Supporters
The Sydney Roosters have a strong support base across Australia. Aside from its traditional fan base in Sydney, which is most concentrated in its homeland in the affluent eastern suburbs, the club is also popular in South East Queensland, Canberra and Newcastle. The club has an internet message board for supporters, "The Wall", which has been the official forum since 1999. The club has announced that "The Wall" will be closing as of late January 2012. "The Chookpen" is an unofficial site.
In 2004, the club tallied the second-highest home attendance of all National Rugby League clubs (behind the Brisbane Broncos) with an average of 18,514 spectators at the Sydney Football Stadium. However, a drop in attendances by 25.2% from 2005 to 2006 (when the Roosters finished second last) prompted the Australian Associated Press to state that "crowd figures suggest many Sydney Roosters fans have been fair-weather friends".
At the club's home ground, the Sydney Football Stadium, the supporters congregate in distinct sections. The "Chook Pen", a designated area in Bay 35, is the preferred location for the most animated fans. Members of the Sydney Cricket and Sports Ground Trust are seated in the Members' Stand on the western side of the ground, and season ticket holders are located just beneath the Members' area, in Bays 12–14.
In 2008, the Roosters had nearly 5,000 paying members, in addition to the 35,257 members of the Roosters' Leagues Club, which is the major benefactor of the football club.
In 2010 the Roosters enjoyed their most successful on field season since 2004 making the Grand Final against St. George Illawarra. On the back of this success the club's paying members balloned to over 10,000 in 2011, the most in the history of the club.
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Famous quotes containing the word supporters:
“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“The hydra of corruption is only scotched, not dead. An investigation kills and it and its supporters dead. Let this be had.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)