Steve Zodiak wrote:I was one of six regulars who from my local pub. None of us went while we were in red, and none of us have seen City in the top flight. Two of us have returned since the club went back to blue, but the rest have found other ways to spend their weekends. I suppose if we get to the PL, they may come back. The change to red certainly cost the club support, but I think there are probably other reasons as well. I am surprised that we are not getting 20k plus on a regular basis given our league position, but perhaps tomorrow will see the fans start to return.
I don’t dispute that we lost ‘hardcore’ fans due to the rebrand. TLG was one who never came back. There are some who won’t ever despite being back in blue.
However Mogs said he stopped doing due to the rebrand yet went the whole season in the championship in red. He didn’t leave because of the rebrand he left for other reasons.
What I definitely dispute is that it is anywhere near 4000. True crowds are 3200 less this year than our final season in blue (in a similar position to now) but they are also 3300 less than our first season in red (in a similar position to now).
I have no doubt many of those fans used the rebrand as their excuse but they were lying. No ifs no buts.
The only fans who truly left cos of the rebrand were the 50 who asked for their season ticket money back after the rebrand was announced and the others who left who didn’t have season tickets but there is no way to know how many of them there are.
Anybody who says that stats show that 4000 ‘hardcore’ fans left due to the rebrand (cough, cough Ian) are lying or delusional or a mixture of both or I suspect deliberately on a wind up as no one can be that stupid and I know that Ian is not a stupid man.