{"id":994,"date":"2026-03-17T06:33:46","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T06:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/?p=994"},"modified":"2026-03-17T06:33:46","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T06:33:46","slug":"london-city-lionesses-once-played-in-front-of-400-fans-can-they-build-a-fanbase-to-rival-arsenals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/?p=994","title":{"rendered":"London City Lionesses once played in front of 400 fans. Can they build a fanbase to rival Arsenal\u2019s?"},"content":{"rendered":"


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For these fans from the Arsenal Women Supporters Club (AWSC), the match day begins in the pub. That this is noteworthy, in a country whose football traditions are as rich, is, in itself, notable: an indication of changing matchday habits in women\u2019s football post-2022 European Championship victory.<\/p>\n

AWSC committee member Sam Hanlon, who has attended men\u2019s matches for more than a decade with his family but went to his first Arsenal Women game on his own, organised Sunday\u2019s meet-up. \u201cThe easiest meeting point is a pub, but we want to avoid (the feeling that) you\u2019re here to have a drink; the socialising is the key aspect,\u201d he says. \u201cA pub can feel quite hostile. Most men\u2019s football games are almost all men, but we\u2019re closer to 50\/50.\u00a0It\u2019s a way to grow the community around matches. For women\u2019s (games), if I didn\u2019t make an attempt to find friends, it was going to be a solo experience. That might have stopped me going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arsenal Women are the game\u2019s foremost case study in growing a returning fanbase \u2014 they averaged crowds of 36,836 last season and now play all their Women\u2019s Super League games at the Emirates \u2014 and emboldening it to build its own customs, some inspired by men\u2019s football but many servicing a different audience. Equally vital is a core fanbase due to their past successes in the women\u2019s game, tailored marketing, big-name Lionesses and a men\u2019s team for whom rivalries with clubs like Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United helped the women\u2019s team sell out successive home games against those sides.<\/p>\n

All of which brings us to Arsenal\u2019s opponents on Sunday, the London City Lionesses, and the questions accompanying their arrival in the WSL.<\/p>\n

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\n Arsenal plays all of their WSL home matches at Emirates Stadium. (Richard Heathcote \/ Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

London City\u2019s identity is complex. Born of Millwall Lionesses, based in Bromley \u2014 a town at once in Kent and London \u2014 and the only WSL team fully independent of a men\u2019s club, they are also the youngest club in the WSL. They are the division\u2019s underdogs as new kids on the block but also its big disruptors, part of businesswoman Michele Kang\u2019s multi-club portfolio. Their sights are set on league and Champions League wins.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always say, unless you\u2019re six years old, you\u2019re not a lifelong London City fan,\u201d Sarah Batters, London City managing director, tells The Athletic.<\/em> \u201cWe had to build a fanbase from scratch, and that is a challenge you don\u2019t often find in football. It\u2019s both a challenge and a gift.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is a challenge because there is no existing supporter base to advertise to. In Batters\u2019 first season, 90 per cent of London City tickets were complimentary. The team previously played in Dartford to an average of 400 fans and had a one-person marketing department. Last season, in WSL 2, City averaged 1,800 through the gates and 3,000 this season. Sunday\u2019s game was a sell-out, a London City record crowd of 5,440.<\/p>\n

Aptly, Arsenal\u2019s data suggests that the relationship between a men\u2019s and women\u2019s team isn\u2019t as crucial as one might expect: in the 2023-24 season, 61 per cent of women\u2019s game spectators had never been to the Emirates and only 25 per cent to a men\u2019s Arsenal game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere it\u2019s a gift is just that liberating factor,\u201d Batters continues. \u201cWe don\u2019t have to follow a particular template, those rules that have been set through years of tradition. There\u2019s a lot of freedom to create a fan experience that appeals to that audience interested in women\u2019s football and that we think we can convert to fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Hayes Lane, there is a free fan zone with foam fingers, face painting, a London City-branded photobooth, a virtual penalty shootout, colouring pages and, when The Athletic <\/em>visits, an arts-and-crafts table at which children are decorating novelty glasses and masquerade masks. A girl decorates hers with names like Alessia Russo and Kelly Smith.<\/p>\n

There is also a de facto dog stand, home to Willow, a Labrador in a London City Lionesses jersey whose owners have attended City matches for three seasons, and Pipo, a groundhopping 15-year-old Bichon Frize<\/a> whose owners will buy their first London City season tickets next season. London City, they explain, is one of very few dog-friendly grounds at this level. Their only gripe is that a lack of dog products in the club shop left them ironing the club crest onto blue dog fleeces using transfer paper.<\/p>\n

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\n Some of London City\u2019s canine supporters (Katie Whyatt) <\/span> <\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

London City\u2019s marketing department are inviting local running clubs to run to the ground, sample something from the local bakery that serves at games and then stay for the match. The jewel in the crown is City\u2019s sister-club programme, which takes in 80 grassroots girls\u2019 clubs in Kent and London. They provide the obvious \u2014 tickets to matches, mascot packages, coaching clinics \u2014 and the more meaningful. City\u2019s new training ground, for example, will also include a community pitch and the aim is to partner with a local girls\u2019 league.<\/p>\n

Among them is the nonprofit Girls United, due to work with 1,500 girls aged five to 17 in South London this year. \u201cA lot of them maybe didn\u2019t watch football before,\u201d says Abigail Ingram, Girls United London Manager. \u201c(London City) were able to bring down the trophy when they won the Championship. The process was really individualised, from signing up to be a sister club through to the matchday experience, having photos after with the London City team, waving their flags, walking out (as mascots).\u201d<\/p>\n

Since stepping into women\u2019s sports, Kang has stressed that moves that could be misconstrued as altruism \u2014 other investments include a $4million donation to the U.S. women\u2019s rugby sevens team over four years and a $30million, five-year donation to the United States Soccer Federation \u2014 are actually sound business practice. Another goal, then, for London City: to prove the business case for women\u2019s football when stakeholders fret about its profitability and sustainability.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally, really important words she said to me in the first meeting, that I\u2019ve heard over and over again, is: \u2018This is not a charity,\u2019\u201d says Martin Semmons, London City CEO. \u201cShe believes that by being first in the market and prompting investment, debate and dynamism, the market will grow faster.\u201d<\/p>\n

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After buying City, Kang headhunted Semmens from Southampton. He says the goal for London City is to \u201creach the professionalism and infrastructure and process levels that the men\u2019s Premier League is in\u201d and a growing fanbase will unlock everything. \u201cIt\u2019s probably the No 1 focus for her,\u201d Semmens says. \u201cThe fanbase drives all those interactions that lead to revenue. That\u2019s probably the most important one on Michelle\u2019s mind. To have a fanbase, the stadium full, the best atmosphere in the WSL, a great matchday experience \u2014 that has a big impact (on sponsorship).\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should be winning the fandom of every girl that loves football in Kent,\u201d Batters continues. \u201cWe\u2019re the local team to them. This is where we have to work hard for every fan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arsenal have worked with supporters, including on a programme called Block by Block, to define what their WSL matchday looks like. \u201cIt\u2019s not the men\u2019s ground anymore, but the club\u2019s ground,\u201d says Hanlon. \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of sessions on different things.\u201d Fans have had their say on flags, music, whether the team should walk out to Good Old Arsenal, the anthem of the men\u2019s team, or find something unique.<\/p>\n

London City have been similarly intentional. Ticketmaster provides full purchasing data on sales and indicates that families are far and away City\u2019s most significant demographic. A third of their matchday audience comes from five miles around Bromley, another third from or within five miles of Kent and the final third from Greater London.<\/p>\n

Together, the media-commerce company whose ownership group includes Alex Morgan and Sue Bird, are City\u2019s front-of-shirt sponsor via their Everybody Watches Women\u2019s Sports logo. The announcement prompted a surge in shirt sales to the US and has helped to make that region the fastest-growing online audience for City alongside Europe, Batters says. Female 18-34-year-olds dominate City\u2019s online audience, which grows by 10 to 20 per cent each month, Batters adds, driven by the popularity of particular players. Posts about the Spaniard Jana Fernandez, Batters says, \u201cblow everything else out of the water\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe male fanbase follow a club regardless of how they do \u2014 even though they hate it, even (if) they leave at half time,\u201d says Semmens. \u201cThey will worship a player but the second they leave, they hate them. The women\u2019s game is counter-flip to that. They believe in that role model, sort of influencer-follower relationship \u2014 more strongly, in some ways, than they do the clubs. We fill our stadium on Sunday because people are interested in our project, but because they also want to see Chloe Kelly and Alessio Russo. I truly believe that if Chloe Kelly signed for London City tomorrow, her fans would come and watch us. It doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019ve given up on that club and they\u2019re now London City fans, but they follow those athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n London City\u2019s partnership with Togethxr for their front-of-kit sponsor prompted a surge in shirt sales to the US. (Richard Pelham \/ Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

With its shorter professional history, women\u2019s football fandom has always felt malleable, but Batters points out that traditions across the game are shifting. \u201cMen\u2019s football has a problem with sustainability of fanbase as well,\u201d she says. \u201cBy (the) age of eight, kids have 10 clubs in their consideration set \u2014 which could be their local club, the club their favourite player plays for, their favourite club to play on FIFA. Men\u2019s clubs are having to think, how do I become that club that child is going to support?<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the nuances with the women\u2019s game is that you don\u2019t have to be just a fan of us. It\u2019s absolutely fine if you are an Arsenal fan and you engage with us three matches a year. It is understanding there\u2019s different shades of fandom. When the players are signing autographs, it\u2019s all kinds of shirts people are asking to be signed.\u201d<\/p>\n

City are aware that some of this, including City\u2019s half-time show on their debut WSL game, is anathema to some of the game\u2019s purists. A brass band plays at points during Sunday\u2019s game, which sounds divisive but never feels invasive. The fanzone is in a separate gated area through which no one needs to walk to reach their seats. Other parts of the matchday feel like a throwback to a bygone era for which Premier League fans hanker: after home matches, select fans can enjoy an interview experience with players in the bars. Hayes Lane also has safe standing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in a very affluent, highly populated area of South London and North Kent,\u201d says Semmens. \u201cThere is a market of young, high disposable incomes who have a lot of opportunities to experience non-football things. We\u2019re competing for that fanbase. It\u2019s not: \u2018We want to take fans from Tottenham or Crystal Palace.\u2019 We want to give them a product that allows them to come here. That probably skews towards a young, cooler, female audience. We have to offer a product is much broader than football to bring them in.\u201d<\/p>\n

London City v Arsenal has brought together two teams of two divergent histories, statuses and relationships with men\u2019s football, but what\u2019s fundamental is what meaningful community and connection look like. In their quest to define that, neither team is so different from the other.<\/p>\n

Elements of Arsenal\u2019s success should be replicable. Manchester United, for instance, had two of the most marketable Lionesses after the 2023 World Cup in Ella Toone and Mary Earps. For whatever reason, though, no other club has been able to pull those factors into what Arsenal have, the irony being that all of this has happened without Arsenal being the dominant on-field force of the era. Chelsea Women\u2019s matches at Stamford Bridge are often only half-full.<\/p>\n

The common denominator among the biggest WSL teams is, of course, the Lionesses. \u201cWe have a target to produce a number of players for the England team every year,\u201d says Semmens. \u201cIt will increase our fan base. If England win the World Cup, it helps us. Those futures are very closely aligned, and Arsenal showed the way with that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n