a laugh about rags home attandance

[john@staustell]

Sod-all to do with the acoustics, it's the make-up of the audience. Day-trippers and tourists who dont know the people around them.

[gary james]

Attendances & crowd stats are a bit of an obsession for me. All PL clubs report the tickets sold rather than number attending these days - the first time I became aware of this was when Utd had a crowd officially of around 20,000 but all media present plus many Utd fans admitted the crowd was some way below 20,000 (V Wimbledon in the late 1980s). This meant that for years (until the redevelopment of the Kippax when Maine Rd's capacity dropped briefly below 20,000) Utd had actually had a crowd below 20,000 more recently than City.

The area that puzzles me these days though regards Wembley - yesterday's game was an absolute sell out apparently. Even at the stadium they kept making announcements pre-match telling us it was a sell out and no tickets available on the day. Yet, the attendance was a few thousand short of capacity - surely using the same logic that Utd, City etc. use then an all-ticket game in a 88,000+ stadium should get an 88,000 attendance regardless of how many actually use their ticket?

[Blue Since 76]

I've always assumed the club announced tickets sold rather than people in attendance and even for a sell out, you'll always get the occasional empty seat with people who are ill on the day etc and can't get anyone else to take the ticket. Just amazed that that many Mancunians couldn't make a game just a few miles from their house.

This always reminds me of the Swales days though - Maine Rd would be packed, with no more than 1,000 empty places all round the place and yet the 'official' attendance would claim it was about 50% full. Some may say that it had something to do with avoiding telling the taxman how much they were due, but I couldn't comment.

[gary james]

This always reminds me of the Swales days though - Maine Rd would be packed, with no more than 1,000 empty places all round the place and yet the 'official' attendance would claim it was about 50% full. Some may say that it had something to do with avoiding telling the taxman how much they were due, but I couldn't comment.

Also may have had something to do with the sharing of gate receipts (i.e. don't tell them what we actually got, so that we keep that and they get a smaller share) - back then League attendance receipts were shared between both sides - so smaller clubs would benefit at away games. This was all changed (a few years before the Premier League) because the larger clubs realised they could make more by keeping their own receipts. That helped lead to the situation we have had in recent years with a large gap between rich and poor - it's often overlooked by those who talk about the money in the game but those with the biggest attendances couldn't wait to grab a bigger share. Obviously, this could be argued lots of ways (and City certainly benefitted by the change) but the same logic behind that change could lead to the break up of the TV deal - the more popular clubs could easily carve up TV money so that they get the bigger share (or go it alone!).