Not making any assumptions asking you questions, as you are asking me about empty seats and why people don't take up all these £20 tickets that are on offer on travel and exchange
I find myself agreeing with much that you say. I would class myself as at least borderline old school 70s/80s hardcore.
Their departure from matches is partly and infact in the main due to being priced out of going. There is more to it of course. When you have stood on the kippax when we played the rags or Leeds,Liverpool, Everton.....I am afraid like a recent poster on this thread experienced being told off for swearing at the ref, sorry thats not going to football in my world.
Equally the hardcore of those days would go to nearly every game if not every game, home and away. You cannot do that these days unless you are pretty well off, high enough up the pecking order to get away tickets, gone are the days when you could get 10k away fans at games...thus improving the atmosphere.
There are of course many many valid reasons for saying being a City fan now is much better than back then and not just because we were shit. The game has simply changed and at the top level it is now a game for the well off. It is a game for rich foreigners to travel to see the Premier league.
When it comes to atmosphere whilst the game and what is considered acceptable conduct in the stadium are as they are there will never be an atmosphere to match those of the past. To be fair this is only partially the fault of fans being priced out.
As for tempting old fans back with £20 tickets for a midweek cup match against Southampton its not going to work....after all why would we want to go to one match in the full knowledge we would not be going to the final should we get there?
In someways the game and certainly City have improved almost beyond recognition but there was something that made it all worth dodging the odd projectile from the away fans in the kippax, treading in a six inch deep puddle on the way in, and if it wasnt pissing down you would tread in some dog shit instead. Going to Brighton getting absolutely drowned and losing 4 0 in the cup travelling there and back on a shit coach....Getting chased all round St Andrews by nutters on a Tuesday night in the pissing rain...you dont get any of that these days and thats as much as anything is why the old school hardcore is lost for ever and there is no new generation to follow and without those factions there will never be atmosphere in City or any other Premier league stadium.
The audience today is in the main made up of reasonably well off socially sanitised middle class professional people.