"A Major Concern" & Crowd Control at Maine Road

[Gary James]

21,700 with all those Chelsea?

No way.

City's lowest crowd of the season was 19,147 v Charlton (who brough very few fans!), so assuming Charlton brought say 1,147 (probably about 1,000 more than they did) then that would give City a hardcore of 18,000.

The Chelsea crowd was a low one because of the TV coverage, but I find it hard to accept Chelsea could possibly have brought so many to a Friday night game televised live (at a time when that did affect travelling support and kept numbers down) and the attendance only being 21k.

The Platt Lane (City fans) is clearly less than half full but even so.

8 days after the Chelsea game City attracted 20,787 - another low-ish crowd that season - for Cambridge Utd. The maths of that Chelsea away following just don't add up.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

I remember being in a crowd of 15,000 against Millwall around that time, possibly a couple of years later in our next second division spell 87-89. It's the lowest home league crowd I've ever been in and may well be the lowest in 50 years, since the infamous Swindon game.

I bet you know that one off the top of your head Gary...

 

[Gary James]

I remember being in a crowd of 15,000 against Millwall around that time, possibly a couple of years later in our next second division spell 87-89. It's the lowest home league crowd I've ever been in and may well be the lowest in 50 years, since the infamous Swindon game.

I bet you know that one off the top of your head Gary...

16/9/87 - 15,430. It was our 3rd home game of the season.

The 87-88 season was our worst (in my life) from a size of support point of view.

People often say crowds dropped off as the season progressed and promotion seemed unlikely, but 3 draws and a defeat in our opening 5 games (we opened with a win!) killed our morale.

Even games against Leicester (16,481) & Oldham (22,518) were poor. The visit of Leeds only attracted 30,153 that year.

The 10-1 was watched by 19,583 but Huddersfield did bring a few.

Our seasonal average dropped below 20k for only the 3rd time since 1910 (2 seasons in the mid 60s were the worst!).

EDIT: Meant to add... Millwall was the lowest home League crowd since 1964-65 (the season of the 8k) but was eclipsed (if that's the right word) by a smaller crowd in 1987-88 - Reading 4/4/88 was 15,172.

In the season of the Chelsea game mentioned our lowest was 19,147 V Charlton.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Of course that was very much the era where Swales was reputed to be declaring low attendances for tax reasons. I remember the promotion fuck up against Bournmouth in 89 and it looked like there were 40K in Maine Road, it was given as about 30K.

 

[Gary James]

Of course that was very much the era where Swales was reputed to be declaring low attendances for tax reasons. I remember the promotion fuck up against Bournmouth in 89 and it looked like there were 40K in Maine Road, it was given as about 30K.

Ah... we share the same suspicions! Bournemouth - 30,564 (I ended up stood to the North Stand end of the Kippax because it felt too packed where I usually stood!).

A few of the more obviously suspicious attendances (obviously, we have no evidence of any wrongdoing):

Charlton May 1985 - absolutely packed with lots of fans sat on steps in North Stand, Main Stand and Platt Lane. Kippax very uncomfortable. Capacity over 52,000; crowd given as 47,285!

Newcastle Feb 84 - 41,767 despite vast crowd from Newcastle and a packed Kippax plus seats, this wasn't even the highest attendance of the season, but that was....

Sheff Wed Dec 83 - 41,862 - similar to Newcastle but capacity was 52k+ Personally, I'm certain Newcastle was a bigger crowd (as were NUFC stattos who claimed this as the highest Div 2 crowd of the season).

There are lots of others including, the earliest I can find that seems 'odd' - Sunderland FAC 24/2/73 - recorded as 54,478 but I have it on good authority that there were more in the ground and that the official figure was 'within safety certificate'.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

The Charlton game was definitely capacity, but in City's favour, there were only a couple of hundred Charlton fans in their end which would explain things. Lots of Blues, me included, actually climbed over the fence to stand in the lower section of the away end just so we could see.

 

[Eds]

I would say most of those home games during the 80's were fiddled. Whenever the crowd was announced you could hear people laughing. I seem to recall they stopped announcing them at the game. As has been said when all the seats were taken including the away end and the kippax was chocker it didnt take a genius to work out the crowd. How another 5,000 could have got in the ground against Charlton that day I have no idea!!

 

[bluehousemusic]

I will dig out some old photos I took in the 80's, but I don't recall the fences ever being put up in front of the Main Stand, they stopped at J Block in the North Stand and started again next to the Platt Lane Stand.

There were fences in front of the Main Stand, well at least there was in 1989, because i remember trying to scale over them after Luther Blissett penalty in the 3-3 draw against the cherries after being 3-0 at half time. They had vandal grease on the top, which smeared my Barbour jacket, and a copper gave me a whack on the hands with his truncheon. This was however near the North Stand corner, so it may have not gone the length of the pitch, but I'm sure i saw others getting over the fence or at least attempting to do from the Main Stand.

 

[Wilmslow Road]

I would say most of those home games during the 80's were fiddled. Whenever the crowd was announced you could hear people laughing. I seem to recall they stopped announcing them at the game. As has been said when all the seats were taken including the away end and the kippax was chocker it didnt take a genius to work out the crowd. How another 5,000 could have got in the ground against Charlton that day I have no idea!!

Your quite right.
Used to sit in the Main Stand at the time and it was one of the highlights
to guess what number would be put on the crowd.
The anouncements used to be greeted with howls of laughter so they
stopped doing them.

 

[Wilmslow Road]

I would say most of those home games during the 80's were fiddled. Whenever the crowd was announced you could hear people laughing. I seem to recall they stopped announcing them at the game. As has been said when all the seats were taken including the away end and the kippax was chocker it didnt take a genius to work out the crowd. How another 5,000 could have got in the ground against Charlton that day I have no idea!!

Your quite right.
Used to sit in the Main Stand at the time and it was one of the highlights
to guess what number would be put on the crowd.
The anouncements used to be greeted with howls of laughter so they
stopped doing them.