbish are now lapping it up when it's happening to their club.

Ian Royal, you really are a mug. You know I'm 100% correct so all you can manage is a rather pathetic dig.

[Ian Royal]

It's funny how the same people who knocked clubs like United for the last decade for selling out and ruining football with all this brand rubbish are now lapping it up when it's happening to their club.

Ian Royal, you really are a mug. You know I'm 100% correct so all you can manage is a rather pathetic dig.

Nope. You talk utter garbage half the time.

I wasn't aware of anyone saying United had ruined football with brands. I thought everyone hated them because they won all the time.

Same with Chelsea but because they did it off the back of dodgy billions in the space of about a year and a half.

[Harold]

It's funny how the same people who knocked clubs like United for the last decade for selling out and ruining football with all this brand rubbish are now lapping it up when it's happening to their club.

Ian Royal, you really are a mug. You know I'm 100% correct so all you can manage is a rather pathetic dig.

Nope. You talk utter garbage half the time.

I wasn't aware of anyone saying United had ruined football with brands. I thought everyone hated them because they won all the time.

Same with Chelsea but because they did it off the back of dodgy billions in the space of about a year and a half.

You're forgetting Chelsea won trophies pre-Abramovich. It wasn't just overnight success. But I forgot Chelsea only existed when Ambramovich took over.....

[Royalee]

Howe must be off his head, last week saying Reading could get 100,000 for a home game and this week thinking we could be bigger than Arsenal.

What a numpty. All that talk of brand crap, sums the prick up. Reading FC today is not the same club it was just 9 years ago. Advances have been made on the off the pitch but at the cost of the clubs soul.

It sure isn't - we now have decent attendances, a lovely ground and a far more exciting team playing far better football in the best league in the world. Howe does a brilliant job and it's good to see him showing some ambition.

And if you call gates around the 5,000 mark in a run down old stadium (however fond some of the memories are) soul, I don't want it thanks.

[Ian Royal]

It's funny how the same people who knocked clubs like United for the last decade for selling out and ruining football with all this brand rubbish are now lapping it up when it's happening to their club.

Ian Royal, you really are a mug. You know I'm 100% correct so all you can manage is a rather pathetic dig.

Nope. You talk utter garbage half the time.

I wasn't aware of anyone saying United had ruined football with brands. I thought everyone hated them because they won all the time.

Same with Chelsea but because they did it off the back of dodgy billions in the space of about a year and a half.

You're forgetting Chelsea won trophies pre-Abramovich. It wasn't just overnight success. But I forgot Chelsea only existed when Ambramovich took over.....

I'm not forgetting that at all. It's got nothing to do with what I was saying.

[Alan Partridge]

reading are definitely a club with no soul these days - there is just no character to the place like there was in the Elm Park days.

LOL oh the irony.

[Alan Partridge]

But i've already said my piece in a word

Howe is seriously deLOLuded if he thinks we can be bigger than Arsenal. Arsenal have more fans in Reading than there are Reading fans.

We'll never be as 'big' as them, there is only 2 clubs in England 'bigger' than them and probably only ever will be 2.

[shadesrwrf]

It's funny how the same people who knocked clubs like United for the last decade for selling out and ruining football with all this brand rubbish are now lapping it up when it's happening to their club.

Ian Royal, you really are a mug. You know I'm 100% correct so all you can manage is a rather pathetic dig.

Nope. You talk utter garbage half the time.

I wasn't aware of anyone saying United had ruined football with brands. I thought everyone hated them because they won all the time.

Same with Chelsea but because they did it off the back of dodgy billions in the space of about a year and a half.

You're forgetting Chelsea won trophies pre-Abramovich. It wasn't just overnight success. But I forgot Chelsea only existed when Ambramovich took over.....

It's always much cosier when Harold and alad pull their armchairs closer together.

[Woodcote Royal]

But i've already said my piece in a word

Howe is seriously deLOLuded if he thinks we can be bigger than Arsenal. Arsenal have more fans in Reading than there are Reading fans.

We'll never be as 'big' as them, there is only 2 clubs in England 'bigger' than them and probably only ever will be 2.

With a set of blinkers this big, forget football and try horse racing.

You and Harold just to need to decide who should ride who....................

[Alan Partridge]

But i've already said my piece in a word

Howe is seriously deLOLuded if he thinks we can be bigger than Arsenal. Arsenal have more fans in Reading than there are Reading fans.

We'll never be as 'big' as them, there is only 2 clubs in England 'bigger' than them and probably only ever will be 2.

With a set of blinkers this big forget football and try horse racing.

anyone thinking Reading can be as big as Arsenal is a grade A idiot.

It's taken Arsenal years and years and years to build up their trophy collection, their WORLDWIDE fanbase, thier 60,000 stadium which they fill every week.

Whereas Reading can just about fill a 24,000 ground, have ZERO chance of seling out a 38,000 ground EVERY week and have won pricelessly nothing compared to Arsenal.

The only way we can compete with a club like that is if Madejski sold us to an 'abramovich' type, but just like Chelsea still wouldn't have the same appeal or 'size' (if you like) of Arsenal.

But feel free to believe these little pipedreams. BTW Santa isn't real either.

Why stop at Arsenal? We can be bigger than Real Madrid.

[Woodcote Royal]

I apologise for not realising just how vast those blinkers are

Think catchment area, think what crowds we were getting at EP in the early 90's and think of all those other blinkered fans who, just a few years ago, didn't think we'd sell out the Mad Stad every week and, perhaps, just perhaps, you might see the bigger picture...................but I won't hold my breath.

[Alan Partridge]

I apologise for not realising just how vast those blinkers are

Think catchment area, think what crowds we were getting at EP in the earley 90's and think of all those other blinkered fans who, just a few years ago, didn't think we'd sell out the Mad Stad every week and, perhaps, just perhaps, you might see the bigger picture...................but I won't hold my breath.

This season is a novelty, (some, not many but some people are only here and have these season tckets to see the opposition or because Reading are in the Premier League for the first time, novelties wear off) if not why weren't they all here two years ago? It was cheaper then too!!

Next season there will be games where you can get tickets on the day, especially if we aren't doing as well as we are this season.

The thought of a 38,000 ground is very exciting but in my view a totally unrealistic total if we are talking about filling it every week. There is ZERO chance of Reading v Charlton or Reading v Wigan having a 38,000 crowd. We'll be lucky to get 25,000.

The only chance that it could be a manageable crowd is if we got an Abramovich. Someone who just spent ridiuclous money, got world class players here then people would come from wherever to watch us. You could get a Chelsea ticket 5 years ago easy as you like, not these days. Why? because they have the best players, but he people 'following' Chelsea at the minute won't last the course.

I'd say Reading at the minute has a core of around 16,000 supporters, i really can't see us (even if we went down) getting below 15-16,000 for a home game anymore. However perspective is needed, yes this club is growing and will continue to grow but to say we can be bigger than Arsenal is farcical.