JonB, on 18 October 2013 - 10:02 AM, said:
Hence why after the top two divisions i think Italian Football is regionalised. Same in France where they have three divisions that are national then two levels where they have numerous regional divisions. That said going to away games is not really as much of a big thing in some of the countries....we went to Nice v Toulouse, a trip of about 340 miles for the away team, the other year whilst down there and there were 21 away fans and that was including what appeared to be the wife and two kids of one bloke and they at no point watched the game!!
I've mentioned it before but when fairly regularly watching Lokomotiv Chita in the Russian second tier (used to live near their ground) the home attendance of 4000ish would occasionally be joined by a few away fans who had flown in or spent days on the train to get there (nearest city was 13 hours by train). At the time the second tier was national so teams could come from Moscow or St Petersburg, over 6000km away. Even a single away fan would mean a cordon of soldiers keeping the peace.
They were then relegated over 'financial irregularities' to the regionalised third tier, which still contained teams from 2500km plus away. All the locals thought the relegation was political as teams from western Russia resented the expense of travelling to eastern Siberia. I was at the local derby v Blagoveschensk, the nearest club- 1200km away- who brought one fan, who unfurled a huge flag behind his military cordon. His team played dismally and lost 1-0, putting into perspective the times it had happened to me as an away fan under Johnny D.
This post has been edited by Siberian Spireite: 22 October 2013 - 09:48 AM
These go to eleven.