Atmosphere Thread | 2025/26

[bobbyowenquiff]

It’s a fair point. However I do think easier access to tickets, the ability for groups of mates to buy together, areas of the stadium be emptied enabling singing ends to be created and lowering of ticket prices would change the crowd demographic.

I was 22 at York away and the age profile of our crowd back then was predominantly 20/30s, we have grown older but after the last 10 years of success the next generation of young blues should be there to fill the gap.

I think they are but not if they have to sit on their own, unable to shift tickets on to other mates and cannot sit near like minded persons.

There were pleny of Blues in the home sections at Bootham Crescent as well....but they didn't have phone torches!

 

[Pablo ZZZ Peroni]

Like @give it to gordon often says, it’s hard to get tickets in groups or even in twos next to each other these days. You could go as a group of eight, and six would be sat on their own randomly dotted around the stadium and maybe two would be sat next to each other if they’re lucky.

Here’s what’s left for West Ham on the official City ticket site, one solitary seat in the entire stadium:

View attachment 176322


Yet you can book between 1 and ‘more than 10 people’ in the third tiers and lower tiers with P1 Travel (one of City’s official ticket tout partners):

View attachment 176323

Manchester City vs West Ham United

Buy your Manchester City vs West Ham United Tickets & Hospitality at P1 Travel. ✓ Official Tickets. ✓ Travel Packages. ✓ Easy & Safe booking.

www.p1travel.com

For €139 each for the third tiers or €149 each for the lower tiers (whatever that is in £).

And Viagogo has 33 lots of ‘2’s together (so 66 seats) that say they’re hospitality but are in the normal third tiers but with a meal offsite somewhere:

Manchester City Tickets

Manchester City tickets - Buy and sell Manchester City tickets at viagogo

www.viagogo.co.uk

Again, no checks on whether these buyers would be City fans or not.

Yet only 1 seat available to City fans on the official club site.

And we wonder why we don’t have a good atmosphere. We’re surrounded by nobodies.

A wide selection of West Ham tickets were available about 2 weeks ago and then they were pulled but came on sale again today as we are in the 21 day window. There's load of choice now and availability will increase as loads of STs come up due exchange and third party releases. Demand for this game will be low - Saturday before xmas is traditionaly poor.

By way of example, look at Sunderland availabilty for this coming weekend and there is loads.

Today a matchday member could go on line and buy tickets for any of the forthcoming available games with starting prices after discount in the range £30 to £38. In most cases you can get 2 seats or more sitting togther (not necessarily at those cheapest prices) if that a priority because lots of availability.

Available
Sunderland
West Ham
Brighton
Wolves
Fulham
Forest
Palace
Brentford

Not Available
Chelsea
Newcastle
Arsenal
Villa (last game of season)

My daughter and family let matchday membership lapse due cost of travel (from down south) and match day ticket prices. The last 2 games they attended were Everton on boxing day and the Bournemouth last season. The Bournemouth prices were stupid and that finished them but the new matchday ticket prices are great relative to what they were last season and they've just lucked in with the 50% black friday membership deal.

They return back to Manchester permanently in 2 weeks and at least 2 from her family intend going to all of the games from West Ham onwards. They might struggle to get tickets for Arsenal or Villa (if we are going for the league) but from 3 weeks before they will be checking daily to try and get sorted.

Amongst all the negative stuff about ticketing she is buzzing because the ticket prices are so low relative to last season. Me and the rest of my family are with STs in CB L3 so she will mainly pay a bit more than the cheapest seats quoted above to be close to us but about £20 less than she paid for Bournemouth and Everton last season.

As an aside 1894 and the rest are to be praised for the protests and the ST freeze. As for the reduction in matchday ticket prices, it's my view the club would have reduced them anyway this season. It's simple supply and demand because we can't sell out most league games where previously in 2023 it was a different kettle of fish. They are doubly fucked for next season with the increased capacity.

 

[Oyster28catcher]

All fans entering the Etihad should identity the below photo:

Incorrect answer, turn around.

Those in the third tier must place a sticker over their phone light.

 

[EastMidlandsBlue]

Spot-on. We averaged 29,000 in a 34,000 stadium that York season. Great crowds for the third tier but we would not have filled a 52,000 stadium. We averaged 38,000 in a 63,000 stadium in 1968 when we won the league. There were plenty of empty seats near me in those days in the Platt Lane. The atmosphere has been up and down our whole history...just like most other clubs. What really helps is cheap tickets and a sense of siege mentality. That's why, for a period, our crowds went up as we were relegated. Our away support has always been superb and up there with the best. And it still is. Most rival fans i meet are always full of praise for our our away following. We were fantastic in defeat at the last Newcastle match for starters.

The difference back then is no one cared about empty seats, whereas nowadays it seems to be all people care about.

I think for teams like Leeds it's a bit of a coping mechanism to have this attitude of "We may not have won ON the pitch, but we certainly won it OFF the pitch"

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

The difference back then is no one cared about empty seats, whereas nowadays it seems to be all people care about.

I think for teams like Leeds it's a bit of a coping mechanism to have this attitude of "We may not have won ON the pitch, but we certainly won it OFF the pitch"

The empty seats thing is totally bizarre. Clubs like Real Madrid and Barca rarely sell out because they have huge stadiums. That's the norm across Europe for most clubs. The people who are most obsessed with empty seats don't attend live matches. In their entire history Leeds have never had an average crowd higher than 40,000 even in the 1960s when Elland Road held more than 50,000. I have been in some 50,000 plus crowds at Elland Road but City took 10,000 fans to those games.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

The empty seats thing is totally bizarre. Clubs like Real Madrid and Barca rarely sell out because they have huge stadiums. That's the norm across Europe for most clubs. The people who are most obsessed with empty seats don't attend live matches. In their entire history Leeds have never had an average crowd higher than 40,000 even in the 1960s when Elland Road held more than 50,000. I have been in some 50,000 plus crowds at Elland Road but City took 10,000 fans to those games.

I believe the whole empty seats thing was started by Man United fans and mainly aimed at City. ironically its been taken up by the armchair sky tv generation for whom football support is mainly banter done on social media. It’s the same with this obsession with who is the “biggest” club. These people pick a club because of what it gives them. Nobody gave a shit in the days when you supported your local club by going to the games.