Sullivan rues armchair fans

Sullivan wants bigger gates at St Andrews

By Lewis Rutledge   Last updated: 20th August 2007

Steve Bruce Birmingham manager Blues

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David Sullivan has claimed that most Birmingham supporters are 'armchair fans' who only come to St Andrews for the biggest games.

24,898 fans attended Birmingham's first Premier League game of the season against Sunderland and the figure only increased slightly to 24,981 for the visit of West Ham at the weekend.

St Andrews has a capacity of 30,000 and co-owner Sullivan wants to see more fans come along to support Blues in what he expects to be a difficult season.

He explained: "This is our first year back in the Premier League and we must realise it is going to be a tough one. We are competing with many clubs who are bigger in terms of capacity and season ticket holders.

"We all know that we have one of the biggest fan bases in the country and, if these fans turn out and support us every week, we would need a 60,000 capacity stadium.

"However the reality is that most of our supporters are armchair fans unless it is a big game.

"Evidence of this was the Auto Windscreen Shield final a few years back when we took the largest following that any club had taken to the old Wembley since the Second World War (around 48,000)."

There are 13,700 Birmingham fans with season tickets for the current campaign but Sullivan is aware that many Championship clubs attract bigger attendances.

"Many clubs in the Championship get bigger gates than us and the other promoted clubs, Sunderland and Derby, have 32,000 and 28,000 season ticket holders respectively," he said.

"Our season ticket prices and match day admission prices are the second lowest in the division."

Takeover talk

Carson Yeung has bought a 29.9 per cent stake in the club and is understood to want to take control in the next couple of months.

But Sullivan insists he and chairman David Gold will only relinquish power if they feel someone can take the club forward.

"I know some people are concerned about what is going on with the club's shareholding and I want to assure them there have been no changes," he said.

"The club is being run by the people who have done a great job for the past

14-15 years and therefore the club is in good hands.

"We welcome the investment of Carson Yeung's company Grandtop.

"David Gold and I will only cease to be majority shareholders if we think someone can do a better job of running Birmingham City than we have."