billsportsmaps.com

September 9, 2013

Turkey: 2013-14 Süper Lig location-map, with attendance data from 12/13, Turkish pro titles list (1959-2013), and population-list of cities in Turkey (with first-division cities noted). / Plus photos of top 5 leading scorers in 2012-13 Süper Lig.

Filed under: Turkey — admin @ 4:51 pm

Turkey: Süper Lig, 2013-14 season location-map, with attendances from 2012-13

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Turkish SüperLig – fixtures, results, table (soccerway.com).

Süper Lig

At the upper-left of the map page is a location-map of the 18 clubs in the 2013-14 Süper Lig, which is the first division in Turkey. The 2013-14 campaign will be the 56th season of the competition. The predecessor to Süper Lig was called Milli Lig, and it began in 1959, when 16 clubs from only the 3 largest cities in Turkey were invited to compete. The 3 largest Turkish cities were and still are Istanbul (the largest, with a current metropolitan-area population of around 13.7 million {2012 estimate/ see population list on map page}; Ankara (the second city and Turkey’s capital, with a current metropolitan-area population of around 4.6 million); and ízmir (south-west of Istanbul on the Mediterranean Sea, and the 3rd-largest city in Turkey with a current metropolitan-area population of around 3.4 million).

There was no promotion/relegation for the first pro season in Turkey in 1959, but for the second season, which was the first to follow the fall/winter/spring schedule (in 1959-60), promotion/relegation was introduced, and amateur clubs from the entire country were eligible to play their way into the nascent Turkish top flight, via the promotion/relegation play-offs known as the Baraj Maçları (Baraj Games, 1959-60 through 1962-63). The first club from a location other than the 3 largest cities made it to the Turkish first division at the first Baraj games at the end of that 2nd season, in the spring of 1961. That club was current 2nd-division-side Adana Demirspor, from Adana, which is the 5th-largest city in Turkey, and is on the south-west coast, on the Mediterranean Sea about 100 km. from the Syrian border (which you can see on a political map of Turkey that is included on the the map page).

The Turkish second division, then-known as 2. Lig, was instituted in 1963-64, and that same season the Turkish first division was re-branded as 1. Lig. Since 2001-02, the Turkish first division has been called Süper Lig, and the second division has been called TFF First League. Promotion/relegation is currently 3 teams up & 3 teams down every season. The Big 3 of Istanbul have dominated Turkish football since it turned pro in 1959.

Below, the northwest of Turkey, including Thrace, Greater Istanbul and NW Anatolia

The Big 3 of Turkey are of course Fenerbahçe, Galatasaray, and Beşiktaş. The only other club that had won a title in the first 5 decades of Turkish first division football was Black Sea/north-eastern Anatolian-based Trabzonspor, who have won 6 Turkish titles (last in 1984). Trabzonspor, who wear claret-and-sky-blue colors, are from the rather modest-sized city of Trabzon, which is about 150 km. west of the Georgian frontier, and is currently the 28th-largest city in Turkey (with a metropolitan-area population of only around 243,000). It took quite a long time for another club from outside of the Big 3+Trabzonspor to win a title. That was finally achieved in 2009-10, by Bursaspor, of Bursa, which was the original Ottoman capital and which is about a two-and-half-hours’ drive south of Istanbul, near the Sea of Marmara. Bursa is the 4th-largest city in Turkey, (with a metropolitan-area population of around 1.9 million). Bursaspor wear green-and-white-hooped jerseys and are known as the Green Crocodiles.

Reigning champions are Galatasaray, who won their 19th title, and second consecutive title, in May 2013. The orange-and-dark-red Galatasaray and the dark-blue-and-yellow Fenerbahçe are perennially neck-and-neck in vying for the most championships in Turkey, with Galatasaray currently leading Fenerbahçe by one title – Fenerbahçe having won 18 titles (last in 2011).

Istanbul, straddling the two continents of Europe and Asia, currently has 4 clubs in the first division – 3 located on the European side of the straits of the Bosphorous…Galatasaray, Beşiktaş, and Kasımpaşa; while located on the Asian side of the straits of the Bosphorous is Fenerbahçe. Both Galatasaray (aka Cimbom) and Fener regularly draw 40,000 these days. Fenerbahçe SK have been drawing in the high-30 K-to 40 K range for over a decade now – since 2002-03, at their 50,500-capacity Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium. Galatasaray SK have been drawing in the high-30 K-to 40 K range since 2011-12, which was the first full season they started playing in their new and space-age venue, the 52,000-capacity Türk Telekom Arena.

Beşiktaş JK, nicknamed Kara Kartallar (the Black Eagles), are the third-best-drawing club in Istanbul and in Turkey – they draw around 22,000 per game (and have the third most Turkish titles, with 13 [last in 2009]). The home ground of Beşiktaş, İnönü Stadium, is home to the world’s loudest football fans, with a record-breaking 141 decibels recorded in the stadium at a game there in May 2013. Beşiktaş, who sport black-and-white-vertically-striped jerseys, traditionally have a more left-wing/working class set of fans, and maintain a sizable contingent of supporters – the Beşiktaş supporters’ group known as Çarşı – who are kind of like the supporters of Hamburg, Germany-based cult-favorite/renegade-football-club FC St. Pauli (of 2.Bundesliga). {Here is the en.wikipedia.org page for ‘Çarşı (supporter group)‘}. Çarşı definitely flies the left-wing/Freak flag and is anti-violence, anti-authoritarianism, anti-religious-ideology, anti-racist, and quasi-anarchist in a Dada-ist sort of way…their most famous slogan is “Çarşı, her şeye karşı!” (English: ‘Çarşı is against everything!’). You will definitely see open-source/left-wing politics on display at the 32,000-capacity İnönü Stadium, and Beşiktaş supporters connected with Çarşı were at the center of the socio-political protests in May, June and July 2013 in Istanbul (see 3 articles linked to 4 paragraphs below).

Turkish pro titles list (1959-2013) is at the upper-left-center of the map page.

City populations listed on the map page are from this page at the Turkish Wikipedia, ‘Türkiye’deki yerleşim yerleri listesi‘ (tr.wikipedia.org).

Attendance data is at the upper-right-hand side of the map page. Thanks very much to the brilliant European-Football-Statistics.co.uk/attn.htm – for posting hard-to-find and virtually non-existent Turkish Süper Lig attendance figures (for the 2012-13 season). When I saw that European-Football-Statistics had posted Turkish attendance figures in spring 2013, after 5 straight years without Turkish league attendances being available anywhere, I immediately started working on this map and post.

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From Dirty Tackle.com, from 4 June 2013, by Ryan Bailey, ‘Fenerbahce, Galatasaray and Besiktas fans united by Turkish anti-government protests‘ (sports.yahoo.com/blogs/soccer-dirty-tackle).

From Vice.com, from 19 June 2013, by Esra Gúrman, ‘TALKING TO THE BULLDOZER-HIJACKING SOCCER FANS ABOUT THEIR ROLE IN THE TURKISH UPRISING‘ (vice.com).

From Der Spiegel, from 5 July 2013, by Özlem Gezer and Maximilian Popp, ‘Pepper Spray Is Our Perfume’: Football Fans Challenge Erdogan‘ (spiegel.de).

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From New York Times.com, from 18 June 2013, by Rob Hughes, ‘The Guiding Hand of Galatasaray‘ (nytimes.com).

Galatasaray SK – 2013 champions of Turkey.

Below: the new home of Galatasaray – Türk Telecom Arena, opened January 2011.

Aerial photo of Türk Telekom Arena from zaman.com.tr.
Photo of fans arriving at Türk Telekom Arena from habermonitor.com.
Interior photo of Türk Telekom Arena, unattributed at forum.ea.com.

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Below – Top 5 leading scorers in 2012-13 Süper Lig.

Burak Yılmaz photo, unattributed at spothaber.com.
Kalu Uche photo from kasimpasaspor.org.tr.
Bobô photo from zaman.com.tr.
Pierre Webo photo from AP, at bigstory.ap.org.
Pablo Batalla photo unattributed at bursahakimiyet.com.

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Thanks to European-Football-Statistics.co.uk/attn.htm – for Turkish Süper Lig attendance figures (for the 2012-13 season).

Thanks to NordNordWest for the blank map of Turkey, at commons.wikimedia.org, ‘http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Turkey_location_map.svg‘.
Thanks to the CIA World Fact Book’s page on Turkey, for the map (at top center of map page), cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tu.html.

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en. and tr.wikipedia.org,
‘Süper Lig‘ (en.wikipedia.org).
‘Süper Lig‘ (tr.wikipedia.org).

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August 31, 2013

2013-14 UEFA Champions League Group Stage: Location/attendance map, with stadium capacities & each club’s percent-capacity figure (from home matches in 2012-13 domestic leagues).

Filed under: UEFA Champions League — admin @ 10:15 pm

2013-14 UEFA Champions League Group Stage: Location/attendance map, with stadium capacities & each club’s 12/13 percent-capacity figure

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2013-14 UEFA Champions League Group Stage – fixtures, results, tables (soccerway.com).

From TheGuardian.com/football, from 29 Aug. 2013, by Jamie Jackson,
‘Champions League group stage draw 2013-14
• Arsenal drawn with Dortmund, Napoli and Marseille
• Celtic pitted against Barcelona, Milan and Ajax‘.

uefa.com/CL

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This is the 22nd iteration of the UEFA Champions League Group Stage (ie, since 1992-93). Title-holders are of course Bayern Munich, the Bavarian giants who defeated their biggest rival, Borussia Dortmund, in the thrilling 2012-13 UEFA Champions League Final in London at Wembley on 25 May, by a score of 2-1. It was the first all German final in the competition (ie, since 1955-56).

On the map itself, in the center of the map page, the locations of the clubs which have qualified for this year’s CL Group Stage are shown on a large map of Europe. Surrounding the large map are enlarged inset maps of each of the 19 countries which have teams involved in this season’s group stage. The club crests on the inset maps are sized to reflect each club’s average attendance – the larger the crest, the higher that club’s average attendance is. Average attendance is from each club’s home matches in their domestic league last season (2012-13). I got the figures from European-Football-Statistics.co.uk/attendances.

Listed on the left-hand side are 2012-13 average attendance figures (from domestic home league matches), then each club’s stadium capacity (for 12/13 league matches), then each club’s percent-capacity. For this year’s UEFA CL map, I have dispensed with percent-change in attendance. I decided the space was better used for listing each club’s stadium capacity, and each club’s percent-capacity for 12/13. Percent Capacity = Avg. Attendance divided by Stadium Capacity.

Here are all the clubs in the 2013-14 Champions League Group Stage that filled their stadium last season by over 90.0 percent-capacity…
-100.0: Bayern Munich, at 71,000 per game in the 2012-13 Bundesliga, and the 6th-consecutive season that the current Champions League title-holders’ percent-capacity figure has been at exactly 100.0%, at their space-age Allianz Arena in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.
-99.8: Borussia Dortmund, at a world’s-best 80,520 per game at Westfalenstadion [aka Signal-Iduna Park] in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany in the 2012-13 Bundesliga.
-99.6: Manchester United, at 75,530 per game at Old Trafford in Trafford, Greater Manchester, England in the 2012-13 Premier League.
-99.5: Arsenal, at 60,079 per game at Emirates Stadium in North London, England in the 2012-13 Premier League.
-99.1: Schalke 04, at 61,171 per game at Veltins-Arena in Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany in the 2012-13 Bundesliga.
-99.0: Chelsea, at 41,462 per game at Stamford Bridge in West London, England in the 2012-13 Premier League.
-99.0: Manchester City, at 46,974 per game at the City of Manchester Stadium [aka the Etihad Arena] in Manchester, England in the 2012-13 Premier League.
-95.8: Ajax, at 50,490 per game at Amsterdam Arena in Amsterdam, Nord Holland, Netherlands in the 2012-13 Eredivisie.
-93.5: Juventus, at 38,600 per game at Juventus Stadium in Turin, Piedmont, Italy in the 2012-13 Serie A.
-93.0: Bayer Leverkusen, at 28,120 per game at BayArena in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany in the 2012-13 Bundesliga.
-91.1: Paris Saint-Germain, at 43,239 per game at Parc des Princes in the 16th arrondissement in SW Paris, France in the 2012-13 Ligue 1.

Stadium capacities for league matches will inevitably be a bit less than the full capacity (ie, total number of seats+standing-room terracing, if allowed) in a given stadium – for safety reasons to separate rival fans. For UEFA matches it will very often be less than that as well (ie, more rival-fans-separation). In the last 4 or 5 years, Wikipedia has been pretty good about keeping track of stadium capacities – they can often vary from year to year. But there are errors, such as at the en.wikipedia.org page on the 2012-13 Belgian Pro League, where it fails to include the Anderlecht venue’s standing capacity – the club’s Constance Vanden Stock Stadium has 21,000 seats (that’s what its capacity is listed as {here), but that fails to account for the 5.3 K to 6.9 K of available standing-terrace capacity there (like it is listed at the de.wikipedia.org page on the stadium, here). Soccerway.com is also good on reporting the stadium capacity statistic. Actually, Soccerway.com is pretty much alone among major association football media outlets (that I know of) in that they go that extra mile and list stadium capacities AND they do the math, listing percent-capacities [at each league's table, at the top, far right of the table]. But sometimes a club is playing in multiple venues (like CSKA Moscow is currently/ see note at bottom of attendance data list on the map page), or sometimes a club has had renovations or rebuilds at their venue which changes, sometimes drastically, their stadium capacity and their actual crowd sizes (like with respect to Marseille the past 2 seasons in Ligue 1/ again, see note on the map page below attendance data). So venue-capacity and thus percent-capacity is a tough one to stay abreast of. I arrived at the venue capacity figures on the map page by referring to the en.wikipedia.org page, and sometimes to the de.wikipedia.org page, and a few times the ru.wikipedia.org page… then to the Soccerway.com capacity figure from last season. If there was a discrepancy, I delved further until I got to the bottom of why there were different venue capacity figures listed. So if there are errors in any of the 32 clubs’ 2012-13 home domestic league capacity figures here, I apologize. But no source out there (that I know of) has definitive numbers for all this. Ligue 1 site is by far the best at reporting venue-capacities and percent-capacities, and thanks to the excellent Ligue 1 official site I had already known about the rebuild (for Euro 2016) of Olympique Marseille’s venue – Stade Vélodrome – and its ongoing capacity shifts (as well as at Saint-Étienne’s venue), and was able to reflect that here and previously in my 13/14 Ligue 1 map and attendance chart {here}. {Here is the Ligue 1 site’s section on attendance – Ligue1.com/attendance}. Merci, Ligue Un!

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Thanks to the 80+ folks who commented on my 2012-13 UEFA CL Group Stage map last year when it was uploaded by niallgg at Redddit.com {here, http://en.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/znqa7/201213_champions_league_group_stage_attendance_map/}. Special thanks to the person who suggested that percent-capacity listings would be useful (user name: oldaccount), and to the person who actually took the initiative of listing all the stadium capacities and percent-capacities of clubs in the Group Stage last year (user name: therealmorris). For a couple years now, I have been including percent-capacities in most of my maps of European leagues, and including them here in the Champions League was a detail that was long overdue.
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Thanks to Roke at commons.wikimedia.org, ‘BlankMap-Europe-v4.png‘.
Thanks to european-football-statistics.co.uk, for attendance figures.
Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org (as well as UEFA CL pages at de.wikipedia.org and ru.wikipedia.org), ‘2013–14 UEFA Champions League‘.
Thanks to Soccerway.com for stadium capacity information.

Comments (3)

August 24, 2013

2013–14 Scottish Premiership: location-map with 2012-13 attendance data and 2013-14 home jersey badges.

Filed under: England & Scotland-Map/Crowds/Kit Badges,Scotland — admin @ 7:54 pm

2013–14 Scottish Premiership: location-map with 2012-13 attendance data & 2013-14 home kit badges
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Scotland – Premiership: fixtures, results, table (soccerway.com).

From 1 August 2013, ‘SCOTTISH PREMIERSHIP 2013-2014 PREVIEW: Can anyone challenge Celtic?‘ (dailymail.co.uk/sport/football).

From When Saturday Comes.co.uk, from 14 August, by Alan Anderson, ‘Scotland’s dislike of England masks bigger problems
Enjoy chance to embarrass larger neighbours‘ (wsc.co.uk).

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Teams from Scotland playing in Europe for 2013-14 (with 12/13 Scottish Premier League finish noted):
Scotland’s very poor current UEFA coefficient holds at 24th {see this ‘UEFA coefficient/Current ranking‘ (en.wikipedia.org)}. And unless Celtic rallies from a 2-goal deficit (see next paragraph), that 24th-place coefficient will probably plummet further.

#1 – Celtic, of course, won the league title yet again in 12/13, and qualified for the 2013–14 UEFA Champions League second qualifying round, where Celtic defeated Cliftonville (of Northern Ireland) 5-0. In the UEFA Champions League third qualifying round, Celtic then defeated Elfsborg (of Sweden) 1-0 aggregate. Then in the final qualifying round before the CL Group Stage – the CL Play-off Round – Celtic were drawn to face Shakhter Karagandy (of Kazakhstan). Because their stadium in Karaganda holds only 19,000, Shakhter opted to host Celtic in the Kazakh capital-city of Astana, at the 30,000-capacity Astana Arena. The long journey, deep into central Asia, that the Celtic squad had to take to get there, seems to have taken its toll (the distance between Glasgow, Scotland and Astana, Kazakhstan is 4782 km. or 2,970 miles). In the first leg on 20 Aug. 2013, Celtic fell 2-0 to the back-to-back Kazakhstan Premier League champions, in front of a sell-out crowd of 29,950 – see this, ‘Celtic succumb to a shock defeat by Kazakhstan’s Shakhter Karagandy‘ (PA via theguardian.com/football). There has never been a Kazakhstan-based club in the UEFA Champions League Group Stage, and unless Celtic manager Neil Lennon can rally his troops, Shakhter Karagandy will become the first Kazakh side in the CL Group Stage (ie, since 92/93), as well as becoming the furthest-easternmost club to to play in the competition (Rubin Kazan of Tatarstan, Russia, who were in both the 2009-10 and 2010-11 UEFA CL Group Stages, hold that distinction, currently). Here is another article about Celtic’s CL-qualifier predicament, ‘Celtic have chance of redemption in Champions League qualifier – The board of directors have been criticised for failing to reinvest but need Neil Lennon’s current squad to deliver‘ (by Ewan Murray at theguardian.com/football/blog). [Note: Celtic did qualify for the UEFA CL Group Stage by beating Shakhter Karagandy 3-0 at Parkhead on 28 Aug.]
#2 – Motherwell finished second in 12/13 (following a 3rd place finish in 2011-12), and the Steelmen qualified for the 2013–14 UEFA Europa League third qualifying round. However, Motherwell fell to Kuban Krasnodar (of Russia), 0-3 aggregate.
#3 – St. Johnstone finished third in 12/13, despite having the lowest crowds in the league, and qualified for the 2013–14 UEFA Europa League second qualifying round. There, St. Johnstone defeated Rosenborg (of Norway) 2-1 aggregate. In the UEFA Europa League third qualifying round, St. Johnstone faced FC Minsk (of Belarus), and lost 2-3 aggregate, in penalties, to the Belarussian side.
#7 – Hibernian finished seventh in 12/13, but they qualified for the 2013–14 UEFA Europa League second qualifying round by virtue of being runners-up in the 2012-13 Scottish Cup (which was won by Celtic, who had already qualified for Europe), thus Hibernian took the spot. Hibernian then lost to Malmö (of Sweden) by the appalling score of 0-9 aggregate.

The only other club in Scotland besides Celtic that won silverware in 2012-13…
St Mirren FC, of Paisley, Renfrewshire (which is on the western-edge of Greater Glasgow), won the 2013 Scottish League Cup, defeating Heart of Midlothian 3-2, before 44,000 at Hampden Park. Congratulations to St Mirren.

Promoted and relegated in 2012-13…
Relegated: Dundee FC were relegated straight back to the second division in 12/13. No other club (such as St Mirren or Hearts) were really troubled by relegation worries as Dundee finished bottom, 13 points from safety. [Dundee had gained promotion back to the Scottish top tier for the 2012-13 season only because of Rangers' implosion in the Spring of 2012, and the Glasgow giants' subsequent banishment to the fourth division as Rangers (Newco).]
Promoted: Glasgow-based Partick Thistle won promotion to the Scottish top flight (see below).

Promoted to the Scottish Premiership for the 2013-14 season – Partick Thistle FC (their first appearance in the Scottish top flight in 9 seasons).
Partick Thistle are from NW Glasgow and are nicknamed the Jags. They wear red-and-yellow-jerseys (this season in a vertical-stripe pattern), the over-exuberance of that color-scheme being off-set by a rather dignified black-thistle-in-disc crest. Partick Thistle have won 0 Scottish titles, 1 Scottish FA Cup title (in 1921), and 1 Scottish League Cup title (in 1972). Their highest league finish was in 3rd place, which Partick Thistle did 3 times – in 1947-48, in 1953-54, and in 1962-63. From 1902-03 all the way to 1974-75, Partick Thistle were a top flight club. The modern era of Old Firm dominance in Scottish football in general and in Glaswegian football in particular has been really bad for Partick Thistle. Since the mid 1970s, Partick have played much more seasons outside the Scottish top flight, with their nadir being the 2 seasons they spent in the 3rd tier from 1998 to 2000. During the last, brief spell that Partick Thistle were in the top flight, which was a 2-season spell from 2002 to ’04, the club averaged 5,553 that initial season back in the SPL, and then 4,710 when they fell back to the second tier in 2004. Partick Thistle averaged 3,614 per game last season [2012-13], as they won the Scottish First Division comfortably (in the end), by 11 points over nearby rivals Greenock Morton. Back in the top tier for 2013-14, Partick Thistle have drawn 7,822 in their home opener versus Dundee United; then they drew 6,540 on a Friday night v. Hearts – which makes a 7,181 average gate so far. Partick Thistle will probably draw between 6 K to maybe 7.5 K per game, depending on how they do this season. They won’t have near the relegation worries one might normally expect, because Hearts have been docked 15 points for entering administration (plus being slapped with a transfer ban). If Partick Thistle do stay up this first year back, they stand a chance to possibly grow their fan base a bit, seeing as how the blue half of the Old Firm – Rangers (Newco) – still have 2 more seasons to get promoted back to the Scottish Premiership.
Below, Firhill, home of Partick Thistle, in the northwest of Glasgow in the Maryhill area (Maryhill is a former borough with a population of approximately 52,000)

Photo and Image credits above –
Photo of small badge from http://www.teamwearscotland.com/partick-thistle-replica-store/402-partick-thistle-open-t-shirt-.html.
Photo of fans arriving at Firhill fromptfc.co.uk/media/photo_galleries/match_galleries/2012-2013/partick_thistle_v_greenock_morton_10_04_13.
Aerial image [via satellite] from bing.com/maps (Bird’s Eye view).
Interior photo of Firhill by Robert Poole at flickr.com/photos/robertpool.
Exterior photo of Firhill by LordHorst at en.wikipedia.org, ‘File:Partick Thistle Firhill Stadium.JPG‘.
13/14 PTFC home kit illustration from ‘Partick Thistle F.C.‘ (en.wikipedia.org).

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Thanks to E-F-S site, for Scottish attendance figures, http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn.htm.

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘Scottish Premiership (association football)‘.

Thanks to Celtic official site for the photo of the 2013-15 Celtic home kit badge, http://celticsuperstore.co.uk/stores/celtic/products/kit_selector.aspx?selector=288.

Thanks to Partick Thistle official site for photo of image of black-thistle-on-yellow-badge-segment, from video of 13/14 kit PTFC release, http://ptfc.co.uk/media/video/miscellaneous/2013-2014/new_strip_launch.

Thanks to Jag-mad site for League history info on Partick Thistle, http://www.partickthistle-mad.co.uk/league_history/partick_thistle/index.shtml .

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August 12, 2013

England & Wales: Premier League, 2013-14 – location-map with attendance data. / Plus, a chart of metropolitan-area populations in the UK – the 40 largest Urban Areas in the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland), with clubs in the 2013-14 Premier League listed.

Filed under: 2013-14 English Football,Eng>Premier League (Eng-1st Level) — admin @ 8:37 pm

2013-14 Premier League map & attendance chart (12/13 attendances)

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PREMIER LEAGUE – Fixtures, Results, Table (soccerway.com).

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2012-13 – a banner year for pro football in Wales.
Of the 20 clubs in the Premier League this season, 2 are based in Wales – the newly-promoted Cardiff City, and the third-year-Premier League-club Swansea City AFC, both of South Wales (and separated by only 55 km. or 34 miles). It is the first time in the history of the English 1st division (which was established in 1888-89) that 2 Welsh clubs are playing in the top flight at the same time. This will be the 16th season in the top flight for Cardiff City (Cardiff City’s total seasons spent in the 1st division: 1921-22 to 1928-29 [an 8 season spell]; 1952-53 to 1956-57 [a 5 season spell]; 1961-62 to 1962-63 [a 2 season spell]; 2013-14). This will be the 5th season that Swansea City are playing in the top flight (Swansea City’s total seasons spent in the 1st division: 1981-82 to 1982-83 [a 2 season spell]; 2011-12 to 2013-14 [a 3 season spell so far]). No other Welsh club has played in the English top flight, but Wrexham spent 4 seasons in the Second Division from 1978-79 to 1981-82; while Newport County (I) played the 1946-47 season in the Second Division. {To see a post I made a couple years back about the 6 Welsh football clubs which are in the English football league pyramid, click here.}

More positive news for Welsh pro football can be seen in the fact that last season, Newport County (II) of South Wales won promotion to the Football League. So after a 25-year absence, the city of Newport, Wales again has a club in the Football League. Newport County accomplished this by defeating Wrexham (of North Wales) in the 2013 Conference National Play-off Final at Wembley. Congratulations to Newport City AFC and supporters of the Exiles. And congratulations to the the Bluebirds’ faithful (I refuse to call Cardiff the Red Dragons)…for their club’s first top-flight-promotion in 51 years. And congratulations to 20%-supporter-owned Swansea City, and its fans, for winning the League Cup, and for demonstrating that playing attractive passing football in the first division – and actually staying up and winning silverware – can still be achieved by modest clubs from relatively small cities. Swansea is a pretty small city to be having a successful first division club, and now Swansea City are advantageously set-up to become the first Welsh club to qualify for a European competition {see this, ‘2013–14 UEFA Europa League/Play-off Round‘.

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The smallest cities to have an English 1st Division football club (since 1946-47)
Please note: all populations discussed below are not city populations, but rather metropolitan-area populations (which are also known as Urban Areas, and which are also known as Built-up areas). Why? Because there are not walls around these cities. People who live outside, but still nearby, any given city can and very often do attend home matches of a club in that city. Besides, some clubs (like Grimsby Town) don’t even play in the city or borough they are named after. This exercise is to look at what sort of population each club has as its potential catchment area. If I were to use populations from just within the city-limits of all these settlements, it would not accurately reflect the total population from which the club could reasonably expect (or hope) to draw upon as ticket-paying customers.
Here is my data source for metro-area populations – Source of data: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_the_United_Kingdom.
The Swansea Built-up area is the 27th-largest in the United Kingdom, with a metro-area population of only around 300,000 {2011 figure; see the chart I made further below}. (Actually, it might be surprising to some that Swansea’s metro-area is slightly smaller than the metro-area of Newport, Wales.). At present [2013-14], the only Premier League club from a metropolitan-area smaller than Swansea is Norwich City. The Norwich, Norfolk Built-up area has a population of around 213,000, and is the 38th-largest in the UK. It must be mentioned that Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire – home of just-promoted Hull City AFC – is slightly larger than Swansea, as is Sunderland, Wearside – home of Sunderland AFC. Hull has a metro-area pop. of around 314 K, making Hull the 24th-largest metro area in the UK; Sunderland has a metro-area pop. of around 335 K (that figure does not include any part of the Newcastle metro-area), making Sunderland the 21st-largest metro area in the UK.

In the past and recent past (going back to the post-War period [from 1946-47 on]), there have been 8 First Division/Premier League clubs from cities smaller than Norwich (ie, smaller than around 200,000). Below are listed the smallest cities to have an English 1st division football club since the post-War period (1946-47 to 2013-14), with each club’s total seasons and their last season in the top flight noted, and current metro-area populations listed…
{all figures from the following link unless otherwise noted – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_the_United_Kingdom}.
-Swindon Town, 1 season in the 1st division (in 1993-94): Swindon, Wiltshire is the 40th-largest built-up area in the UK at 185,000 metro-population currently;
-Ipswich Town, 26 seasons in the 1st division (last in 2001-02): Ipswich, Suffolk is the 42nd-largest built-up area in the UK at 178,000 metro-population currently;
-Wigan Athletic, 8 seasons in the 1st division (last in 2012-13): Wigan is the 43rd-largest built-up area in the UK at 175,000 metro-population currently;
-Oxford United, 3 seasons in the 1st division (last in 1987-88): Oxford, Oxfordshire is the 45th-largest built-up area in the UK at 171,000 metro-population currently;
-Burnley, 52 seasons in the 1st division (last in 2009-10): Burnley, Lancashire is the 54th-largest built-up area in the UK at 149,000 metro-population currently;
-Blackburn Rovers, 72 seasons in the 1st division (last in 2011-12): Blackburn, Lancashire is the 56th-largest built-up area in the UK at 146,000 metro-population currently;
-Grimsby Town, 12 seasons in the 1st division (last in 1947-48): Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire is the 58th-largest built-up area in the UK at 134,000 metro-population currently;
-Carlisle United, 1 season in the 1st division (in 1974-75): Carlisle, Cumbria is about the 108th-largest settlement in the UK at around 73,000 {that and its city-size-ranking is from 2008, obtained here (citypopulation.de/UK-Cities)}.

Chart: Metropolitan-area populations in the United Kingdom – the 40 largest Built-up Areas in the UK (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland). With clubs in the 2013-14 Premier League listed.

Click on image below.

Chart: Built-Up Area populations in the UK – the 40 largest Built-up Areas in the United Kingdom, with clubs in the 2013-14 Premier League listed

Source of data: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_the_United_Kingdom.

This chart was uploaded onto reddit.com/soccer by iam8mai, one day after I posted it… here is the thread – http://en.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1k9hoh/premier_league_team_population_size/. Thanks to all the 90+ folks who commented there, and thanks to those who spotted my errors, and thanks to that St Mirren fan [portaccio] who pointed out that Motherwell should have been listed in the list of clubs currently in the Scottish 1st division which are located in Greater Glasgow, which he did after he pointed out to the other (disgruntled) St Mirren fan that Paisley is indeed officially considered part of Greater Glasgow].
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Thanks to D-maps.com, for the blank map of the UK, http://d-maps.com/carte.php?num_car=5546&lang=en.

Thanks to european-football-statistics.co.uk, for 2012-13 Premier League attendance figures.

Thanks to the Football League official site for 2012-13 Football League Championship attendance figures, http://www.football-league.co.uk/page/DivisionalAttendance/0,,10794~20127,00.html.

Thanks to Soccerway.com for stadium capacities.

Thanks to the Footy-mad sites for their invaluable League Histories of every club in Levels 1 through 5, such as ‘Cardiff City’s complete league history‘ (cardiffcity-mad.co.uk/league_history); and ‘Swansea City’s complete league history‘ (swanseacity-mad.co.uk/league_history).

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August 6, 2013

France: Ligue 1, 2013-14 location-map with 2012-13 attendance data / Plus all-time French pro titles list (1932-33 to 2012-13) / Plus photos of top scoring threats in 12/13 Ligue 1 / Plus, new Stadium for OGC Nice – Allianz Riviera, capacity 35,000.

Filed under: France — admin @ 12:25 am

France: Ligue 1, 2013-14 location-map with 2012-13 attendance data
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Note: to see my latest map-&-post of Ligue Un, click on the following: category: France.
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Teams from France playing in Europe for 2013-14 (with 12/13 Ligue 1 finish noted).

#1 & #2 – Paris Saint-Germain & Olympique de Marseille qualified for the 2013–14 UEFA Champions League Group Stage as 2012-13 Ligue 1 champions (PSG) and as 2012-13 Ligue 1 runners-up (Marseille).
#3 – Olympique Lyonnais (aka Lyon) finished third in 12/13, and qualified for the 2013–14 UEFA Champions League Third qualifying round; Lyon play Swiss side Grasshoppers (on 30 July & 6 Aug.).
#4 – OGC Nice finished fourth in 12/13, and qualified for the 2013–14 UEFA Europa League Play-off round (seeding and team to play TBD).
#5 – AS Saint-Étienne finished fifth in 12/13, and qualified for the 2013–14 UEFA Europa League Third qualifying round; Saint-Étienne play Moldovan side FC Milsami (on 1 Aug. & 8 Aug.).
#6 – Lille LOSC finished sixth in 12/13, and did not qualify for Europe.
#7 – Girondins de Bordeaux, though finishing 7th in 12/13, qualified for the group stage of 2013–14 UEFA Europa League, as winner of the 2012–13 Coupe de France.

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All-time French pro titles list (1932-33 to 2012-13).

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Below -
Top 4 goal scorers in 2012-13 Ligue 1:
1. Zlatan Ibrahimović (PSG), 30 goals in 34 games (plus 7 assists made).
2. Darío Cvintanich (Nice), 19 goals in 29 games (plus 2 assists made).
2. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Saint-Étienne), 19 goals in 37 games (plus 8 assists made). Aubameyang was tranferred to Borussia Dortmund in July 2013.
4. Bafétimbi Gomis (Lyon), 16 goals in 37 games (plus 3 assists made). Bafétimbi Gomis is a possible transfer, to Newcastle United, in a proposed deal estimated to be worth £8.7m with bonuses {see this, ‘Newcastle agree deal to sign Lyon striker Bafétimbi Gomis‘ (theguardian.com/football)}.

Top 2 on the assists table in 2012-13 Ligue 1:
1. Mathieu Valbuena (Marseille), 12 assists in 37 games (plus 3 goals scored).
1. Dmitri Payet (Lille), 12 assists in 38 games (plus 12 goals scored). Payet was tranferred to Marseille in June 2013.

2012-13_ligue-1_top-4-scorers_top-2-of-assists-table_z-ibrahimovic_p-aubamayeng_d-cvintanich_b-gomis_d-payet_m-valbuena_n_.gif
Photo credits above -
Zlatan Ibrahimović (PSG), unattributed at internalcannon.tumblr.com.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Saint-Étienne), Phillippe Vacher at leprogres.fr/sports.
Darío Cvitanich (OGC Nice), nicematin.com.
Bafétimbi Gomis (Lyon), unattributed at football365.com.
Mathieu Valbuena (Marseille), Panoramic via franceinfo.fr.
Dimitri Payet (Lille), unattributed at madeinfoot.com.

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New Stadium for OGC Nice – Allianz Riviera, capacity 35,000. Owner: city of Nice.

Photo credits above -
Old stadium, photo by angellli at flicker.com and at commons.wikipedia.org.
New stadium under construction, http://www.info-stades.fr/forum/ligue1/nice-allianz-riviera-t6-4515.html.
New stadium, http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=105598349.

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Thanks to ligue1.com, the Ligue 1 official site, for 2012-13 Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 attendance figures, stadium capacities, and percent-capacity figures, http://www.ligue1.com/ligue1/affluences/journee .

Thanks to Eric Gaba at commoms.wikipedia.irg for the blank map of France,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:France_location_map-Regions_and_departements.svg.

Thanks to this forum, http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/archive/index.php/t-100815.html, for the Population Distribution map of France [which is from 2000 and originally appeared in a document published by Columbia University (no Internet source currently)], https://www.google.com/search.

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July 24, 2013

England, 2nd division: Football League Championship – 2013-14 Location-map, with attendance data & 2013-14 home kit badges.

Filed under: 2013-14 English Football,Eng-2nd Level/Champ'ship,England & Scotland-Map/Crowds/Kit Badges — admin @ 10:29 pm

League Championship – 2013-14 Location-map, with attendance data & 2013-14 kit badges
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Note: to see my latest map-&-post of the English 2nd division, click on the following, category: Eng-2nd Level/Champ’ship.
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Football League Championship – Fixtures, Results, Table (soccerway.com).

From bbc.co.uk, from 19 June 2013, ‘Championship fixtures 2013-14: QPR start against Sheff Wed‘ (bbc.co.uk/sport/football).

From bbc.co.uk, from 31 July 2013, by Phil Maiden, ‘Championship 2013-14 season: Club-by-club guide‘ (bbc.co.uk/sport/football

From Historical Football Kits site, ‘Sky Bet Championship 2013 – 2014 [Kits of all 24 Championship clubs in the 2013-14 season]‘ (historicalkits.co.uk).

From The Two Unfortunates, from 24 July 2013, by Lanterne Rouge, ‘TTU GO PREDICTING: A CLUB-BY-CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP PREVIEW‘ (thetwounfortunates.com).

From Guardian.com/football, from 27 July 2013, by Sachin Nakrani, ‘Twenty things to look out for in the Football League this season
How will Brighton fare without Gus Poyet, can Yeovil’s incredible rise go on and can Gianfranco Zola stir up the Hornets again?‘. (guardian.co.uk/football).

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League Championship – 2013-14 Location-map, with attendance data & 2013-14 home kit badges.

Facsimiles of each clubs’ home jersey badges for the 2013-14 season are shown, in alphabetical order, across the the top of the map page. Below that, at the lower left, is a location-map of the clubs in the 2013-14 League Championship. Included on the map, this time, I have listed which historic county or metropolitan-area each club comes from. At the lower right of the map page is attendance data from the 2 previous seasons. Last season, of these 24 clubs which comprise the 13/14 Championship, Brighton & Hove Albion drew best at 26,236 per game (and with an impressive 85 percent-capacity at their excellent new two-year-old venue, the Amex at Falmer).

Meanwhile, the lowest-drawing club that is in the 2013-14 Championship is, of course, second-tier-debutantes Yeovil Town, of Yeovil, Someset (population of around 52,000 {2002 figure}). Yeovil Town drew 4,071 per game last season in League One. 72 other clubs in the Premier League or the Football League (the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th divisions) or the Conference (the 5th Level) drew higher than Yeovil Town drew last season {note: you can see each club’s 12/13 attendance-rank at the center of the attendance-data-chart on the map page]. Yeovil Town, nicknamed the Glovers, tried for years and years to get elected to the Football League back when you couldn’t play your way in (pre-1986-87). They found other ways to get their foot in, by turning into a Cup-specialist club (once beating Sunderland in the 4th Round of the FA Cup [in 1949]). 11 seasons ago, in 2002-03, Yeovil Town finally got into the League, winning the Conference National, led by a young Gary Johnson during his first spell (2001-05) as Yeovil’s manager. Then when Gary Johnson got them promoted to the 3rd tier, in 2004-05, folks were saying this little club from the West Country were punching above their weight. Now, a season after Johnson’s return and another promotion, the Glovers are REALLY punching above their weight. One usually does not see such a small club in the English second division…certainly not in the last 25 years. We haven’t seen such a small club from such a small town as Yeovil in the 2nd tier since current-4th-division-side Scunthorpe United were relegated from the Championship in 2011 (and Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire is a bit bigger – it has a population about 20,000 larger than Yeovil, at around 72,000 {2010 figure}). Before that, Crew Alexandra of Crewe, Cheshire were in the second division from 2003-04 to 2005-06 (Crew has a population of around 65,000 {2011 figure}). Before that, Bury FC of Bury, Greater Manchester were in the second division for a 2-year-spell from 1997 to ’99 (Bury has a borough population of around 60,000 {2001 figure}). Before that, Shrewsbury Town, of Shrewsbury, Shropshire were in the second division for a couple of spells, last in 1988-89 (Shrewsbury has a population of around 70,000 {2011 figure}. Before that, Carlisle United, of Carlisle, Cumbria were in the second division for a 4-season-spell from 1982 to ’86 (Carlisle has a population of around 71,000 {2001 figure}. So that is going back 30 years, and all these towns just listed above are all bigger than Yeovil. You have to go all the way back to 1982-83 (31 years ago) to find a second division club from a city smaller than Yeovil – and that is Wrexham, North Wales, home of the current-Non-League-side Wrexham FC (Wrexham, Wales has a population of around 42,000 {2001 figure}).
[sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_League_Championship ;
http://www.myfootballfacts.com/Second_Division_Tables_1946-47_to_1991-92.html; http://www.footymad.net.]

For Yeovil Town FC and their supporters this season, there will be good times in store at the 9,565-capacity Huish Park, there in south Somerset… even if the green-and-white hooped Glovers, led-by ex-Latvia and ex-Bristol City gaffer Gary Johnson, go straight back down (please don’t).

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As to the kit badge facsimiles I have assembled, one club – Bolton Wanderers – have a new design for their official crest and their kit badge. It is actually a re-working of an older design, with those silly streaming red-and-blue ribbons now gone, and a more traditional horizontal-red-ribbon-with-red-rose-of-Lancashire device added, see this, ‘The Rose returns: Bolton Wanderers’ brand new badge is real‘ (lionofviennasuite.com [SB Nation]). Another club, the just-promoted AFC Bournemouth, have re-vamped their official crest {see it here at their Wikipedias page, but have kept the old one on their 13/14 kits. With the Cherries’ new crest, gone is the ribbon-banner that contained the club’s name, and gone are the red/white vertical-stripes. With the new crest, the shield is larger and contains the club’s name, which is now at the top of the shield and in a modern gold sans-serif font; also there are now some red/black vertical-stripes (to reflect the home jersey-style of recent years). Bournemouth’s main crest element – the player’s-head-with-stylized-motion-streaked-hair-who-is-heading-a-ball – remains, but now the red in the crest is darker and very slightly more raspberry-reddish – to reflect the shade of red that the Dorset-based club has been wearing the past few years {see this, http://www.afcb.co.uk/news/article/2013-06-01-cherries-launch-championship-kits-851694.aspx}.

Not counting background color or colors, this season, the League Championship has 9 clubs which sport home kit badges that are different from their official crest – here they are…
-Barnsley: a dark-red-bordered shield device frames the distinctive crest of the Tykes of South Yorkshire.
-Blackpool: the usual color-reverse for the text elements on the outer-rim of the Seasiders’ crest.
-Derby County: like last year, the Rams sport just the minimalist-ram-in-profile, shown larger and without the framing disc or the text elements. With black collars on their traditional whites, its a great look.
-Huddersfield Town: as with the last couple of seasons, the Terriers of West Yorkshire have a shield framing their crest, plus a three-star device at the top (the stars are for the cub’s 1923, 1924, and 1925 English titles); this year the shield has a dark blue border and the stars are gold (last season both were black).
-Ipswich Town: like last year, the Tractor Boys of Suffolk, East Anglia have a white three-star device at the top of their work-horse-in-crenellated-shield crest (the stars are for the cub’s 1962 English title, their 1978 FA Cup title, and their 1981 UEFA Cup title).
-Millwall: celebrating 20 years at their Bermondsey, South London home of the New Den, the Lions have a disc encircling their rampant-lion-crest, with the words [in all-caps] ‘Twenty Years At The New Den – 1993 -2013′; plus the home jersey features a nice double-thick-pinstripe effect in white-on-navy-blue.
-Nottingham Forest: as the club did last year, atop their singular modernist-tree-on-river crest [which is a color reverse of their official crest], there are 2 white stars for Forest’s two European titles (won in 1979 & 1980 when the legendary Brian Clough was their manager).
-Watford: here is the club’s announcement on their new kits: ‘Watford’s new kits for 2013/14 will feature stylish monochrome club crests – although the official club crest will remain absolutely unchanged’. So, this season, for the Hornets of Hertfordshire, in their home kit there is no red trim (besides sponsor logo), and in the club’s head-of-Hart-of-Hertfordshire-in-a-polygon crest their home kit badge has no red – only black-and-yellow. Why? Maybe their Italian owners think the stag on their crest looks more stylish this way.
-Wigan Athletic: this is the second straight year Wigan have featured a gold-disc-outline on their Wigan-Tree-in-crown badge. The disc-outline of the Latics’ official crest is in their ‘electric blue’ color; but actually, Wigan are sporting a darker shade of light royal blue this season, and have a thinner-vertical-stripe-pattern on their nice-looking home jersey {see this from (laticsshop.net) – old school style, harking back to Wigan’s late ’70s/early ’80s-first-years-in-the-Football-League era.

The just-relegated Wigan Athletic, of Wigan, Greater Manchester, have now become the only club in the history of association football to have won the FA Cup title and to have been relegated in the same season. Manager Roberto Martinez has moved on to a bigger club nearby (Everton), and ex-St. Johnstone, ex-Burnley, and ex-Bolton manager Owen Coyle is at the helm. Maybe another new arrival, burly-but-deft-touch-striker Grant Holt, will power Wigan right back to the Premier League so they can reclaim their 4-out-of-8-seasons’-status as the lowest-drawing top-flight club (QPR were the lowest-drawing club in the Premier League last season and in 2011-12, while in 2005-6 it was Portsmouth, and in 2010-11 it was Blackpool).

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From en.wikipedia.org, ‘2013–14 Football League Championship‘ (en.wikipedia.org).
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Thanks to Football League site for 2012-13 attendance figures, football-league.co.uk//DivisionalAttendance. Thanks to European-Football-Statistics.co.uk, for the 2012-13 attendance figures of the 3 relegated teams (QPR, Reading, Wigan), european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn.htm.

Thanks to Derby County online store for the photo segment of the 2013-14 home kit, dcfcmegastore.co.uk/item/mens-replicakit-homekit_1314-home-shirt.

Thanks to garibaldired for uploading a photo of the 2013-14 Nottingham Forest home kit at forestforum.co.uk/thread [image later scrapped, see comment #1 & 2 below]. / Thanks to nottinghamforestdirect.com for the Nottingham Forest 13/14 home kit badge photo, http://nottinghamforestdirect.com/stores/forest/products/kit_selector.aspx?selectorid=302&CMP=KNC-Google2&portal=nottppc&cur=USD..

Thanks to bogdan at lufctalk.com/forums for uploading a photo of the Leeds United kit badge at lufctalk.com/forums/index.php?topic=5589.

Thanks to FootyHeadlines.com for this gallery of the new Middlesbrough kits, http://www.footyheadlines.com/2013/05/middlesbrough-13-14-2013-14-home-and.html.
Thanks to FootyHeadlines.com for the photo of the Millwall 2013-14 badge, http://www.footyheadlines.com/2013/06/millwall-13-14-2013-14-home-and-away.html

Thanks to QPR shop, http://www.shop.qpr.co.uk/gb/item/adult-pre-match-jacket-102508.

Thanks to Footballkitnews.com, for photo of Watford 2013-14 kit badge, http://www.footballkitnews.com/9112/new-watford-kit-2013-2014-puma-watford-fc-home-shirt-13-14-138-com-sponsor/.

Thanks to htafcmegastore.com at htafc.com for 2013-14 Huddersfield Town kit badge.

Comments (3)

July 13, 2013

Germany: Bundesliga, 2013-14 location-map with 2012-13 attendances / Plus – All-time German football titles chart (1903-2013) with title-winning clubs’ total seasons in Bundesliga listed / Plus a short article on the selection process for the clubs chosen for the first season of Bundesliga in 1963-64.

Filed under: Germany — admin @ 8:43 pm

Please note:
My latest Bundesliga map-&-post can be found here, category: Germany.]

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Bundesliga, 2013-14 location-map with 2012-13 attendances

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All-time German football titles chart (1903-2013) with title-winning clubs’ total seasons in Bundesliga listed.

All-time German football titles chart (1903-2013) with title-winning clubs’ total seasons in Bundesliga listed

All-time German national titles list, ‘List of German football champions‘ (en.wikipedia.org).

Selection process for the clubs which comprised the inaugural season of Bundesliga in 1963-64.

The process considered on-field accomplishment from the past 10 seasons (1954-55 through 1962-63) of the 5 Regionalliga leagues throughout West Germany (East German clubs were finally able to seek access to Bundesliga in 1991). But the selection for the first season of Bundesliga also considered financial situations of the football clubs. First off, the 1963 national champion (Dortmund) was, strangely, not guaranteed direct passage into the new league. However, the 5 winners in 1963 of the 5 regional Oberligen were, pending favorable financial reviews and stadia concerns. So directly placed into Bundesliga were – Hamburger SV (winner of Oberliga Nord in 1963), FC Köln (winner of Oberliga West in 1963), FC Kaiserslautern (winner of Oberliga Südwest in 1963), TSV 1860 Munich (winner of Oberliga Süd in 1963), and Hertha Berlin (winner of Oberliga Berlin in 1963).

An additional condition was that no city could be present with more than one club. Talk about the Teutonic tendency to engineer things! This was not fair at all, and unfairly hurt certain clubs while exempting others. When you consider that the Rhine-Ruhr region in west-central Germany is a de-facto municipality (a mega-city) of its own, one could argue that Rhine-Ruhr clubs got an unfair advantage in the selection process because they were essentially exempt from the just-one-club-from-a-city-rule – because, for example, Schalke and Dortmund (whose stadiums are only about 26 km. or 16 miles apart) are in different municipalities but were then and still are part of the same metropolitan area (Ruhr Metropolitan Region).

The just-one-club-from-a-city-rule really hurt 3 clubs in particular – FC St. Pauli, Bayern Munich and Viktoria Köln. That is because the city of Hamburg was already represented by Hamburger SV; the city of Munich was already represented by TSV 1860 Munich; and the city of Cologne was already represented by FC Köln. One of these 3 clubs rather promptly shook off that obstacle – Bayern Munich finally got into the Bundesliga in its 3rd season in 1966-67, and the rest, as they say, is history, as Bayern Munich (aka FC Hollywood) have gone on to become the most successful German football club (with 23 titles including the 2012-13 title) and are current champions of Europe as well (winning their 5th European title on 25 May 2013 in London over Bundesliga rivals Borussia Dortrmund). But the other two clubs that were snubbed by the just-one-club-from-a-city-rule for that inaugural season of Bundesliga in 1963-64 perhaps never got over that roadblock – FC St. Pauli took a decade-and-a-half to finally get into the Bundesliga (first in 1977-78), and have only spent 8 seasons total in the German top flight (last in 2010-11) and are a chronic financial basket-case; while Viktoria Köln have never made it into the Bundesliga and are currently a 4th division club (note: German divisions within the German football pyramid are listed at the lower center of the chart).

The selection process for the clubs that would comprise the first season of the Bundesliga in 1963-64 also considered financial situations of the football clubs. Furthermore, infrastructural conditions were set forth – a club had to either have a 35,000 seat stadium, or the club has to have in place feasible plans to build a stadium with at least 35,000 seats.

To select the remaining 11 spots in the first season of Bundesliga, the previous 3 seasons of the 5 Oberligen were triple-weighted (1959 to 1963 seasons), while seasons from 4 to 7 years previous were doubled-weighted, and seasons 7 to 10 years previous were single-weighted.

Of the 74 clubs within the 5 Oberligen, 46 applied for the first Bundesliga season. 15 applicants were immediately rejected, including Borussia Möenchengladbach and Bayer Leverkusen.

In January 1963 the following 9 clubs were selected – FC Köln, Borussia Dortmund, Schalke 04, Werder Bremen, Eintracht Frankfurt, FC Nürnberg, Hamburger SV, FC Saarbrücken, and Hertha Berlin. In May 1963, these 7 clubs were selected – SC Preußen Münster, Meidericher SV (now called MSV Duisburg), Eintracht Braunschweig, FC Kaiserslautern, TSV 1860 Munich, VfB Stuttgart, and Karlsruher SC. [Note: at the lower center of the chart are the clubs selected for the first season of Bundesliga, listed by which Oberligen they came from.]

FC Köln were champions of the inaugural season of Bundesliga, finishing 8 points ahead of Meidericher SV (current third division club MSV Duisburg). Relegated that first season of Bundesliga were SC Preußen Münster (who never made it back to the top flight and are currently a 3rd division club) and FC Saarbrücken (who probably should never have been selected to be a charter member of Bundesliga [see below], and have only spent 5 seasons in the Bundesliga, last in 1992-93, and are also currently a 3rd division club). Here is an excerpt from Saarbrücken’s page at en.wikipedia.org, …’Saarbrücken’s selection to the new league was arguably the most controversial as the club’s recent record was not as good as their divisional rivals Neunkirchen, FK Pirmasens and Wormatia Worms. The belief is that their advantage lay in the fact that the club had a long association with Hermann Neuberger, an extremely influential figure in German football – and a member of the selection committee’. …{end of excerpt}.

Here is the en.wikipedia page on the first Bundesliga season, with a map that shows the geographic spread of the clubs, ‘1963–64 Bundesliga‘ (en.wikipedia.org). Note how similar that first Bundesliga season’s geographic spread of clubs is to the present-day geographic spread of current Bundesliga clubs. There are 8 clubs in the 2013-14 Bundesliga that were selected for the first season of Bundesliga 51 years ago (including both of the just-promoted clubs) – Borussia Dortmund, Eintracht Braunschweig, Eintracht Frankfurt, Hamburger SV, Hertha Berlin, Schalke 04, VfB Stuttgart, and Werder Bremen.

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Base map for Bundesliga location-map from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Germany_location_map.svg; thanks to NordNordWest for drawing that map.
Thanks to Europrean Football Statistics for the 2012-13 and 2011-12 attendance figures, http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn.htm.
Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%9313_Fu%C3%9Fball-Bundesliga#Stadiums_and_locations.
Map in chart (2012-13 German clubs in top 3 leagues) by Lencer at commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fussball-Bundesliga_Mannschaften_je_Ort_in_Deutschland_2012-2013.png.
Rapid Wien icon from http://www.skrapid.at/.
Thanks to Lencer at commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fussball-Bundesliga_Mannschaften_je_Ort_in_Deutschland_2012-2013.png, for the map of 2012-13 Bundesliga/2.Bundesliga/3.Ligen clubs’ locations.

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at de.wikipedia.org and en.wikipedia.org –
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu%C3%9Fball-Bundesliga#Geschichte.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_of_the_Fu%C3%9Fball-Bundesliga#The_qualifying_process_for_the_Bundesliga.

Comments (8)

July 3, 2013

Minor League Baseball: the Appalachian League (Advanced-Rookie Classification).

Filed under: Baseball,Baseball: MiLB >Rookie — admin @ 6:28 pm

Minor League Baseball: the Appalachian League (III) (Advanced-Rookie Classification)
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Minor League Baseball attendance – ‘2012 Affiliated Attendance by League‘ (ballparkdigest.com).

There are 6 leagues within Organized Baseball which are Rookie Class leagues: the Appalachian League, the Pioneer League, the Arizona League, the Gulf Coast League, and 2 foreign-based leagues, the Dominican Summer League, and Venezuelan Summer League. But in only two of them are attendances measured. Those 2 are also classified a bit differently, as Advanced-Rookie. They are the Appalachian League and the Pioneer League.

The Advanced-Rookie classification
From the en.wikipedia.org page ‘Minor League Baseball…{excerpt}…”Leagues in the Rookie classification play a shortened season…starting in mid-June and ending in late August or early September. … Advanced Rookie leagues (Appalachian and Pioneer) play between 67 and 75 games”…/
…”The Appalachian and Pioneer leagues are actually hybrid leagues; while officially classed as “Rookie” leagues, eight major league teams have their highest-class short season teams in those leagues. These eight teams also maintain Rookie-level teams in other leagues as well. The Gulf Coast and Arizona leagues are informally known as “complex” leagues, nicknamed for the minor-league complexes where most games in those leagues are played.” …{end of excerpt}.

{Excerpt from the ‘Pioneeer League‘ page at en.wikipedia.org} …”Classified as a Rookie league, the Pioneer League [as well as the Appalachian League, are]…predominantly made up of players out of high school and [are] almost exclusively the first professional league many players compete in.”…{end of excerpt}.

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A brief history of the Appalachian League, with present-day locations of teams noted

The Appalachian League (III) is the third league which has used that name, the first being located in eastern Tennessee, far western North Carolina, and far western Virginia in the early part of the 20th century. The original Appalachian League (I) existed for 4 seasons from 1911 to 1914, and was a totally Independent league (with no teams having any Major League affiliation). The 6 teams in the first season were – Asheville (NC) Moonshiners, Bristol (VA) Boosters, Cleveland (TN) Counts, Johnson City (TN) Soldiers, Knoxville Appalachians, and Morristown (TN) Jobbers. [1911 was the first appearance of 2 locations which have present-day teams [2013] in the Appalachian League – Bristol, Virginia, with the present-day Bristol White Sox (CWS); and Johnson City, Tennessee, with the present-day Johnson City Cardinals (STL).].

The second Appalachian League (II) existed for 5 seasons from 1921 to 1925 and again was entirely comprised of Independent teams (this is probably the reason why the first and second versions of the Appalachian Leagues both failed). The 6 teams in the first season of the second version of the Appalachian League (II) in 1921 were – the Bristol State-Liners, the Cleveland Manufacturers, the Greeneville (TN) Burley Cats, the [second iteration of the] Johnson City Soldiers, the Kingsport (TN) Indians, and the Knoxvlle Pioneers. [1921 was the first appearance of 2 locations which have present-day teams [2013] in the Appalachian League – Kingsport, Tennessee, with the present-day Kingsport Mets (NYM); and Greeneville, North Carolina, with the presnt-day Greeneville Astros (HOU).].

The third version of the Appalachian League was a D-level minor league, which was the lowest level in the pre-1963/64 Organized Baseball set-up. The Appalachian League (III) started in 1937 and had 4 teams, one of which, the Elizabethton Betsy Red Sox of Elizabethton, Tennessee, had an affiliation with a Major League Baseball team, the Boston Red Sox. That was the first Appalachian League team in leagues (I), (II), or (III) to have a Major League affiliation. The 4 teams in the first season of the present-day Appalachian League in 1937 were – the Elizabethton Betsy Red Sox (BOS-AL), the [third iteration of the] Johnson City Soldiers (Independent), the Newport (TN) Canners (Independent), and the Pennington Gap (VA) Lee Bears (Independent). [1937 was the first appearance of one location which has a present-day team [2013] in the Appalachian League – Elizabethton, Tennessee, with the present-day Elizabethton Twins (MIN).].

Unlike many other minor leagues, the Appalachian League was not forced to cancel seasons during World War II, but it did play with a smaller league-size of only 4 teams. After the War in 1946, in the 10th season of the Appalachian League (III), the league expanded from 4 to 8 teams with the inclusion of teams from West Virginia (2 of them) for the first time with the Bluefield Blue-Grays (BOS-NL) (located in Virginia and West Virginia, with the ballpark, Bowen Field, sitting right on the border of the two states); and the Welch (WV) Miners (Independent). The two other new teams in 1946 were the Pulaski (VA) Counts (Independent); and the New River (VA) Rebels (Independent). By this time the majority of teams in the Appalachian League had been able to attain affiliation with a Major League ball club (affiliation with an MLB team basically increases the likelihood of the minor league team’s survival), with the exception in 1946 being 3 of the 4 aforementioned new teams. [1946 was the first appearance of 2 locations which have present-day teams [2013] in the Appalachian League – Bluefield, Virginia/West Virginia, with the present-day Bluefield Blue Jays (TOR); and Pulaski, Virginia, with the present-day Pulaski Mariners (SEA).].

The Appalachian League shrunk back to a 6-team league in 1951, and it continued as a D-level minor league up to 1955. In 1956, the league was forced to go dormant for one season due to several teams having financial problems. In 1957, the Appalachian league re-started. It continued as a D-level minor league until 1962. In 1963, as part of Major League Baseball’s re-organization of their minor leagues [which occurred in 1963 and 1964], the Appalachian League was re-classified as a Rookie League.

Here are the 6 teams in the 1963 Appalchian League (III), which was the first season the league played as a Rookie class league – the Bluefield Orioles (BAL), the Harlan (KY) Yankees (NYY), the Kingsport Pirates (PIT), the Middlesboro (KY) Cubsox (Independent), the Salem (VA) Rebels (SFG), and the Wytheville (NC) Twins (MIN).

To round the first-appearance of each present-day Appalachian League location, here are all the first appearances of 2013 teams’ locations -
1911, in Appalachian League (I): Bristol, VA and Johnson City, TN.
1924, in Appalachian League (II): Greeneville, NC and Kingsport, TN.
1937, in Appalachian League (III): Elizabethton, TN.
1946, in Appalachian League (III): Bluefield, VA/WV and Pulaski, WV.
1986, in Appalachian League (III): Burlington, NC [present-day team called the Burlington Royals (KC)].
1988, in Appalachian League (III): Princeton, WV [present-day team called the Princeton Rays (TB)].
1993, in Appalachian League (III): Danville, VA [present-day team called the Danville Braves (ATL)].

Of those 3 most recent new locations of present-day Appalachian League franchises, 2 can be seen as representative of an expansion-of-range by the Appalachian League, because two of those locations – Burlington, North Carolina and Danville, Virginia – are not really in or near the edge of the Appalachian Mountains, but are in the Piedmont region of the American Southeast {see this, ‘Piedmont (United States)‘ (en.wikipedia.org)}. You can see the difference in topographic terms, because both Danville and Burlington are the only locations in the Appalachian League that are under 650 feet elevation, while all 8 other Appalachian League teams are well above 1,000 feet elevation and a few are well above 2,000 feet elevation. Princeton, WV is the highest-elevation Appalachian League location, at around 2,438 feet (or .46 of a mile high), and Bluefield VA/WV is the second-highest-elevation Appalachian League location at around 2,389 feet [note: elevations are listed on the map page for each teams' location, right above each team's large logo within their profile boxes, as well as in the 10 illustrations at the bottom of this post.]

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In 2012, the Appalachian League averaged 914 per game. That was up 32 per game from the 882 per game that the Appalachian League averaged in 2011. Attendance for the Appalachian League is the smallest of all the 15 minor leagues, from Triple-A-level to Rookie-level, within Organized Baseball in which attendance is measured. But that is mostly a function of the fact that Appalachian League locations are among the smallest municipalities in the USA to have pro baseball teams. Several Appalachian League municipalities – 6 of them – have city or town populations under 16,000, and even the largest, Johnson City, TN, has a city population of only around 63,000 (note: metro-area populations also listed below)
Populations of Appalachian League teams’ locations -
[note: all figures from each municipalities' Wikipedia page and are from 2010, except Kingsport, TN from 2008, and Pulaski, VA from 2000.]
[Note: Johnson City, TN and Elizabethton, TN are part of the Johnson City metropolitan area, which has a population of around 193,000 {2008 figure}. Kingsport, TN and Bristol, VA are part of the Kingsport, TN/Bristol, VA/Bristol, TN metropolitan area, which has a population of around 302,000 {2008 figure}.]
-Johnson City, TN : city, 63,152 population/ metro-area, ~193,000 population {see above}.
-Kingsport, TN: city, 48,205 population/ metro-area ~302,000 population {metro-area combined with Bristol, VA}.
-Bristol, VA: city, 17,853 population/ metro-area ~302,000 population {metro-area combined with Kingsport, TN}.
-Burlington, NC: city, 49,963 population/ metro-area, ~148,000 population.
-Danville, VA: 43,055 population.
-Bluefield VA/Bluefield WV: {5,444 + 10,447} ~15,891 population.
-Greeneville, TN: 15,198 population.
-Elizabethton, TN: 14,176 population.
-Pulaski, VA: 9,473 population.
-Princeton, WV: 6,432 population.

So Princeton, West Virginia has around 6,400 inhabitants, and its pro baseball team drew 816 per game in 2012. That means 12.5 percent of the equivalent population of the community, on average, went to Princeton Rays baseball games last season. Now that is what you call community baseball.

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The 10 teams of the Appalachian League [2013], with photos of their stadiums and with notable former players listed

Appalachian League East Division

Bluefield Blue Jays, est. 1963.
Notable Bluefield/ Appalachian League alumni: Boog Powell (1959), Sparky Lyle (1964), Eddie Murray (1973), Cal Ripken, Jr. (1978), Jayson Werth (1998).

Photo credit above – littleballparks.com/Bluefield.

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Burlington Royals, est. 1986.
Notable Burlington/ Appalachian League alumni: Jim Thome (1990), Manny Ramirez (1991), Bartolo Colon (1994), C.C. Sabathia (1998).

Photo credit above – careeringcrawdad.wordpress.com//labor-day-and-the-end-of-baseball-season-2012.

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Danville Braves, est. 1993.
Notable Danville/ Appalachian League alumni: Jermain Dye (1993), Andruw Jones (1994), Rafael Furcal (1998), Jason Marquis (1998).

Photo credit above – stadiumjourney.com/stadiums/american-legion-field .

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Princeton Rays, est 1988.
Notable Princeton/ Appalachian League alumni: Carl Crawford (1999), Josh Hamilton (1999), Jonny Gomes (2001), Jeremy Hellickson (2005).

Photo credit above – littleballparks.com/Princeton.

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Pulaski Mariners, est. 1982.
Notable Pulaski/ Appalachian League alumni: Dave Justice (1985), Jason Schmidt (1992), C.J. Wilson (2005).

Photo credit above – baseballdiaries.blogspot.com/2012/01/pulaski-mariners-vs-danville-braves

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Appalachian League West Division

Bristol White Sox, est 1969.
Notable Bristol/ Appalachian League alumni: Lance Parrish (1974), Lou Whitaker (1975), Alan Trammell (1976), Carlos Lee (1995).

Photo credit above – ballparkbiz.wordpress.com/impressions-of-a-ballpark-hunter-surrealism-in-bristol

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Elizabethton Twins, est. 1974.
Notable Elizabethton/ Appalachian League alumni: Kent Hrbek (1979), Gary Gaetti (1979), Kirby Puckett (1982), Justin Mourneau (2000).

Image credit above – ‘Twins Win Championship [2012]‘, (Screenshot of video at Elizabethtoon Twins’ page at milb.com/multimedia.

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Greeneville Astros, est. 2004.

Photo credit above – ‘Attendance History‘ (milb.com/[Greeneville]).

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Johnson City Cardinals, est. 1937.
Notable Johnson City/ Appalachian League alumni: Terry Pendleton (1982), Jeff Fassero (1984), Coco Crisp (2000), Yadier Molina (2001).

Photo credit above – appalachiantreks.blogspot.com/howard-johnson-field.

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Kingsport Mets, est. 1969.
Notable Kingsport/ Appalachian League alumni: Dale Murphy (1974), Darryl Strawberry (1980), Dwight Gooden (1982), José Reyes (2000).

Photo credit above – kingsporttn.gov.

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Attendance data from milb.com, here.
Base map of USA byThesibboleth at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blank_US_Map.svg.

Photo credits on the map page –
Bluefield Blue Jays/ Bowen Field, Heath Bintliff at network.yardbarker.com/bowen_field_bluefield_wv .
Burlington Royals/ Burlington Athletic Stadium, littleballparks.com/Burlington-NC.
Danville Braves/ American Legion Field, littleballparks.com/DanvilleVA.
Princeton Rays/ H.P. Hunnicutt Field, writeopinions.com.
Pulaski Mariners/ Calfee Park, baseballdiaries.blogspot.com/2012/01/pulaski-mariners-vs-danville-braves.
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Bristol White Sox/ Devault Memorial Stadium, thesportstraveleronline.com/byrce-cox-fielddevault-memorial-stadium.
Elizabethton Twins/ Joe O’Brien Field, ballparkreviews.com/Elizabethton.
Greeneville Astros/ Pioneer Park at Tusculum College, charliesballparks.com.
Johnson City Cardinals/ Howard Johnson Field, appalachiantreks.blogspot.com/howard-johnson-field.
Kingsport Mets/ Hunter Wright Stadium, littleballparks.com/Kingsport.

Comments (6)

June 27, 2013

Minor League Baseball: the Florida State League (Class A-Advanced).

Filed under: Baseball,Baseball: MiLB Class A — admin @ 7:58 pm

Minor League Baseball: the Florida State League (Class A-Advanced)
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2012 Minor League Baseball attendance – ‘2012 Affiliated Attendance by League‘ (ballparkdigest.com).

The Florida State League was founded in 1919 and has played seasons from 1919 to 1928; from 1936 to 1941; and currently, every year since 1946.

The 12-team Florida State League is one of 3 Advanced-A level minor leagues within Organized Baseball, the other Advanced-A leagues being the 10-team California League and the 8-team Carolina League.

The Florida State League draws very poorly. And, you know, Florida is a pretty populous state – Florida is the 4th-most populous state in the USA, with around 19.3 million people {2012 figure}. Yet only 2 teams currently in the Florida State League are drawing above 2,000 per game. In 2012, the Florida State League averaged 1,592 per game. Compare that to the other 4 leagues in the Class A or Advanced-A levels, which are the Class-A Midwest League (which drew 3,730 per game in 2012), the Advanced-A Carolina League (which drew 3,520 per game in 2012), the Class-A South Atlantic League (which drew 3,279 per game in 2012), and the Advanced-A California League (which drew 2,293 per game in 2012).

In fact, not only does the Florida State League draw considerably worse than the 3 Class-A leagues one tier below them (see previous sentence), but the Florida State League also draws considerably worse than both leagues which are 2 tiers below them – in the two Short Season-A leagues – the New York-Penn League (which drew 3,290 per game in 2012) and the Northwest League (which drew 2,979 per game in 2012). The Florida State League even draws worse than one league 3 tiers below them at the lowest rung of the Major League/minor-league ladder, in one of the Rookie Leagues – the Pioneer League (which is located in some pretty small towns in the Rocky Mountain states of the West, and which averaged 2,317 per game in 2012).

Florida does have a couple of very good drawing minor league baseball teams – in the north of the state, where people speak with a southern accent. While the Florida State League, which is located in central and south Florida, draws very low crowds, two Florida-based minor league teams from the north of the state draw well. Granted, they are placed one minor-league-level higher, in Double-A ball. Both are in the Southern League (a Class AA league) – the Jacksonville Suns, from Jacksonville in furthest north-east Florida; and the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, from Pensacola in furthest north-west Florida. The Jacksonville Suns are the oldest continuous member of the Southern League (43 straight seasons now; see this small write-up of the J-ville Suns within my post on the Southern League from 2 years ago, here/ Jacksonville Suns section is at the very end of the post}; the Pensacola Blue Wahoos are a new team that moved to the Florida panhandle in 2012, leaving North Carolina [they were first incarnation of the Carolina Mudcats (I)] {see this illustration explaining Pensacola, FL/ Zebulon, NC/ Kinston, NC MiLB franchise shifts of 2012, which I posted last year in my post on the Carolina League, here}. These two teams were first and second best in attendance in the Southern League in 2012, with Pensacola drawing 4,826 in their first year in 2012, and Jacksonville drawing 4,309 in 2012. Those two average attendances are more than twice as high as what most Florida State League teams draw.

Why does the Florida State League draw so poorly? Because, generally, people in central and south Florida don’t really like baseball. Try to convince them that going to a minor league baseball game is a fun and very inexpensive summertime activity, and you’ll just get vacant stares. Many central and south Floridians probably find baseball to be too slow and relaxed and nuanced. Look at how bad both MLB teams in Florida draw, regardless of how well they both do. The Tampa Bay Rays are, these days, year-in-year out, a competitive ball club, and they won the 2008 AL pennant, while the Marlins have won 2 MLB World Series titles (in 1997 and 2003). But they both draw terrible. OK, we’ll give Rays fans, or lack thereof, the benefit of the doubt, because their dreary fixed-dome stadium is located on the wrong side of the bay in Tampa/St. Petersburg and is hands down the worst venue in MLB. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays/ Rays have been perennially among the lowest-four-or-five-drawing MLB teams each year; ditto the Marlins until 2012, and their new stadium/fiasco. Here are the recent years when both Tampa Bay and Florida/Miami were among the 5 worst-drawing MLB teams: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2011, and currently (June 27th/ after 38 to 40 home games) in 2013 {attendances from ESPN, here}. Now, after the Marlins’ cynical off-season fire-sale, no one in Miami wants to go to the instant White Elephant that is the Marlins’ new ballpark. The Miami Marlins have become the benchmark for dysfunctional-fan-base-with-owner-from-hell. So that’s the state of big league baseball fan-bases in central and south Florida. When you factor into the equation lower level minor league baseball – well, forget about it.

The Florida State League is a waste of space.

‘Independent league baseball’ (en.wikipedia.org).
2012 attendances for all Independent-league teams in North Americ (ie, all un-affiliated teams): ‘2012 Independent Attendance by Average (ballparkdigest.com).

The Florida State League is a waste of space, and its franchises should be placed in other parts of North America where folks actually support lower-level minor league baseball. In 2011, 19 Independent league teams drew over 3,000 per game. In 2012, 20 Independent league teams drew over 3,000 per game. When you look at the very impressive attendance figures {see link directly above}, for more than a dozen-and-a-half Independent minor league baseball teams within the four primary Independent leagues (the Atlantic League, the American Association [of Independent Professional Baseball], the Frontier League, and the Can-Am League), you realize that Organized Baseball is doing many thousands of baseball fans a real disservice by ignoring them and not bringing into the fold the ball clubs these folks support. The sad truth is, the Florida State League has about ten teams that are being wasted on an uncaring populace, when their coveted status as affiliated minor league baseball teams could be better put to use with a supportive populace in say, Greater Houston, Texas, where the new Independent league team the Sugar Land Skeeters of the Atlantic League drew 6.6 K in their first season in 2012. Or in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, where the Independent league team the Winnipeg Goldeyes of the AA (American Association of Independent Professional Baseball) drew 5.7 K in 2012. Or in Central Islip, New York, where the Independent league team the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League drew 5.5 K in 2012. Or in Kansas City, Kansas, where the Independent league team the Kansas City T-Bones of the AA drew 5.2 K in 2012. Or in St. Paul, Minnesota, where the Independent league team the the St. Paul Saints of the AA have thrived for two decades now and who drew 4.9 K in 2012. Or in Lancaster, Pennsylvania or in York, Pennsylvania, where two Independent league teams in the Atlantic League draw well – the Lancaster Barnstormers drew 4.6 K in 2012; and the York Revolution, drew 4.0 K in 2012.

I could go, and also mention other successfully-drawing Independent league ball clubs in Fargo, North Dakota; and in Laredo, Texas; and in El Paso, Texas; and in Somerset, New Jersey; and in Camden, New Jersey; and in Traverse City, Michigan…but I’m sure you get my point. And if you think all these success-stories are spread too far apart to make an economically feasible theoretical-new-affiliated-minor-league, I would submit that the Atlantic League has already proven that a slightly truncated version of the geographical spread of all the locations I just mentioned is feasible, because the Atlantic League has ball clubs spread from the Gulf Coast of Texas to Long Island, New York. And 7 teams in the Atlantic League and more than a dozen other Independent league teams in the other Independent leagues are outdrawing scores of affiliated minor league teams who have the economic-protection of a Major League Baseball affiliation, but still can’t draw decent crowds – because they are stuck in locations where people refuse to support lower level minor league baseball.

The MLB/Organized Baseball rules prevent many of these Independent league teams from being affiliated teams because of their proximity to teams in Organized Baseball – like in the cases of Lancaster, Pennsylvania and York, Pennsylvania – where MLB/MiLB protects the territory of the Reading Phils and the Harrisburg Senators (regardless, they all draw well). But meanwhile, it is OK with Major League Baseball that two MiLB teams play in the 5-borough-New-York-City jurisdiction despite the 2 MLB teams there (NY Yankees and NY Mets), but then the territorial-protection rules in place decree that there is not allowed to be any affiliated team in all of Long Island, NY (ie, Nassau and Suffolk counties). Talk about artificially protecting the NY Mets from any sort of competition. Hence the very-well-drawing Independent team the Long Island Ducks. What I am trying to say is that MLB /MiLB rules for protecting certain teams’ territories is pretty arbitrary, and could be better worked out. Why not exploit market forces? People want affordable lower-level minor league baseball in certain parts of the country, and the success of “outlaw” league teams playing within some of the more densely populated areas of the country proves this.

However, for one simple reason (see next paragraph), all those populations in more-baseball-supportive parts of the country will probably never be getting affiliated minor league teams, even if the territory-rules were relaxed. This problem of horrible attendance in the Florida State League while other areas of the country must settle for Independent league teams looks like it is institutionally guaranteed to never go away.

Basically, the Florida State League would have been defunct several decades ago – like defunct by the late 1960s or the early 1970s – and would not still exist if it weren’t for one fact. And that fact is that so many Major League Baseball teams – 15 MLB teams – have their spring training facilities in the state of Florida. [There are 15 MLB teams who have spring training in Florida and 15 MLB teams that have spring training in Arizona {see this, 'List of Major League Baseball spring training ballparks' (en.wikipedia.org}.]

First of all, as mentioned, none of the teams in the Florida State League draw above 2,600 per game, and 10 of the 12 teams draw below 2,000 per game, and over half of them can barely even get 1.5 K per game. So there is no real market-driven demand for the product there in central and south Florida. Most franchises in the Florida State League would not be financially viable without the affiliation and support of Major League Baseball clubs. And MLB clubs would not want lower-level minor league teams of theirs to be located in places where there is so little actual demand for the product – except for the fact that there are venues there already in place. All eleven of the ballparks in the Florida State League exist solely because the ballparks are part of Major League Baseball teams’ spring training facilities. Those ballparks were all built by municipalities to attract MLB teams for spring training. Of the 11 stadiums where Florida State League teams currently play in 2013, one was built by a city’s Sports Authority (Tampa’s George M. Steinbrenner Field); 6 were built by a city’s municipal government (the ballparks in Bradenton, in Clearwater, in Daytona Beach, in Dunedin, in Fort Myers, and in Lakeland); and 4 were built by a county government there in Florida (the ballparks in Brevard county, in Charlotte county, in Palm Beach county, and in St. Lucie county). None of the ballparks in the Florida State League were built to attract a minor league baseball team. They were all built to attract a Major League Baseball teams’ very lucrative spring training custom.

[Note: the reason why the number of venues in the Florida State League is 11 and not 12 is because the Miami Marlins and the St. Louis Cardinals share a facility in Jupiter, FL (17 mi. north of Palm Beach, FL), and so do 2 Florida State League teams - the Jupiter Hammerheads (MIA) and the Palm Beach Cardinals (STL).]

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The Clearwater Threshers drew 2,570 per game in 2012. The Clearwater Threshers are an affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Photo credits above -
fansedge.com/Clearwater-Threshers-Home-Cap.
mopupduty.com/dunedin-day-2-part-2-bright-house-field/.

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The Daytona Cubs drew 2,346 per game in 2012. The Daytona Cubs are an affiliate of the Chicago Cubs.

Photo credits above -
shop.neweracap.com/MiLB/Daytona-Cubs.
baseballpilgrimages.com.
bing.com/maps.

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Photo credits on the map page -
Brevard County Manatees/ Space Coast Stadium, thpoe.wordpress.com.
Clearwater Threshers/ Bright House Field, digitalballparks.com/SpringTraining/Brighthouse4.html; http://www.digitalballparks.com/.
Daytona Cubs/ Jackie Robinson Ballpark, ballparkreviews.com.
Dunedin Blue Jays/ Florida Auto Exchange Stadium, bing.com/maps.
Lakeland Tigers/ Joker Marchant Stadium, milb.com.
Tampa Yankees/ George M. Steinbrenner Field, bing.com/maps.
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Bradenton Marauders/ McKechnie Field, baseballpilgrimages.com via oldbucs.blogspot.com.
Charlotte Stone Crabs/ Charlotte Sports Park, abaesel at flickr.com.
Fort Myers Miracle/ Hammond Stadium, Harry Hunt at flickr.com.bing.com/maps.
Jupiter Hammerheads/ Roger Dean Stadium, milb.com.
Palm Beach Cardinals/ Roger Dean Stadium, charliesballparks.com.
St. Lucie Mets/ Mets Stadium, facebook.com.

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Thanks to Theshibboleth at en.wikipedia.org, for the USA blank map, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blank_US_Map.svg.
Thanks to Eric Gaba (Sting – fr:Sting) at en.wikimedia.org, for the Florida location map, ‘File:USA Florida location map.svg‘.
Thanks to milb.com for attendances, http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=milb&t=l_att&lid=123.
Thanks to the following site for some population figures, http://recenter.tamu.edu/data/pop/popm/cbsa15980.asp.
Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘Florida State League‘.

Thanks to the always excellent minor league attendance posts at http://ballparkdigest.com/.

Comments (2)

June 14, 2013

Japan: 2013 J. League location-map, with 2012 attendance data & all-time J. League titles list. / Plus a short article on the history of the promotion/relegation format in Japanese association football. / Plus, Japan national football team: 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifying (Asian Football Confederation) – their coach and their top players in their successful 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign.

Filed under: Japan — admin @ 9:14 pm

Japan: 2013 J-League location-map,with 2012 attendance data & J.League titles list
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The J.League

J.1 (J. League Division 1) – fixtures, results, tables soccerway.com).

J.League official site – j-league.or.jp/eng.

‘2013 J. League Division 1‘ (en.wikipedia.org).

The J.League season runs from March to December. There are 18 teams in the league, making for a 34-game season. 3 clubs are relegated to J.2 each season and 3 clubs from J.2 are promoted to the first division at the end of each season. 2013 is the 18th season of the competition. Reigning champions are Sanfrecce Hiroshima, a venerable old club who finally won their first pro title in 2012. The most successful team is the Ibaraki prefecture-based Kashima Antlers, who have won 7 titles, last in 2009, and who are from the far eastern edge of Greater Metropolitan Tokyo, on the Pacific coast.

Elements of the map page

At the far left is the 2013 J.League location-map, which includes 9 teams from the Greater Tokyo area. The 9 teams from the Greater Tokyo area (with home Prefactures listed) are shown in an inset map at the center of the map page.

At the upper-center of the map page is the all-time titles list for J.League (17 seasons/1993-2012). All-time Japanese title list (amateur and pro titles) can be seen at the following link – ‘List of Japanese football champions [amateur champions of Japan, 1965-1992/pro champions of Japan since 1993]‘ (en.wikipedia.org).

At the right-hand side of the map page is the 2012 attendance data for teams in the 2013 J.League, in chart form. 5 attendance data details are featured (going from left to right on the chart)…
-2011 average attendance;
-2012 average attendance;
-Percentage change from 2011 to 2012;
-Venue [stadium(s)] Capacity [Note: many J.League teams also play some home matches at a nearby larger municipal stadium - for teams that use 2 venues, both venue capacities are listed];
-Percent-Capacity or percent-capacities for 2012 home matches [Percent-Capacity equals Average attendance divided by Venue Capacity].

At the very bottom of the attendance data chart is the key for league movements, with:
-green arrow for promoted clubs (to J.1) for 2013 (Ventforet Kofu, Oita Trinita, and Shonan Bellmare);
-red arrow for relegated clubs (to J.2) for 2013 (Consadole Sapporo, Vissel Kobe, and Gamba Osaka);
-green asterisk for current J.1 teams which were promoted up 2 seasons ago (FC Tokyo and Sagan Tosu);
-red asterisk & green arrow for yo-yo clubs on the rebound back to J.1 for 2013 (Ventforet Kofu);
-green asterisk & red arrow for yo-yo clubs going back down to J.2 again for 2013 (Consadole Sapporo).

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The history of the promotion/relegation format in Japanese association football

Japan Soccer League (1965-92) [amateur].
Prior to the J.League, there was the Japan Soccer League (JSL), established in 1965 as the second national sports league in Japan (following baseball, in 1936). The JSL was full of company teams, many of whom have morphed into J.League football clubs, such as Urawa Red Diamonds [formerly Mitsubishi Motors' company team], Kashiwa Reysol [formerly Hitachi electronics company team] and Sanfrecce Hiroshima [formerly Toyo Industries (Mazda) company team]. The JSL remained amateur for its entire 28-year existence (1965 to 1992).

Prior to the JSL, the major-league sports model in Japan was based exactly on the American franchise sports model – with no relegation or promotion, and with franchise shifts allowed, and with the periodic inception of new expansion franchises. Specifically, Nippon Professional Baseball (Japanese major league baseball), and their complete emulation of Major League Baseball (which has 29 American teams and 1 Canadian team, all of whom have affiliations with minor league teams which are in fixed leagues that do not have promotion/relegation… just like the 16 teams in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball).

But when it came to another sport (association football), with a decidedly different but very well-established and proven professional system, Japan sensibly ended up (twice) doing what around 98 percent of the rest of the world has ended up doing (the most prominent exceptions being Major League Soccer based in USA/Canada; and in the A-League based in Australia/New Zealand). Japan has followed the British association football promotion/relegation model, which has been in place in English football since the late Nineteenth century {since 1888-89, see this ‘Promotion and relegation‘ (en.wikipedia.org)}.

In 1972, the [amateur] Japan Soccer League instituted promotion/relegation. And that format remained for the final 21 seasons of the amateur top-flight set-up in Japan (from 1971 to 1992). At the same time (1972) a national second division of Japanese association football was instituted – the Japan Soccer League Second Division. Among the founding 10 teams, 5 later on made in into the J.League: Toyota Motors (inaugural champion/ present-day J.League team Nagoya Grampus Eight), Yomiuri FC (present-day J.2 team Tokyo Verdy), Fujitsu (present-day J.League team Kawasaki Frontale), Kyoto Shiko Club (present-day J.2 team Kyoto Sanga), and Kofu Club (present-day j.League team Ventforet Kofu).

J.League, the first pro league of association football in Japan. Establishd 1993.
The J.League was established in 1993, as the first nation-wide professional league for association football in Japan. The people running the J.League in its early days (circa 1992 to ’97) tried to make it a closed shop (with no relegation, and with expansion clubs coming up only sporadically as de-facto promoted clubs [via the now-defunt Japan Football League (1992–98)]. But there was no corresponding relegation, so mediocre-to-outright-poor-teams were safe, and complacency set in.

By the mid-1990s, after the initial excitement about the new pro league faded, attendances eventually ended up plummeting – a 44% decline, from 17,975 per game in the first J.League season in 1993, to only 10,130 per game four years later in 1997. So the folks who ran the league then saw the light, and they instituted promotion/relegation. In 1999, the first professional Japanese second division was established – J.League Division 2 (aka J.2). Just prior to that, a promotion/relegation system was instituted, and some of the 1998 J.League teams ended up being relegated into the newly-formed pro Japanese second division in 1999.

Japan’s professional association football league format has included promotion/relegation for over 15 years now. (1998 season to 2013). Attendance was up 11.1% last season (2012), at an average of 17,565 per game {see this, ‘J.League 2012 – Attendance -’ (worldfootball.net)}. 4 football clubs in Japan averaged over 20,000 per game in 2012: Urawa Red Diamonds (of the northern suburbs of Greater Tokyo in Saitama prefecture), Albirex Niigata (from the west coast/Sea of Japan city of Niigata), the recently-promoted club FC Tokyo (of Tokyo Metropolis prefecture), and Yokohoma F. Marinos (of Yokohoma/Greater Tokyo).

In the 15 seasons since promotion/relegation has been established in Japanese pro football, exactly zero Japanese football clubs who have suffered relegation have gone out of business. That is 34 relegations, with 20 different clubs having been relegated from the Japanese first division since 1998 {see this, ‘J.League Division 1/Relegation history‘ (en.wikipedia.org)}. As a matter of fact, the reigning champions of Japan, the first-time J.League winners Sanfrecce Hiroshima (from the western region of the main island of Honshu), were recently relegated – in 2007. Sanfrecce Hiroshima then were promoted back to the top flight the following season. Then Sanfrecce Hiroshima won the J.League title 6 years after being relegated.

For 3 straight seasons, now, a club that had never won the J.League title has been champion. For 2 straight seasons, now, a club that had recently been relegated has been champion. And one of those clubs was not a founding member of J.League. 2010 J.League winners were the central Japan-based Nagoya Grampus Eight [Arsene Wenger's old club]. 2011 winners were the Chiba/east-side-of-Greater-Tokyo-based club Kashiwa Reysol. [Kashiwa Reysol are from Kashiwa, Chiba prefecture, around 33 km. or 20 miles east of central Tokyo, in the same prefecture as the NPB ball club the Chiba Lotte Marines.]

Kashiwa Reysol, established in 1940 as Hitachi, Ltd. Soccer Club in Kodaira, Tokyo, were a successful club throughout the amateur era but ended up waiting a bit longer than many other Japanese footballl clubs to turn pro (circa the early 1990s), and were thus left out of the initial line-up of clubs that made up the inaugural season of J.League in 1993. So they had to play their way into the league, which they first did in 1994, back when the J.League was expanding, but had not yet arrived at the decision to become a 2-tier pro set-up with promotion/relegation.

Kashiwa Reysol has also recently suffered the set-back of being relegated – twice – in 2005, then again in 2009. Kashiwa Reysol then became the first Japanese team to ever win back-to-back titles in J.2 (in 2010) then in J.League (in 2011, winning the crown by 1 point over reigning champions Nagoya Garampus Eight, and 2 points ahead of Gamba Osaka).

So in 2011, Kashiwa Reysol became the first team to earn promotion from J.2 to J.1, and then win the J.League title in the following season – joining that unique group of clubs which have won the national title the season after getting promoted to the first division (clubs such as Ipswich Town in 1962, Nottingham Forest in 1978, and FC Kaiserslautern in 1998). Granted, with the current state of finances of top flight football in England and Germany (and elsewhere), it is unlikely (without a wage cap) that we will see another incidence of a just-promoted club winning the title the following year in the Premier League, or in the Bundesliga. But, nevertheless, the possibility is still there. And regardless, the format of promotion/relegation is constantly injecting new life into the top flight – witness the captivating rise and success of Swansea City. You will never see a story like Swansea City occur in Major League Soccer, because there is no way on Earth that MLS would grant a franchise to a city as small as Swansea (which has a population of only 239,000 {2011 figure}). Major League Soccer is a league that refuses to implement a promotion/relegation system, because they are afraid that their franchises couldn’t survive a year in a theoretical second division. So all the fans of association football that are from mid-sized American cities know they will never have the chance to see their hometown soccer team ever make it to the top flight, unlike in England, and in France, and in Germany, and in Spain, and in Italy, and in Mexico, and in Brazil, and in Argentina, and in Japan. Because MLS is full of soccer franchises, instead of football clubs.

Japan’s J.League proves that a nation that once used only the franchise model for a national sports league can successfully implement the promotion/relegation model. And create more fan excitement, and increase attendance.

Here is an excerpt from this article from footiebusiness.com, from Nov. 20, 2012, by Ben Berger, ‘What American Soccer Can Learn from Japan‘, …{excerpt}…’ the J. League decided to create a lower “J2” league in 1999 to go along with the top league, now called “J1”. With this, they also instituted promotion and relegation. One result? Better marketing opportunities for the sport, with fans’ passion being upped a notch, and relegation battles being contested and publicized as much as championships. Take the example of Kashiwa Reysol…which was relegated from J1 in the 2009 season yet was promoted back the next year. Incredibly, Kashiwa won the J1 championship in 2011. That’s what dreams are made of – the key reason people follow sports. Nothing like it exists in North American sport.’ …{end of excerpt’}.

2011 J.League champions – Kashiwa Reysol.

Photo and Image credits above -
Screenshot of a youtube.com video uploaded by jleague, ‘Kashiwa Reysol Vs Vegalta Sendai: J- League 2012 (Round 6)‘.

Kashiwa Reysol averaged a modest 13,768 last season, but boasted the second-best percent-capacity rate in J.League in 2012, at 77%-capacity at their smart and compact and running-track-free/4-separate-stands/15,900-capacity Hitachi Kashiwa Soccer Stadium. That percent-capacity figure was second only to north-Honshu Island-based Vegalta Sendai at 84 %-capacity in 2012 {see attendance chart on map above for full figures, which I got here (int.soccerway.com/japan}.

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In 2012, Sanfrecce Hiroshima, a club that has been relegated twice in the last 11 seasons (in 2002 and in 2007), won the J.League title. That the last two teams to win the title in Japan had both been recently been relegated shows the beauty of promotion and relegation. And in the 15 years since J.League adopted the promotion/relegation model, attendance has rebounded dramatically, rising over 7,000 per game, from that aforementioned low of 10,130 per game in 1997, to the 17,565 per game the J.League drew last year.

2012 J.League champions – Sanfrecce Hiroshima. Sanfrecce Hiroshima averaged 6th-best in J.League in 2012, at 17,720 per game (up 34.2% from 2011).

Photo and Image credits above -
nipponnews.net/en/sports/hiroshima-sanfrecce-crowned-j-league-2012-champions

{Note: for some attendance data above, see this Japanese football site goal2002.com.

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Japan national football team: 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifying (Asian Football Confederation) – coach & top players in the current roster

Japan are the first team to qualify for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.
Japan has now qualified for 5 consecutive FIFA World Cups.

From Guardian.co.uk/football, from 4 June 2013, ‘Australia concede late equaliser to Japan in World Cup qualifier
• Japan 1-1 Australia
• Samurai Blue qualify for the World Cup‘ (guardian.co.uk).

Photo and Image credits above -
‘Japan national football team‘ (en.wikipedia.org).
Yoshida at japantimes.co.jp.
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Shinji Kagawa

Keisuke Honda

Shinji Okazaki

Photo and Image credits above -
‘Japan national football team‘ (en.wikipedia.org).
Koji Sasahara/AFP at foxsports.com.au/talents-like-shinji-kagawa-lead-regeneration-of-japanese-football-as-australia-struggle-to-meet-demands.
Shaun Botterill/Getty Images Europe via zimbio.com.
AP via japantimes.co.jp.
Unattributed at talksport.co.uk.
vfb.de.
shikoku-np.co.jp/sports/soccer.

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Eiji Kawashima

Maya Yoshida

Makoto Hasebe

Photo and Image credits above -
‘Japan national football team‘ (en.wikipedia.org).
mimizun.com/log.
Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images Europe via zimbio.com.
Sky Sports via blog.livedoor.jp
yomiuri.co.jp via tumblr.com/tagged/maya yoshida.
Tsutomu Kishimoto/Picsport at photo.news.livedoor.com.
Boris Streubel/Bongarts/Getty Images) via Picasaweb at 123people.de/s/makoto+hasebe.

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Thanks to Maximilian Dörrbecker at de.wikipedia.org for the blank map of Japan, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Japan_location_map_with_side_map_of_the_Ryukyu_Islands.svg.
Thanks to worldfootball.net for J.League attendances, http://www.worldfootball.net/zuschauer/jpn-j-league-2012/1/.
Thanks to Goal2002.com for J.league Divisions 1 and 2 attendance data, http://www.goal2002.com/2012/tables.html ; 2011 j.League attendance data, http://www.goal2002.com/2011/tables.html.
Thanks to soccerway.com for J.League stadium capacities and percent-capacities, http://int.soccerway.com/national/japan/j1-league/2012/regular-season/r17068/.
Thanks to this section at the official J.League site, for stadia info, http://www.j-league.or.jp/stadium/ [J.League stadium guide].

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