A Rangers fan of my acquaintance who told me our recent 31K v Wycombe in the cup was embarrassing and why we will never be considered a big club is now telling me an Ibrox crowd of 30K v Stirling tonight in the cup is magnificent support.
I’ve said this many times, but most of the bigger clubs on this island have a fairly similar core support they can
really rely on.
United get early round domestic cup attendances of about 45,000 and there were around 40,000 there for that rearranged Bournemouth game after the bomb scare.
Liverpool got a home attendance against Bolton under 34,000 when Hodgson was in charge, and another when the Icelandic Ash Cloud meant all flights were cancelled (so it was just the locals in there) was around 37,000.
City averaged 39,997 under Pearce.
Rangers averaged about 33,000 in the third tier, not much higher to what City (28k) got in our third tier and about the same as what Sunderland (32k, 30k, 30k) have been getting in the third tier.
For home games in the Scottish Cups Rangers and Celtic get around 40,000 attendances unless they play each other.
Anyone else who ever turns up or claims to be a fan are just the extras, who will likely never be near the club if they ever have any extended periods of wilderness years.
All the decently sized clubs on this island from Newcastle to Everton Villa WestHam Spurs Arsenal Chelsea… all have this chunk of fans either in the 30,000 or 40,000 region. Even Norwich managed to get an average of around 25,000 in the third tier, which is better than anything Forest and both Sheffield clubs ever got at that level and better than Leeds for two of the three seasons Leeds were down there (who all have fairly decently sized core supports as well).
