Didsbury Dave said:I remember, Gary. They started giving us 6000 standing at the Scoreboard End, then maybe even less. We were still giving them 7000 in the Platt Lane and 6000 in the Kippax.
When it went all seated wasn't there a derby in the 90s when we got no tickets, when OT was being constructed? Or is my memory playing up?
As an aside, I rememer going to Anfield in the 90s when the Kop was being rebuilt and we were given about 300 tickets. In the event, they opened the Kop that night.
Gary James said:Didsbury Dave said:I remember, Gary. They started giving us 6000 standing at the Scoreboard End, then maybe even less. We were still giving them 7000 in the Platt Lane and 6000 in the Kippax.
When it went all seated wasn't there a derby in the 90s when we got no tickets, when OT was being constructed? Or is my memory playing up?
As an aside, I rememer going to Anfield in the 90s when the Kop was being rebuilt and we were given about 300 tickets. In the event, they opened the Kop that night.
You're spot on with all of this. The thing was that the capacity of OT even with the building work was still bigger than most grounds and so we should have had at least a couple of thousand tickets.
The City of the late 80s/early 90s wanted to fill the ground no matter what and so they were very happy to let 13k utd in if it meant it was full. It used to really annoy me. In my mind if the two grounds were similar in size (OK Ot was a bigger capacity) then they should give the same allocation, but they always claimed there'd be issues with segregation. Yet, City had to sort out segregation.
I remember how disappointed we felt when it was decided in the mid 80s the old Platt Lane would be given to away fans because of orders from the council/police. Whether this was true or not I don't know, but that suddenly meant a 9,000 seater stand was only for away fans, plus we decided we wanted to give all opponents the option of terracing in the Kippax corner. Often teams like Wimbledon would arrive at Maine Road with a couple of hundred sat in the Platt Lane. It was crazy, but we had to do it.
United possibly had a better relationship with their council/police, but it just seemed wrong and City could have sorted it back then but chose to take the guaranteed away fans' money instead. Why didn't the Club look at splitting the Platt Lane (difficult but not impossible) or only give them the Platt Lane and no terracing or vice-versa?
DD said:Gary James said:You're spot on with all of this. The thing was that the capacity of OT even with the building work was still bigger than most grounds and so we should have had at least a couple of thousand tickets.
The City of the late 80s/early 90s wanted to fill the ground no matter what and so they were very happy to let 13k utd in if it meant it was full. It used to really annoy me. In my mind if the two grounds were similar in size (OK Ot was a bigger capacity) then they should give the same allocation, but they always claimed there'd be issues with segregation. Yet, City had to sort out segregation.
I remember how disappointed we felt when it was decided in the mid 80s the old Platt Lane would be given to away fans because of orders from the council/police. Whether this was true or not I don't know, but that suddenly meant a 9,000 seater stand was only for away fans, plus we decided we wanted to give all opponents the option of terracing in the Kippax corner. Often teams like Wimbledon would arrive at Maine Road with a couple of hundred sat in the Platt Lane. It was crazy, but we had to do it.
United possibly had a better relationship with their council/police, but it just seemed wrong and City could have sorted it back then but chose to take the guaranteed away fans' money instead. Why didn't the Club look at splitting the Platt Lane (difficult but not impossible) or only give them the Platt Lane and no terracing or vice-versa?
To be fair, it's not as if the rest of the ground was full was it?
In the period from 1985 to 1992, the only times, apart from derby day, when the home end was anywhere near full were games against Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup, Chelsea in 1989 and Sunderland in 1991. On all of those times the away support numbered something like 12,000. Certainly, the Sunderland game would have had about 10,000 less people on if it was not for the signifcance of the occasion for the visitors.
How many crowds above 30,000 were there apart from them, in this period? One thing is for sure, there was never any worry about not getting in.
Didsbury Dave said:We took plenty there back in those days. We'd get around 8000 in the Scoreboard End, running around the side a bit, and some seats too. And their end would have plenty of City in too.
Blue Lloyd said:Gary James said:Throughout the 80s we were often given 8-10,000. We got 10,000 for the 1986 derby.
It was only from 1989 onwards that they started restricting us. Hillsborough in 1989 led to capacity reductions and that was the first attempt to seriously cut the numbers. City should have done a tit-for-tat style reduction but we were too slow and allowed them more tickets for Maine Road than we were getting for OT. It caused a lot of anger in the period 1989 to... I was going to say 1996 but it still annoys!
If we had 10,000 for the 1986 derby Gary what sort of estimate would you put on the number we had for the FA Cup game in Jan 1987?
Didsbury Dave said:Blue Lloyd said:If we had 10,000 for the 1986 derby Gary what sort of estimate would you put on the number we had for the FA Cup game in Jan 1987?
I was at that game and it was 14,000 if I remember rightly. The FA Cup allocation rule was 25% then. We had the whole of K and J stand and the SCoreboard End.
That defeat hurt, really hurt.
Slightly wrong on the tickets for OT when they were having work done city were allocated a few hundred because i queued all night for tickets and they let us sleep in the north stand.Didsbury Dave said:I remember, Gary. They started giving us 6000 standing at the Scoreboard End, then maybe even less. We were still giving them 7000 in the Platt Lane and 6000 in the Kippax.
When it went all seated wasn't there a derby in the 90s when we got no tickets, when OT was being constructed? Or is my memory playing up?
As an aside, I rememer going to Anfield in the 90s when the Kop was being rebuilt and we were given about 300 tickets. In the event, they opened the Kop that night.
Bluemanc1968 said:Can any of you guys remember, when the Kippax was split in half! was this not a Derby, My memory is shit, but I seem to remember it being a Night match!!! could of been a cup tie.