16,000 season tickets sold?

BarryP put up a post on the "Ins and Outs" thread from the TIFF which in part stated we're at or approaching the 16,000 mark in tickets sold.

Considering where we're at and where we've been as a club recently, that number amazes me. It can't be the record driving these numbers. It can't be a chase for championships either.

To be sure there seems to be a renewed spirit at Fulham since Hodgson and company kept the club in the Premier League. But I don't think that explains everything driving the sales of season tickets.

I think we may be seeing the experience of a matchday at Craven Cottage emerge as a huge selling-point for Fulham regardless of how the club perform. I've compared the ground and its increasingly-unique status in the Premier League to what the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox have in this country. If Fulham can continue to add and adapt the Cottage to fit their revenue expectations while maintaining the historic appeal of the ground, then we have a situation where the ground itself emerges as a strength rather than the weakness many Fulham directors have seen it in the past.

The Cubs and the Red Sox can stink up the joint and it will not matter. The fans will keep coming because the experience of attending the game means so much in a ball park that defines character.

As the old grounds continue to be replaced (Highbury, Anfield, Goodison) by soul-free testaments to revenue-generation, the character of Craven Cottage will continue to develop as a creator of revenue itself by standing apart from the conformity of modern stadia.

 

Well said.

 

Having been to a few away grounds in my time,there is nowhere in football like the Cottage!