Attendances.

[smithie]

The Grimsby game was on telly. Bill Bell pulled off a masterstroke for that game by allowing Junior Season Ticket holders only to bring a friend for free. No other price reduction was offered, and needless to say the gamble paid off handsomely as an extra 8 people swelled the gate.

 

It was plain embarrassing to have a sub-4k gate for a Championship match that was being screened nationwide.

[Mcphee4Scotland]

Somewhere along the line its got into peoples heads that we are a bigger club than they think crowd wise. We never have been.

 

Maybe its because we got 6000 ST holders when we had a mad offer once but even then crowds didnt average that high. Maybe its because we got great crowds of around 8000 against Shrews, Notts County and Crewe. One offs will always happen.

We have a really good loyal following of fans at the minute. 4000 hardcore. Probably more than we have had for a long long time.

 

Paul mate you've pretty much answered your own answered your question with your description of the season-ticket offer back in the 2008-09 season which falsely inflated our attendances considering we were dire that season under Sinnott/Glover. Yet because many had committed to buying cheap season tickets to break the magic 5,000 season ticket-barrier, they still felt the need to get their moneys worth and carrying in attending when perhaps under normal circumstances they wouldn't have bothered. The Football was that bad that season that our average gate would have been 3,600-3,800 at most and not the 5,600-5,800 or whatever it was in the end.

 

In saying that, we're still one of the biggest clubs in League Two, which is stating the obvious imo. Indeed, for our home game v Gillingham a couple of months back, I actually recall our attendance of (6,900?); as being the highest in League 2 that day; and there were actually only three games in League 1 that had a higher attendance that day aswell.

 

There is the argument that moving to a new ground and the enthusiasm that comes with that has helped to increase clubs average attendances to a certain extent (Doncaster, Chesterfield, Rotherham & Shrewsbury etc are all solid examples in recent seasons).

 

But most of all, what none of the above listed clubs have to deal with is that they don't have a successful Premier League Side in the same town/city like we do. That for me, is probably why we haven't necessarily lost fans, but genuinely struggled to attract new supporters in recent years.:(

[mandywoody]

HMM 1981 DIDNT SEAM TO B A VINTAGE YEAR :blink:

[Paul6754]

Just go to this site, scroll down to Vale and click on it. You'll see our average attendances since Adam was a lad. Apart from some decent numbers in the 90s, the figures show Spunkers is talking sense for a change. ;)

 

http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/england.htm

 

Interesting aveage attendance numbers quoted for Vale in the 60's and 70's on that web page. I went to the majority of home games during that period and religiously read the sentinel on a Saturday night and sporting pages of three Sunday newspapers for everything Pot Vale and I distinctly emember the home attendances were around the 2-3k mark, more for a home FA Cup game. Wonder where they got their data.

[Andyregs]

Amazingly, just popped onto the Crewe forum, and a couple are joking about our attendance last night. If there ever was needed proof of how deluded and backwards they are!

[bycars rob]

Amazingly, just popped onto the Crewe forum, and a couple are joking about our attendance last night. If there ever was needed proof of how deluded and backwards they are!

Last nights attendance was 50 more than their average last season, in a promotion season-inbred trainspotting *****!

[davehartshill]

We got just under 7000 against Gillingham after a decent run.

 

There's a feel good factor around Vale at the moment and if we were to go on another decent run I think we could start getting 6000+ gates.

[Warren]

I think we have played a lot of Tuesday night games that clash with the Champions League. I live on the Wirral, yesterday I was working in Manchester and then Leeds. So about 5.30pm I had to battle out of Leeds through the roadworks on M62, take a short cut through Oldham to avoid a problem on the M60 ringroad round Manchester, then down the M6. Then after the game I have to drive 60 - 70 miles home. There will be a lot of people working these days in similar situations and mid week games - albeit floodlit which I like - are difficult.

[onestepatatime]

Can anyone tell me how the crowd is actually counted? I mean, do we include the "freebies" such as kids getting in free with adults? There are more and more young fans now attending Vale games and I just wonder if they are extra to the announced total??

[valeblue]

A lot of people on the radio and social media saying the supporters should come back now.

People also saying they are disapointed at the crowd of 4000 locals tonight.

 

If ive said it once ive said it a million times. Stop rewriting history. Take a look at our average attendances over the last 15 years. Indeed, even in the 70s and 80s when we were in this division.

Our crowds at the minute are superb for a club of our size in the 4th division.

Some folk moan when we ONLY get 5000!

 

Crowds will naturally increase over the season as the promotion push continues but please stop kidding yourself that we used to get 5000+ locals week in week out.

Take a look. We didnt. Not even in league 1 and some seasons in the championship we only averaged around 7000 when we had all the midlands teams and stoke coming to town.

 

A great turn out tonight and for the previous 9 home league games.

 

Spot on , exactly what Ive been saying and Ive been going since '77........

[the old bycars tea bar]

Agree with spunkers it's a myth about the gates we got far worse in the 70's, getting anything above 5k average in this league is brilliant in my opinion

[geosname]

I can remember attending games with very low gates

[smithie]

Absolute nonsense. The gates have been roughly the same height for many years despite various refurbishments.

[The Kalamazoo Kid]

This thread, and the OP, is dead right. Even in The Championship years we didn't get massively higher numbers of Vale fans on a regular basis (not including the large away followings that boosted the attendance in those days). It'd be interesting if the figures were attainable for just Vale fans over the last couple of decades, as that would give a much better comparison/argument to those that moan about today's attendances.

 

I'd say the current numbers are pretty much par (and certainly not poor) for the last 20-30 years at Vale Park, which makes it ever-so-slightly concerning that Smurthwaite seems to be hammering home the 'bring-back-the-missing-supporters/we-need-more-through-the-gate' type comments that I've seen made numerous times already. Its probably just the new guys coming out with the kind of talk that is to be expected, and hopefully not something that they are absolutely relying on happening as part of their plans.

[Trentham Lakes Valiant]

One from the championship....

 

Port Vale 1-3 Barnsley Tuesday 29 Oct 1996. Att 5231. Guppy and McCarthy played that night.

 

I remember that one. Neil Redfern tore us a new @r$e:(

 

When my dad started taking me in the early 70's, he always referred to the crowed as being 'The Faithful 3000'