I saw this on another forum and thought it was interesting.



The change in some of the league positions and attendances has been significant, none more so than us.

The Burnley 86-87 average attendance looks low if it included the bumper Orient gate.

Wow - very interesting that

Many of those top clubs in the Premier League now have new or revamped stadiums and have doubled (or trebled) their crowds.

Strange seeing United with a 40k crowd and even stranger (but pleasing !) to see them finishing 11th.

I saw this the other day on Twitter, and it does make interesting reading, not just the attendances but the league placings.

Three of the First Division from that season have since been in non-league with a fourth, Coventry, now in League Two. And going the other way, four in the Fourth Division have gone on to play in the Premier League.

13 top flight clubs with an average attendance of under 20,000

That lot down the road averaging around the 6000 mark in the second tier!

To be fair, it was at the height of hooliganism and crap grounds, which meant plenty of clubs had poor attendances.

It's strange how some people seem to think that these were the good old days!

Quickenthetempo wrote:The Burnley 86-87 average attendance looks low if it included the bumper Orient gate.

Well you have to include the Orient game otherwise it doesn’t work. If you take the big gates out then you should also take the small gates out to balance it, and then it’s not a true average. If you gave it over 45 games though, then our average was 2,780. Sobering!

The interesting thing though is that we had a better average crowd than 17x other 4th Division clubs, and 11x 3rd Division clubs. English Football was in a really bad way at the time, and was pulling in the lowest recorded attendances since 1925/26, when accurate records began being recorded.

Around the same time (1984), our neighbours were pulling in 3,107 for a Second Division (now Championship) game whilst finishing 6th! Times were really tough across the country.

Fascinating table and shows that attendances were a lot lower across the board. I see that Wolves only averaged 5000 and that was up from the previous year's 4000. Sunderland with only 13,600. It would be interesting to see how many clubs on that list were averaging more back then than they are now. Not that many I would think. I know the Premier League gets a lot of stick (from me included) but football was dying on its arse back then. Hooliganism, run-down stadiums, poor pitches, plastic pitches, long ball tactics. Not a great time and people were clearly staying away.

Preston and Northampton with big changes year on year, why's that?

The following season we averaged 6,632 despite only being mid-table.

The Orient game certainly seemed to give folk a kick up the arse about what they nearly lost.

Claretmatt4 wrote:Preston and Northampton with big changes year on year, why's that?

League position 1 & 2 may be the reason.

Claretmatt4 wrote:Preston and Northampton with big changes year on year, why's that?

Don't know if you're being facetious, but it may have something to do with them finishing first and second respectively

Edit: Someone beat me to it

Top two in the division.

Edit: I’m also to slow!!

Claretmatt4 wrote:Preston and Northampton with big changes year on year, why's that?

They were winning. From memory, Presto had to apply for re-election the year before.

welsbyswife wrote:I see that Wolves only averaged 5000 and that was up from the previous year's 4000.

Molineux was a real mess at the time. There was only one stand (the one down the side where away fans are now in the lower tier). One end housed the away fans in a small terraced area and I think there might have been some standing at the other end. Where the main stand is now there was nothing available.

That was a club also in a shocking mess at the time.

Oh God it was miserable especially cold and raining night matches when you could hear every single conversation on The Longside looking back to how I felt then I never ever thought we would be where we are now. utc

Chelsea getting 17,000!

How the hell did teams like Coventry, Luton, Oxford Wimbledon etc compete in the top division on those gates?

Wages must have been pretty low before the Prem boom

It was a different experience. I enjoyed football in the 80s even though we were c**p. There was a fierce masochistic pride in supporting utter garbage in the surroundings of post industrial decay which characterised the grounds of the day. It was edgy, fun, miserable, exciting and miserable again by turns. Would I want to go back? No. But sometimes I miss it.

The power of television!

Culmclaret wrote:It was a different experience. I enjoyed football in the 80s even though we were c**p. There was a fierce masochistic pride in supporting utter garbage in the surroundings of post industrial decay which characterised the grounds of the day. It was edgy, fun, miserable, exciting and miserable again by turns. Would I want to go back? No. But sometimes I miss it.

You know that middle age has arrived when nostalgia creeps in. It was dreadful back then but I miss it too! Much less sanitised. Crumbling terraces, toilets that were basically an open drain, flaky paint on the crush barriers. I used to stand in the same spot and used to love peeling the newer paint off to see what colours they had been painted in the past. That's how bad the football was!

To be honest, this is around the time t'roverrrrs fans are forever bleating on about our attendances. So we averaged 3.3K when finishing 22nd in Div 4, whilst they had 6K on, finishing mid table 2 divisions above us, arguably a worse average than ours, all things considered.

Don't think they've got much to gloat about - that said, many of the gobby ones from the 90's onwards have no idea ewood existed in the 80's (or what an absolute sh it hole it was.

UTC

Ric_C wrote:How the hell did teams like Coventry, Luton, Oxford Wimbledon etc compete in the top division on those gates?
Wages must have been pretty low before the Prem boom

Coventry were a well-run club back then who simply did things well for a number of years.

Oxford were bankrolled by the thief Robert Maxwell and were able to buy good players.

Wimbledon had a tremendous team spirit and hoofed their way up the leagues with underrated players.

Luton had a mix of good players coupled with a plastic pitch which gave them a great home advantage every game.

welsbyswife wrote:You know that middle age has arrived when nostalgia creeps in. It was dreadful back then but I miss it too! Much less sanitised. Crumbling terraces, toilets that were basically an open drain, flaky paint on the crush barriers. I used to stand in the same spot and used to love peeling the newer paint off to see what colours they had been painted in the past. That's how bad the football was!

It was 30 years ago. Remember we had just come out of the 1970s - one of the darkest and miserable decades in history.

The state of football grounds pretty much reflected the state of the nation. This was all pre the Sky millions / billions and also pre Hillsborough and the start of all seater stadiums etc.

It was what it was....i still thoroughly enjoyed playing football and watching football. Whilst obviously not as many people watched football there was a hell of a lot more people playing it and surely that was much more positive for society. Of course the pitches and facilities were far worse than what they are today yet we managed to still play almost every week on pitches covered in mud. If that would have been anything but enjoyable for the hundreds of thousands of people playing every week they would not have done it.

Was watching football less enjoyable back then ?....probably for us Burnley fans because we were cr-ap for a so long. Yet those of us who followed our team up and down the country still did it and still loved it. Would i do this now at my age if Burnley were in the bottom leagues ? Probably not but I loved it back then.

What do we think Coventry or Wimbledon (or many other fans) would say they prefer ? Now in their shiny new Ricoh stadium or back then when their club was doing well ? Suspect it would be the latter.

If you love football / love your team you usually find a way of enjoying it whatever is happening on the pitch...even if its enjoying the moaning and despair !!

Wasn't being facetious just thick! Thanks for clearing it up!

Colchester were up near the top when we played them midweek at Layer Road.We lived 15mins walk away and at the end the police stopped all the 40 away fans from leaving! I had to produce my driving license to get out early
I travelled with the Colchester fans all 55 of them for the night game at The Turf.Around 1400 gate saw a rare Burnley win and I won the Colchester supporters bet £50.

The only thing I enjoyed in this period was the camaraderie!
Our football was that bad that I simply couldn't believe they were putting in 100%

Colchester was our lowest league attendance, 1696. Tony mentioned it recently that he sponsored the match ball. I was at that game in the CF stand. The darkest of days....

"The only thing I enjoyed in this period was the camaraderie!"

Was he the Italian boy?

Now I see where Preston's superiority complex came from. 30 years ago!

fidelcastro wrote:That lot down the road averaging around the 6000 mark in the second tier!

To be fair, it was at the height of hooliganism and crap grounds, which meant plenty of clubs had poor attendances.

It's strange how some people seem to think that these were the good old days!

Not really the good old days but I do think the atmosphere was better at the old grounds, none more so than at the Turf. The noise generated on the Longside was far better than anything now, not really because of the crowd but the architecture. The echo from all that concrete and steel was superb on a good day.

Another thing that's changed is how you get to the game now. I barely missed a home match from 86-87 through to 91-92 in the Fourth, but never had a season ticket or even thought about getting one.

As walk-ons were such a high percentage of any attendance, you'd get huge surges in support right at the end of the season if there was a chance of promotion, but then you didn't have the cushion of non-attending season ticket holders to bolster your gate when you drifted round mid-table.

[quote="TVC15"] one of the darkest and miserable decades in history.

I take it you are talking about the football? If you are talking socially and/or economically you need to try to look at any decade pre-war and you will see dark and miserable. The 70's were actually quite good fun and it wasn't all disco and tank-tops. I didn't have the worries I do now and there was a great deal of good music around (if you stayed away from the charts). I do agree about the football though, it was bad.

houseboy wrote:

As a big Bowie fan I agree on the music.

I'm not comparing it to pre war times in terms of poverty etc no but the 70s was a difficult time for lots of people. Strikes, winter of discontent, unemployment, and the start of Thatcher. It was a very different decade to the 60s where there was a lot of optimism.

I did not have the worries I do today either but suspect that's because I was a teenager ! I saw plenty of my family go through tough times though.

I have decent memories of the football though - FA cup finals and World cups just seemed so much more exciting - probably because there was so little live football on TV.

Spijed wrote:Chelsea getting 17,000!

Chelsea were never a big club historically - they were the creation of Abramovic/Sky. At least they were in Div 1 that year - they weren’t for a lot of the 70’s and 80’s.

TVC15 wrote:As a big Bowie fan I agree on the music.

I'm not comparing it to pre war times in terms of poverty etc no but the 70s was a difficult time for lots of people. Strikes, winter of discontent, unemployment, and the start of Thatcher. It was a very different decade to the 60s where there was a lot of optimism.

I did not have the worries I do today either but suspect that's because I was a teenager ! I saw plenty of my family go through tough times though.

I have decent memories of the football though - FA cup finals and World cups just seemed so much more exciting - probably because there was so little live football on TV.

Agree with most of that bud. There were some bad bits but as you say (and I thought this whilst I was writing my original post) we were young and nothing much bothered us then. The strikes were bad I suppose but then again it was a time when ordinary people were fighting the system a bit. Of course you are right about the rise of Thatcher but her politics were only really felt in the early/mid eighties. I loved Bowie also (Ziggy Stardust was real to me) but I was a big fan of prog rock. I could tell you the family trees of bands like Yes and Genesis (the real one with Peter Gabriel), ELP and many more but never knew what was top of the charts. And I NEVER wore a tank-top.
As far as football is concerned there was the FA Cup semi v Newcastle (a bitter disappointment as we actually played so well but they did have Supermac) and of course the little bit of history when we lost to Wimbledon (the following season I believe). I also got married in '77 but that little lot didn't even make the mid 80's.

Say what you like about Murdoch but The football League was on its a**e before his intervention.

If you like historical attendances try this for size

http://www.european-football-statistics ... ontent.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Tap on clubs name for their historical attendances.

The week before we got 18k on against Blackpool in the 4th Div, 1st division Chelsea had 7k at home v Southampton. Massive club Chelsea.....

scouseclaret wrote:Chelsea were never a big club historically - they were the creation of Abramovic/Sky. At least they were in Div 1 that year - they weren’t for a lot of the 70’s and 80’s.

Suppose the same can be said of Man City!

houseboy wrote:Agree with most of that bud. There were some bad bits but as you say (and I thought this whilst I was writing my original post) we were young and nothing much bothered us then. The strikes were bad I suppose but then again it was a time when ordinary people were fighting the system a bit. Of course you are right about the rise of Thatcher but her politics were only really felt in the early/mid eighties. I loved Bowie also (Ziggy Stardust was real to me) but I was a big fan of prog rock. I could tell you the family trees of bands like Yes and Genesis (the real one with Peter Gabriel), ELP and many more but never knew what was top of the charts. And I NEVER wore a tank-top.
As far as football is concerned there was the FA Cup semi v Newcastle (a bitter disappointment as we actually played so well but they did have Supermac) and of course the little bit of history when we lost to Wimbledon (the following season I believe). I also got married in '77 but that little lot didn't even make the mid 80's.

I'm a bit younger then you then - I was only 10 when you were walking down the aisle !

Unfortunately I did where a tank top - my mum knitted it for me and I had no choice in the matter !


I just about remember the Newcastle semi final but I do remember Kevin keegan in the final. My first big memory of football was that 1974 World Cup - I loved it and could not wait till 1978 in Argentina which I thought was even better. The excitement of getting to stay up late and watch it plus all the ticker tape. I was mesmerised by the Dutch - Jonny Rep, Hahn, Neskins etc were great to watch - and Cruyff was just incredible.

I was too young to be obsessed by Bowie in the 1970s or any music actually. It was in the early 80s I discovered Bowie and bought every piece of viny I could lay my hands on(RCA orange label of course !)

It's the back end of the 70s when I also realised how tough things had got for people - maybe that was just growing older.

All that said the drought of 1976 was brilliant - I think I played out for the whole summer holidays without coming home - felt like that anyway !!

Did they count the 20,000 we had at home to Hereford??

TVC15 wrote:I'm a bit younger then you then - I was only 10 when you were walking down the aisle !

Unfortunately I did where a tank top - my mum knitted it for me and I had no choice in the matter !


I just about remember the Newcastle semi final but I do remember Kevin keegan in the final. My first big memory of football was that 1974 World Cup - I loved it and could not wait till 1978 in Argentina which I thought was even better. The excitement of getting to stay up late and watch it plus all the ticker tape. I was mesmerised by the Dutch - Jonny Rep, Hahn, Neskins etc were great to watch - and Cruyff was just incredible.

I was too young to be obsessed by Bowie in the 1970s or any music actually. It was in the early 80s I discovered Bowie and bought every piece of viny I could lay my hands on(RCA orange label of course !)

It's the back end of the 70s when I also realised how tough things had got for people - maybe that was just growing older.

All that said the drought of 1976 was brilliant - I think I played out for the whole summer holidays without coming home - felt like that anyway !!

You just missed the brilliant Brazil of 1970 - possibly the finest football team that ever walked the earth. '78 was good though, I've always been a big fan of Argentine football and told everyone who would listen before it started they would win it - Mario Kempes and his mates were a joy to watch. And what an atmosphere as you say.
The summer of '76 was brill, don't think it rained for about 5 months and blue skies almost every day. It did end badly though because when it started raining it didn't stop for ages and there were floods because the ground was too dry to take it. Happy days eh?
Pity about the tank top bud but we all had to do what our mum's said in those days.

houseboy wrote:
You just missed the brilliant Brazil of 1970 - possibly the finest football team that ever walked the earth. '78 was good though, I've always been a big fan of Argentine football and told everyone who would listen before it started they would win it - Mario Kempes and his mates were a joy to watch. And what an atmosphere as you say.
The summer of '76 was brill, don't think it rained for about 5 months and blue skies almost every day. It did end badly though because when it started raining it didn't stop for ages and there were floods because the ground was too dry to take it. Happy days eh?
Pity about the tank top bud but we all had to do what our mum's said in those days.

Yes i think if I would have been old enough to see the 1970 World Cup it would have lived long in the memory.

My team Italy in the semi final beat the Germans 4-3 in what was dubbed the game of the century. The Brazil side destroyed possibly the greatest Italian team in their history.
One of the best German teams every beat what was arguably the best English team ever - England should have won that game but for the substitutes they made and had a stronger team than they did in 1966.
The quality of football in that tournament was off the scale. The goals Brazil scored in the final were works of art. In one tournament you had one of the greatest matches ever, the best save ever by Banks, one of the best goals ever by Brazil (the flowing passes one) and like you say probably the best team ever in Brazil.

Scrap everything i said - the 70s were brilliant !!!

Spijed wrote:Suppose the same can be said of Man City!

Actually, no- I would defend city on this count. They may have had a crap team for years before Sheik Mansour rocked up, but I’ve always considered them a “big” club “, particularly since we played there in front of 32,000 in a 3rd Division game. Could you ever imagine that happening at Chelsea????

houseboy wrote:
You just missed the brilliant Brazil of 1970 - possibly the finest football team that ever walked the earth. '78 was good though, I've always been a big fan of Argentine football and told everyone who would listen before it started they would win it - Mario Kempes and his mates were a joy to watch. And what an atmosphere as you say.
The summer of '76 was brill, don't think it rained for about 5 months and blue skies almost every day. It did end badly though because when it started raining it didn't stop for ages and there were floods because the ground was too dry to take it. Happy days eh?
Pity about the tank top bud but we all had to do what our mum's said in those days.

The same Argentinian team that bribed their way to the final.

We are all well aware of how crap we were in those days and how poor our gates were as a consequence, but it's quite amazing to see how far attendances had fallen across the board and the "top" division was absolutely pathetic, especially when you think about attendances in the decades before the 80's and then after the advent of the PL in '92, which as pointed out above may well be remembered as the saviour of football in years to come. (Or Sky will!)

Scunthorpe 3,008
Hartlepool 2,465
Swansea 2,775
Halifax 3,296
PNE 5,974
Stockport 2,410
Peterboro 2,229
Colchester 1,696
Lincoln 2,177
Cardiff 1,717
Crewe 2,560
Rochdale 4,217
Hereford 1,961
Wolves 2,947
Tranmere 2,394
Exeter 1,792
Northampton 2,691
Aldershot 2,690
Cambridge 1,874
Torquay 2,718
Wrexham 4,090
Southend 3,991
Orient 15,696

scouseclaret wrote:Actually, no- I would defend city on this count. They may have had a crap team for years before Sheik Mansour rocked up, but I’ve always considered them a “big” club “, particularly since we played there in front of 32,000 in a 3rd Division game. Could you ever imagine that happening at Chelsea????

Ironically the two biggest record attendances at their home grounds are Man City at Maine Road and Chelsea at Stamford Bridge- 84k & 82k respectively, between the Wars.

I make that an average home (league) gate of 3.364 which is only 18 different to the figure in post #1.

23 games - total attendances for the season 77,368 : o )

scouseclaret wrote:Actually, no- I would defend city on this count. They may have had a crap team for years before Sheik Mansour rocked up, but I’ve always considered them a “big” club “, particularly since we played there in front of 32,000 in a 3rd Division game. Could you ever imagine that happening at Chelsea????

Your right there, Scouseclaret.
City have always had a big, loyal following.
No matter what league they play in.
Or how good/or crap the team was.
And unlike their Salford rivals, most of their fans still have Manc accents too.