Who is bigger in Manchester? City or Utd?

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Marvin

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9 Jan 2006
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The topic about overseas support triggered a thought about our support in Manchester.

The survey from many years ago by Manchester Metropolitan University (early 90s? - I forget now) of both clubs season ticket base told us that Utd had more season ticket holders in Greater Manchester than City, but that as a percentage City's support was more concentrated in Greater Manchester i.e a higher proportion of City's support was based in Greater Manchester.

We comforted ourselves with that but in reality it was a false argument. Bury or Oldham would be expected to draw a high percentages of their support from their locality.

What I'd like to know is who by absolute numbers has the biggest support in the City. I realise there's no means of knowing and it's all subjective, but in my opinion City are much bigger than Utd in Manchester.

I used to work in the CIS in Manchester, one of the biggest employers in the City and going off my floor, City's match-going support totally dwarfed Utd, we're talking about 5 to 1. When I'm walking down Market Street or through the Arndale you see much more City than Utd.

They have bigger crowds, but the number of day-trippers is amazing, It's said that City's support will go the same way as our match ticket prices are now higher than Utd but for the moment this is rubbish. For League games, almost 90% of the City fans present are season ticket holders. It's why City can charge £50 for match-day tickets (like the Sunderland game), because it's the away fans, and a small number of occasional fans who are paying it.

It used to be the case that City would get 30,000 at Maine Road, and that was our hard core regular support, and they'd go whatever. But then when you made it difficult for the out of towners with midweek Cup games, we'd be lucky to get 25k whatever the price, and we couldn't fill our ground even when we had FA Cupor League Cup Quarter Finals. Now however, it's become very noticeable that if a Cup game is priced reasonably we can fill the ground comfortably.

When I was a kid growing up in the 80s, and then when I used to watch my brother play football in the 90s, a lot more of the kids used to be Utd than City. It was depressing to see. I am hearing this has changed now, but I don't get to see this for myself.

I reckon whether you base it on match-going fans or not, Manchester is now at least 70% blue. What do you think?
 
From my experience, they have more people that call themselves supporters. We have more matchgoers.
 
moomba said:
From my experience, they have more people that call themselves supporters. We have more matchgoers.
Click to expand...


Think that sums it up every 'non-footballing' gob shite always turns out to be a massive rag.

From when I was working always around north or central Manchester over the last 35 or so there was always more s/c holders and more few games a season blues than rags even when we were shit and hard to watch but go in a boozer and it would be like nobhead central with rags.
 
Id say united have more fans, but dont often meet a match goer as much. If you win the prem 13 times out of 20 and get all the media support in the world, it will have some effect.
 
Who cares? Its always quality above quantity with this kind of things which means we win hands down every time as everyone of their so called fans is a dirty sewer rat.
 
Marvin said:
The topic about overseas support triggered a thought about our support in Manchester.

The survey from many years ago by Manchester Metropolitan University (early 90s? - I forget now) of both clubs season ticket base told us that Utd had more season ticket holders in Greater Manchester than City, but that as a percentage City's support was more concentrated in Greater Manchester i.e a higher proportion of City's support was based in Greater Manchester.

We comforted ourselves with that but in reality it was a false argument. Bury or Oldham would be expected to draw a high percentages of their support from their locality.

What I'd like to know is who by absolute numbers has the biggest support in the City. I realise there's no means of knowing and it's all subjective, but in my opinion City are much bigger than Utd in Manchester.

I used to work in the CIS in Manchester, one of the biggest employers in the City and going off my floor, City's match-going support totally dwarfed Utd, we're talking about 5 to 1. When I'm walking down Market Street or through the Arndale you see much more City than Utd.

They have bigger crowds, but the number of day-trippers is amazing, It's said that City's support will go the same way as our match ticket prices are now higher than Utd but for the moment this is rubbish. For League games, almost 90% of the City fans present are season ticket holders. It's why City can charge £50 for match-day tickets (like the Sunderland game), because it's the away fans, and a small number of occasional fans who are paying it.

It used to be the case that City would get 30,000 at Maine Road, and that was our hard core regular support, and they'd go whatever. But then when you made it difficult for the out of towners with midweek Cup games, we'd be lucky to get 25k whatever the price, and we couldn't fill our ground even when we had FA Cupor League Cup Quarter Finals. Now however, it's become very noticeable that if a Cup game is priced reasonably we can fill the ground comfortably.

When I was a kid growing up in the 80s, and then when I used to watch my brother play football in the 90s, a lot more of the kids used to be Utd than City. It was depressing to see. I am hearing this has changed now, but I don't get to see this for myself.

I reckon whether you base it on match-going fans or not, Manchester is now at least 70% blue. What do you think?
Click to expand...

In the 70's and 80's in South manchester ie withington burn age, Didsbury and over to Stockport as I was growing up we outnumbered United massively - at school in Didsbury I would say there were more Liverpool fans than United fans and all my mates were blues. That said I have mates who grew up in places like Chorlton , higher broughton etc who would talk about being the only blues in their class. round altrincham and into Cheshire was also very red! I reckon overall probably more reds as the outskirts in the west and north and the big populations of Salford eto were pretty red. Didsbury though was blue.

Mind you i suspect all those Liverpool fans and their kids weren't supporting Liverpools by the late 90's and became rags so things evened out with rag success
 
moomba said:
From my experience, they have more people that call themselves supporters. We have more matchgoers.
Click to expand...
That was always mine, but now I reckon we have more supporters.

I live in the City Centre, and every other day I'm on Deansgate or Market Street with thousands of Mancs & City colours outweigh Utd quite significantly. I now there's a thing about Utd fans not wearing colours but that's just their away support.

I used to work for a Company that had a City and Utd shop in the City Centre and I'd get to see the takings. Utd's shop took more, but not that much more and we're talking when Utd were at their peak winning the League every season and City were in the lower divisions. We've been back in the Premiership for over 10 years now, and been successful for 5. You'd think it would take a generation for City's success to make an impact as kids are born and age, but I reckon all the local City fans who gave up over the years, and all the City supporting families whose Dads, Mums and Granddads used to go, have just started to identify much more strongly with the club. If you go back far enough, City were the bigger club in Manchester and it was the Busby babes that changed it. That was temporary.

I never ever believed I'd see these days. It was like we were carrying a cross, and bringing up your kid as a City fan was something you'd worry about. Is it fair to the kid to burden them with a lifetime of disappointment. James H Reeve (was it him or some other Radio presenter) used to call City God's own club. We've been extraordinarily lucky that we were taken over. But I like to think that we deserved it by staying loyal to this club through the darkest of times, and it's what made this club special and different to all the rest.

People say that football clubs and fans are all the same. That to a proper football fan, it's their club for life no matter what. But for whatever reason, in the 1990s City had coalesced the best of football's support. We actually grew in numbers as we went down the leagues, and that has never happened anywhere else in football, or if it has I don't know about it. Unique. City must be the fastest growing club in European football by any number of measures
 
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