Reply With QuoteWhy do you care ex fanOriginally Posted by The Lone Gunman
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Have Cardiff City ever had a smaller crowd against top-flight opposition in any competition than the 6,013 attendance against Brighton & Hove Albion? Not a rhetorical question, I honestly don't know the answer. However, I'd be very surprised if any competitive game against a team from the top division has ever attracted a smaller home crowd.
Some other EFL Cup crowds this evening:
20.090 - Norwich City v Bournemouth
10,769 - Nottingham, Forest v Wolves
10,459 - Huddersfield v Everton
7,973 - Sheffield Utd v Derby County
7,491 - Swansea City v Plymouth
6,193 - Stoke City v Doncaster
Why do you care ex fan
I don't care. I'm interested, though.
I guess you must be too. After all, you opened this thread and replied to it.
Norwich are a Premier League team. The rest of the attendances are shit because it’s a shit competition
Brighton reserves are no draw for us. 3 centre backs apart it was a team of fringe/youth reserves and that was down to lack of options.
Looked like less than 300 Brighton fans there too- less than Sutton brought, so nit much interest for them either.
Saying that our crowds for cup games have been awful for years now.
Shows a few things I guess
- disinterest in cup games
- how reliant we are in selling season tickets
- how low walk ups are
- how few ‘die hards’ we really have
Will be 22k plus there for Saturday.
I thought 6 k was quite a good crowd tbh.
I know they are so called top flight but Brighton reserves ain't actually a big pull for glory fans.
When I think back to some of the shocking crowds we've had for the 3rd round of the fa Cup in recent years it was a good crowd.
Great turn out for Cardiff Reserves v Brighton Reserves IMO.
Norwich , Forest , bigger clubs than us
The rest are much of a muchness
Crowds for this cup are generally poor
Its a crap cup because of the feckin Premier league who only get interested if they are I the semi finals
Used to be a great laugh
We had 8000 v Chelsea when we beat them in the late 80s
People thought that was a big crowd
Says something about the competition when I saw the attendance and thought good crowd.
Norwich crowd is incredible. Dont believe they are a bigger club than us though.
Just seen the Forest highlights. Looked a few thousand Wolves fans there.
Saying that if we were playing Man U reserves I reckon 20k there last night.
34000 for Leeds v Crewe. Fair play, that’s incredible!
Wow! That’s amazing!
Even without the pandemic our attendances would have been down a fair bit this season.
We never looked good enough to go up last season and none of our signings were likely to catch the attention of fair weather fans.
If we go on a good run then they'll be back.
Agree win a few matches and the crowds will soon be above 20,0000 again as long as we don't sell Moore. If we do it will be the twenty first century equivalent to "I used to go down the city until we sold Toshack" I think too many fans have had dismal experiences of us in cup competitions in recent years to be too interested and although Brighton are a premiers league club they are not really in the eyes of many fans like we were when we were in the premier.
I've been through the record books this morning and City have indeed had lower crowds for games against top flight opposition on no less than three occasions - all in the League Cup and all in the the Eighties.
Incredibly, in a competition that has been running for more than 60 years, City have only faced top division opponents at home on 16 occasions, and only three times since the turn of the millennium. That says plenty about the club's feeble efforts in the League Cup over the years.
The crowds for each of the 16 home games against top flight opposition were as follows:
12,200 v Burnley (1960/61)
14,315 v West Ham (1965/66)
30,109 v West Ham (1971/72)
8,775 v Burnley (1973/74)
23,618 v QPR (1976/77)
9,698 v Everton (1979/80)
11,632 v Arsenal (1982/83)
4,425 v Norwich (1983/84)
4,607 v Watford (1984/85)
8,018 v Chelsea (1986/87)
2,629 v QPR (1988/89)
9,041 v Southampton (1995/96)
7,613 v Wimbledon (1999/00)
13,555 v Portsmouth (2004/05)
19,436 v Blackburn (2011/12)
6,013 v Brighton (2021/22)
In the Eighties, the League Cup was still a two-legged affair. In 1988/89, City went into the second leg against QPR already 0-3 down. Just 2,629 turned up to see another 1-4 defeat at Ninian Park. Alan Curtis scored the Cardiff goal.
It says plenty for the club's recent performances in the League Cup and the general perception of the competition that some apparently regard 6,013 as a 'good' crowd.....
Those fans should have a look at the league tables for the last few years. Brighton are currently playing in their fifth-consecutive Premier League season. They are very definitely a Premier League club.
There'd be at least double that if it was the FA Cup. I'd be there for one!
I've no interest in the League Cup and have probably been to about 20 of them over the years.
The crowd (bigger than I thought it would be) is a reflection of the apathy- first by the club and naturally followed by the fan base - shown to the cup since we got to 2 finals. Why such heights brought on this abject policy defeats me.
Those who chose not to go obviously had more sense.
Three home games in a week, one to one of our biggest rivals coming up on Saturday.
If you had a chance to watch 2 out of the 3, would you choose a league game against Millwall, a league game against Bristol City or a league cup tie against a side we've played quite often over the last few decades, who we did the double over when we were last in the PL and, even though they're a PL side, are hardly an attractive name?
15 years ago, playing a lower, less established PL side would have generated some sort of crowd. Not any more.
7,491 - Swansea City v Plymouth
I don’t think it’s just down to the opposition. Our recent track record in the competition is dire. Swansea won it a while back.
Maybe there’s just more to do in Cardiff on a Tuesday night than in Swansea?
There were 3510 at Lincoln last night to see them play Man Utd U21s in something called the Papa John Trophy
Back in November 2011, City had three home games in just over a week. The attendances were:
22,556 v Nottingham Forest (Championship)
19,436 v Blackburn (Carling Cup)
22,010 v Birmingham (Championship)
Admittedly the Carling Cup game was later in the competition, but I do think a crowd of just 6,013 for a game against a Premier League opponent is significant. Indeed, it was City's lowest attendance for such a match since the late-Eighties. I don't believe there's any one main factor at play, though. I think it's a combination of lots of things, including the unsatisfactory ticket office situation judging by what a couple of friends I was talking to last night were saying.
The ticket office situation is shocking! Wanted to get extra tickets for my daughter and wife and wanted to move my seat to be next to them. Couldn’t work out how to do that online, so went to the ticket office last Thursday to find it closed. Thankfully got through over the phone eventually. A total ball ache!
I didn’t go to the game in the previous round because of being worn down by witnessing recent years cup games, mostly because of the following reasons:
Lack of respect shown by the club towards the competition (and FA Cup) in recent years.
Previous managers saying they respected the history of the competition and wanting to progress to the next round… only to contradict that by selecting weakened teams.
The impression that the managers team talks before previous games were half-arsed, which seemed to carry over to players motivation/performances.
However, after seeing that a relatively strong line-up named in the previous round, combined with listening to he commentary of an entertaining game on the radio, and the efforts of the players to actually try to win… well that persuaded me to go to the game last night.
I go to a pub quiz in Barry most Tuesday evenings, but under normal circumstances it doesn't go ahead if City are home as the organiser is a diehard Bluebirds fan and several of the quiz regulars are supporters too. However, it went ahead as usual last night as none of the guys were going to the game, which surprised me. These are people who've been following the club for decades.
It transpires that all of them had encountered problems in recent weeks, either with their season tickets or with trying to get additional tickets for friends or family members, and as a result they decided to give last night's game a miss. A couple of them were genuinely angry about the situation. I didn't get the exact details, but these are guys in their sixties and seventies and it sounded like the technology side of things was proving a problem.
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