Lowest league attendance at Maine Road

[Tbilisi]

I was at the Swindon match where Mike Summerbee scored. The 8,015 that attended wasn’t much lower than the match against Middlesbrough the previous season (8,053).

The Middlesbrough match was played on a Tuesday night as opposed to a Saturday.

Gates of less than 10,000 were not unknown at Maine Road before the arrival of Mercer. The final match of the 1964-65 season against Charlton attracted only 8,409.

Many will not appreciate how variable crowds were back then when the number of season tickets sold was very low. Bad weather and other issues could affect attendances.

Very interesting, some of the crowds in the 80s were also woeful.

I worked in Liverpool in the 80s and was at Anfield when there were 12000 for a European Cup game.

 

[Gary James]

According to the European Football Database

EFS Attendances

You are right the lowest league attendance at Maine Rd was 8,015.

I also remember articles in the programme about it after we played Leeds in front of 4,023 in the Full Members Cup in 1985/86.

Why are we talking about lowest attendances, when we had the best average attendance in England in

1914/15
1927/28 (2nd division)
1928/29

And 1910-11 - That European football database has a lot of errors on it so be careful with anything on there.

 

[xgorton]

Mike Summerbee playing for Swindon.
View attachment 103443

Was at the game.

 

[Gary James]

I recall (Just about) buying a fanzine at the Southampton game at Maine Road (last game at the great venue), that had a list of attendance records, large and small, but I can't find it now.
Can some of the historians confirm what it was and the two clubs involved?
Cheers
It was also mentioned that the rags highest league, league cup, FA Cup and European attendances were all at Maine Road (not certain if still true)

Utd’s highest home League, FA Cup & European attendances were all at Maine Road. They never played a home League Cup tie at Maine Rd though. Old Trafford’s record attendance was not for a Utd game. It’s a FAC semi. See:

Old Trafford’s Record Crowd – Wolves v Grimsby

On this day (March 25) in 1939 Old Trafford attracted its highest ever attendance when 76,962 packed Manchester United's ground to see Wolves defeat Grimsby 5-0 in the FA Cup semi-final. At the time this was the third highest attendance ever attracted in Manchester (behind 84,569 MCFC v Stoke...

gjfootballarchive.com

LFC have in recent years tried to knock our attendances at the Etihad more than any other set of fans, so this may be useful (written in March 2023 so doesn’t include last year’s figures):

MCFC & LFC: Attendance Malarky

For some reason whenever Manchester City and Liverpool are due to meet at the Etihad there’s quite a lot of nonsense said about attendances so I thought I’d best get some analysis done …

gjfootballarchive.com

There‘s lots of other attendance detail on my website so if anyone’s interested in this stuff just go on it and do searches. Some great ammunition if needed!

 

[Boney]

I see what you did.

keep that a secret

 

[TedofChume]

And 1910-11 - That European football database has a lot of errors on it so be careful with anything on there.

According to this we were 2nd that year with 24,955?

 

[Bentheblue]

Mike Summerbee playing for Swindon.
View attachment 103443

Dark times and there seemed no end in sight but luckily we only had to wait until the next season for our world to change, enter Mercer and Allison and the good times.

 

[Lavinda Past]

Was at the game.

There can't be many of us still alive!

This getting old lark makes you think doesn't it!

 

[xgorton]

Dark times and there seemed no end in sight but luckily we only had to wait until the next season for our world to change, enter Mercer and Allison and the good times.

Also the 3 cup ties with 1st division Everton,very unlucky.

 

[remember arthur mann]

1964-65 was our lowest ever average attendance at Maine Road,and by some distance too. 14'753 which is an anomaly when you look at the history from 1923 right up to 2003. We got 18201 the season before which was the second lowest average at Maine Road. Even in the dark days of the 80s,when football attendances were on their arse(mainly due to Hooliganism) we still got more(87-88 was 19'472) You had to go back to season 88-89 at Hyde Road when we averaged 9000 to get a lower average attendance,but football was in its infancy then and that was pretty much standard back then. Going back to the early 60s to Mercer n Mal taking over. The club was in the doldrums and there was a famous quote from our then manager about there being a dirth of goals. Was it Les Mcdowall?

I remember around that time being George Poyser. One of the lowest times I recall, there was a bus strike and having to walk to the match. Another time, due to the bad weather, ice and snow, buses being stopped.

One for the old ones around that time.

1965 in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Edit. I noticed the removal of prescriptions charges in January. Good old Harold Wilson.