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Liverpool v Trabzonspor = 40,941
Villa v Rapid Vienna = 29,980
City = 23,542

:-( Disappointing.

I didn't go. Money's tight and I had to shell out extra for my season tickets this season.
With the game on telly, I couldn;t justify the trip.

I expected it'd be around 25K.

It is a bit, but I'm more confident we'll get much bigger crowds when the group stages start.....

I'll put me hand up though, didn't go tonight, was at a friends wedding reception, and i'm skint as fook, I spent less at the reception than I would have done on the ticket itself, it's the end of the month and I'm skint, plus tottenham cost a bomb!!!!

doesnt matter we will sell out later on

I'd say our match was by far the least in doubt as to the outcome out of those 3.

I understand that this competition doesn't flick the switches for many City fans but still remain bemused why. For years many of us dreamed about qualifying for Europe (only the CL?) and when we get there, it is ignored.
Tonight, I got to watch some pretty decent football from City in the company of some lovely people. Had a sing song and a chuckle, Great experience all round.
Try it...you may find you like it.

john68 wrote:I understand that this competition doesn't flick the switches for many City fans but still remain bemused why. For years many of us dreamed about qualifying for Europe (only the CL?) and when we get there, it is ignored.
Tonight, I got to watch some pretty decent football from City in the company of some lovely people. Had a sing song and a chuckle, Great experience all round.
Try it...you may find you like it.

I don't really know entirely. I guess it would be of interest to look at who the fans who do/don't show up for Europa Cup are and why.

Obvious contributing factors would be:
Weaker selections and quality of the football on show.
Bigger fixtures are always better attended, even league games.
Kickoff times and the fact that fans are less used to attending matches in those windows (probably a bigger factor than we realise as to why clubs with more regular European football get better attendances for midweek European fixtures, it's just a habit).
Travelling fans.
Cost/hassle of getting tickets (season ticket holders have to organise their tickets and if they don't bother, they won't go).
Moving some fans around the stadium.
No internet sales.
Ticket purchasing windows (retain seat August 10-12, but bring a friend for 25% off 17th and 18th)
Increased interest is maybe getting funnelled towards prestige matches.
Advertising.
High total number of matches.
Price (season ticket holders get a substantial discount on ticket prices for league games, paying full whack, despite being a lower full-whack erodes much of this difference. If a South Stand season card was £405 for 19 matches that's £21.30 per game on average. Europa games don't look so cheap now).

john68 wrote:I understand that this competition doesn't flick the switches for many City fans but still remain bemused why. For years many of us dreamed about qualifying for Europe (only the CL?) and when we get there, it is ignored.
Tonight, I got to watch some pretty decent football from City in the company of some lovely people. Had a sing song and a chuckle, Great experience all round.
Try it...you may find you like it.

it's quite suprising isn't it? I mean all people ever used to talk about was 'breaking into Europe'. I can fully understand the financial side and everything but what suprises me is how much the attendance drops. We are nearly selling out our league games yet can only half fill the ground in European games.

Niall Quinns Discopants wrote:

john68 wrote:I understand that this competition doesn't flick the switches for many City fans but still remain bemused why. For years many of us dreamed about qualifying for Europe (only the CL?) and when we get there, it is ignored.
Tonight, I got to watch some pretty decent football from City in the company of some lovely people. Had a sing song and a chuckle, Great experience all round.
Try it...you may find you like it.

it's quite suprising isn't it? I mean all people ever used to talk about was 'breaking into Europe'. I can fully understand the financial side and everything but what suprises me is how much the attendance drops. We are nearly selling out our league games yet can only half fill the ground in European games.

I said this last time....its a disgrace. The last UEFA run was the same.....I loved going but shit support from the best fans in the world.

Same lazy complacent fans who didn't go were precisely the ones bleating when they couldn't get a ticket for Hamburg.

Shameful

I was there last night as i joined cup direct scheme. But 15 quid to watch some jokers from romania is outrageous. Should of made it a 5er and sold out.

It's because I wasn't there.

I went and took my lad at a total cost of about 20 quid. I don't understand why people don't go. There is a guy that sits near me and he moans all the time but moaned more when we failed to qualify for Europe however in the run on Europe the only game he attended was hamburg.

Were it not for the fact that we had crap attendances in the Waffa last time i'd have put it down to the Liverpool game, people who have to travel a long way can probably only afford one early work finish in the same week and also have to factor in the cost of travel on top of the ticket price. It seems like a good argument but looking back to the last European run it just seems like the majority of our fans aren't excited by these early rounds against no mark teams.

I've not had a season ticket for the last couple of years as living on your own is quite expensive, so I finally move in with the girlfriend and now we have a baby so I still can't afford to go.

I live and breathe City, Sandman will tell you that, but it comes behind my daughter.

Do children get cheaper or more expensive to run as they get older??

This Europa competition doesn't float my boat at all. The opposition has got to be of a certain standard, as it is in the prem week in week out, to get me going. No wonder it is looked on as a bit of a joke cup. Hopefully we will get a couple of decent teams that have dropped out of the CL to whet the appetite a little. If we don't then i probably won't be going until the quarter final stage if we get there.

2 things about this particular game in comparison to Liverpool/Villa's games; 1) Liverpool have many more fans than us due to actually winning stuff & were playing a much better side 2) Villa stood a fair chance of being knocked out, again against a better side. We were effectively playing a training game after the 1st leg result.

Now that we're in the group stages I expect we'll be playing against decent sides & I expect our attendances to improve a lot. If our attendances aren't decent compared to others then we can stop telling people what great fans we 'are' & change it to 'were' because the'll be no excuse for it, as everyone else is skint too. If we don't go, we don't care as much as other fans, end of.

ashton287 wrote:doesnt matter we will sell out later on

Some would say we 'sold out' a couple of years back ...

Nickyboy wrote:I was there last night as i joined cup direct scheme. But 15 quid to watch some jokers from romania is outrageous. Should of made it a 5er and sold out.

Is 15 quid really that much though? That's couple of packs of cigarette's or four pints. I don't know how much movies cost in Britain but that's close to price of a movie ticket here.

I understand people work on different financial scales but honestly, in this time and age 15 quid for football ticket sounds very very reasonable to me. Beefy there said that he took his lad and it was 20 quid for the pair of them. I'd say that's cheap. What can you do with 20 quid these days with your kids?

On telly, playing a shit team, 99% through, projected 2nd team, cold wet Thursday night - I can understand why people didn't turn up.

We only got around 17,000 for the same game 2 seasons ago so this is actually a massive upgrade.

Niall Quinns Discopants wrote:

Nickyboy wrote:I was there last night as i joined cup direct scheme. But 15 quid to watch some jokers from romania is outrageous. Should of made it a 5er and sold out.

Is 15 quid really that much though? That's couple of packs of cigarette's or four pints. I don't know how much movies cost in Britain but that's close to price of a movie ticket here.

I understand people work on different financial scales but honestly, in this time and age 15 quid for football ticket sounds very very reasonable to me. Beefy there said that he took his lad and it was 20 quid for the pair of them. I'd say that's cheap. What can you do with 20 quid these days with your kids?

When it comes to money, everyone has there own issues. We had plenty of debate about the price of Season Tickets and some were saying that they will not renew because of a small increase. £15 for a ticket and a fiver for the kids is not a great deal for me, but for some it is an issue, and when you add the cost of travel, food, drinks and the odd programme that cost rises significantly.

So, when people say that it's just £20, then I'd say you are not being real in your estimations.