By Webmaster/Rheolwr y Wefan
February 6 2003

Mirror, mirror on the wall - who's the best supported club of us all?! Yes, here's another installment of Livzy's Moiderings. Enjoy! Debate as to who the Leagues “best supported” club are come up on various guestbooks, mailing lists and club message boards form time to time. Obviously I’m a bit biased on this one but statistics don’t lie! (Well – not much anyway.) Bangor City have had the highest average home attendance for eight of the ten years the League of Wales, sorry, Welsh Premier, has been in existence. Not only are our home gates the biggest but many of the other teams get their highest crowd of the season when City come to call. (Caernarfon, Rhyl and Connahs Quay to name but three) OK – Aberystwyth have recently encouraged a “hard-core” of about 40 or so students to each home game – and some of them, away games too, and all credit to them for this. At least they are making the effort.

It doesn’t take long to look down the list and go from 500 to 300 to 150. With the exception of City, Aber and Barry, no other Welsh Premier side can command regular crowds of more than a hundred and a half. Pretty poor if you ask me. I’m bored of the “There’s a rugby club in our town, but” and “it only takes an hour to get to Caerdydd” Rubbish arguments. Total garbage. It only takes an hour to get to Liverpool, Everton or even Tranmere and, if you add another twenty minutes to that, Old Trafford and Maine Road. What stops supporters visiting some of our South Wales “colleagues” is apathy, poor quality stadia and even poorer standards on the pitch. Big up to those who do make the effort on behalf of their Clubs. (Port Talbot and the infamous “Hela” for one) Whilst we’re on the subject of supporters (and is its MY moidering column after all) I also lay claim on behalf of City to having the widest supporter base geographically. There are those of us from Bangor area (including Ynys Mon, Bethesda, Llanfairfechan, Colwyn Bay and Shotton) the ever-present London contingent, personified by the “Supporter of the Century”, Mr James Peters; as well as Sputnic, Dewi and Phil of South Wales; to our very own vodka-and-double-decker-provider, Mash. I defy anyone in the League to better that. (And the above-mentioned aren’t just armchair fans, they actually GO to games!)

TNS and Barry may (currently) be above us in the table and have had more recent success, but in terms of supporters we are, and ever shall be, The Welsh Premier Champions!!

What are your views on this? Let us know your views on the messageboard, or even write us your own article on this subject, or anything else Welsh Premier related. Please send all contributions to lofwwebmaster@yahoo.co.uk