cleavers
Moderator
I wish I had :-)I only really watched the game out of the corner of my eye last night
I wish I had :-)I only really watched the game out of the corner of my eye last night
If that includes away fans then it's not quite so impressive as they'd account for nearly half of that.It's open 24 hours (online) however there looked like there were some admin problems. I doubt that was significant.
City should be pleased that we have so many new supporters. This is not me guessing. I know from looking at the ticket sales online that that was what was happening. And if you read the annual report you will find that City had 125,000 unique fans in the home areas last season (almost certainly the bulk from Cup games). On the debit side a lot of seasoncard holders don't go unless its a weekend.
I knew you were the bingo type.City are at home. I’m there. There is NOTHING better then going to the match, whatever the opposition, whatever the competition. Chance to head into town, have a few bevvies, meet mates, chat shite, go to the game, back to town, couple more bevvies, train home, bingo, Great day/night whatever the result. I fucking love going to the match.
heres an idea. if you want a full ground in mid week. why not just make all champions league games 10 quid. it would sell out and there'd be a good atmosphere. league cup games last season against wolves and lots of cup games prove that. we got a full ground against wolves midweek - so its not the traffic...
the entire ground last night didnt feel like a city match. it was all about tourists and plastics. theyve forgotten about the clubs core fan base
Have to agree with a great deal of this.Going to the match is all about routine.
You leave at the same time, normally with the same people, take the same route, same pre match rituals whether that be programme, food, drink.
When you get out of that routine, it is hard to get back into it. I fell out of that routine four seasons ago, still got my season ticket but i now find it a chore to go to the match.
Many reasons happen for getting out of the routine, family, work commitments, finances. For me it is simply the pain and the stress of actually getting to the ground. Long traffic ques, park miles away with a 20 min walk, then a 20 min wait to get in sometimes with awful security measures (i sit in SS3), shit pre-match shenanigans, shit half time shenanigans and the the tiresome journey home in traffic. The only thing about the so called "Matchday experience' that is great is the game itself, which i can see on TV anyway, in the comfort of my home without all the stresses noted above.
For me, too many city fans have lost that routine. It starts by knocking off league cup games (which i did), then FA cup (which i did) and now Champions League (which i have). The point where it was all lost for me was the Liverpool second leg last year where i decided to watch on TV instead of paying £40+ to see it live. I can never say i will never go to another Champions League game again but the chances aren't very likely as i will always favour the stress free option which i now actually prefer.
This may not be the same for most city fans but it is something that i have noticed with those i know or close to me.
Every City fan should be applauded for going tonight but for all the right we have done both on and off the pitch the last 10 years, unfortunately IMO it has been at the expense of what really matters and that is the match going fans and it will only deteriorate in the coming years as the club continue to ruin it and the sport itself becomes more and more saturated on TV.
For something so simple to get right, the club and the sport have overkilled it all and you get the product that is served up now.
I'd like to see us try £10 games. Think it'd sell out for first few games at least.
But overall i just don't think we have enough fans locally (yet). The prices for this 3 CL package isn't too bad but as you say a fair chunk of last night's crowd were tourist types and we still only sold 40k. There's obviously a combination of factors that have been listed in this thread & no doubt it costs too much for some of us. But our prices are comparable to others in the CL
Personally i don't have a problem with our crowds. People can only afford what they can and we only have the fanbase that's out there (for now). We've all stuck by City for 20+ years but I think we need another 10 yrs+ to rebuild and add on to the local fanbase to be able to sell out these sort of games.
We'll get there.