Record crowds for some, not for others
Last Sunday’s game at Wembley Stadium between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool attracted a crowd of 80,827, a record attendance for a Premier League match. If Spurs continue to maintain their league form there is a good chance they will go on to break more attendance records during the course of this season while they remain at Wembley.
Spurs did in fact attract a bigger gate of 85,512 when they played Beyer Leverkusen in the Champions League last November. This figure too could soon be broken by the visit of Real Madrid next Wednesday.
The previous highest Premier League attendance was 76,098 fans that attended the Manchester United v Blackburn Rovers in March 2007 at Old Trafford. However, Man United attracted the biggest ever crowd in the top flight back in 1948, when 83,260 showed up at Maine Road for their Division One match against Arsenal. United were playing at City’s ground because Old Trafford was being rebuilt after bombing suffered in World War II. Maine Road was also the venue for another huge gate when 84,569 squeezed in on March 3, 1934 for City’s sixth round FA Cup tie against Stoke City.
Historically, English f ootball enjoyed its biggest crowds in the immediate post World War II era when spectators flocked to the grounds for much-needed entertainment after the horrors of war. The record for a single day’s attendances came on Dec 27, 1949 when more than 1.2 million watched the 44 games that were played.
But in the 1950s and 60s attendances slumped as a bigger variety of leisure activities became available and Saturday afternoon did not automatically mean a trip to the local football club. There was a brief revival following England’s success in the 1966 World Cup. However in the 1970s, hooliganism became a major problem, putting off many potential supporters.
From a high of 41 million in 1949, yearly attendance had dropped to 16.5 million in the 1985-6 season, partially influenced by the Heysel disaster and the Bradford Fire. The Hillsborough tragedy in 1989 sparked a muchneeded review of stadium safety around Britain, eventually leading to modern all-seater stadiums. This also meant lower capacity for all grounds and most clubs’ record attendances come from the days before compulsory seating.
The 1923 FA Cup final at Wembley, known as the White Horse final, was very nearly a major disaster. The official crowd of 126,047 was already too much for the stadium and then an additional 100,000 or more poured into the ground, with thousands of spectators spilling onto the pitch. Amazingly there were no serious injuries.
The biggest ever gate in Britain is in Scotland when 146,433 crammed into Hampden Park for the Scottish Cup Final between Celtic and Aberdeen in 1937.
Not all teams enjoy the luxury of big crowds, however. When a meagre crowd showed up on a chilly January night at Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium for an FA Cup replay against Wimbledon in 2002, the Daily Mirror headline read “The Fireside 2 The Riverside 0”.
The old Wimbledon before they became MK Dons, thrived on small crowds, even when they were in the Premier League. They still hold the EPL record for the lowest gate, when their match against Everton in January 1993 attracted a mere 3,039 fans. Wimbledon are therefore the champions of lowest crowds. When they were still a Premier League team, a grand total of 1,987 poured through the turnstiles at Selhurst Park to watch their League Cup game against Bolton Wanderers.
For really small gates you naturally have to look at the lower divisions. Pride of place goes to Rochdale whose Division 3 match against Cambridge United in 1974 attracted an eye-catching 450 fans to Spotland Stadium. Admittedly the game was played on a Tuesday afternoon when most fans were at work.
Rochdale manager David Kilpatrick took it all in good spirit: “We were disappointed we couldn’t play on Saturday, because we had supporters travelling from all over the country. There was one coming from London, one from Newcastle, one from Brighton...”
For the lowest attendance at a British first class match we must move across the border to Scotland where Clydebank attracted a grand total of 29 paying customers for the 1999 League Cup game against Stirling.
One thing is for sure, the 29 Clydebank fans and the 450 that dragged themselves to Rochdale are diehard supporters. It is a different world from those who follow the likes of the Manchester clubs, Chelsea, Spurs and so on. Turning up at a modest ground on a cold, wet winter’s evening with a north-easterly gale biting straight through you and paying 20 quid to watch Morecambe play Crewe Alexandra, now that’s being a football fan.
Why do these supporters do it? They go down to the ground, scream blue-murder at no one in particular and go home to their kippers or whatever, vowing never to return... yet there they are back again for the next match. Perhaps they like the pies at half-time.
It brings to mind a Partick Thistle supporter in Scotland who observed: “Once I saw a Thistle fan spend a whole game with his nose in Dostoyevsky. It was Crime and Punishment — clearly this chap was a season-ticket holder.”
When those Spurs fans stream down Wembley Way for the Real Madrid game on Wednesday perhaps they might spare a thought for the aforementioned Morecambe FC, currently 22nd in League Two with an average gate of 1,750. It might be another world, but as long as the goals go in it doesn’t matter whether you are playing at Wembley or the Globe Arena.