Looking at the national league- many of our 90s and 00s rivals in it

[the other bob wilson]

It's an interesting stat that, whenever we have dropped into the third tier, we've had better crowds when we've been going for promotion from the third tier than we did in being relegated.

I'd be interested to know why our crowds in the early 1970s halved from 1971 to 1973. It must have been more than just selling Toshack, more like going from a side that finished 3rd and just missed out on promotion, to a side avoiding relegation for a couple of seasons. The 70s and 80s were also a period of decline in attendances. Wolves went from an average of nearly 26k in 1980 to 4k in the third division 6 seasons later, yet had 14k in the same division 3 years later when they won it. I don't think it helped us that we were relegated at a time when the game across the UK was in such decline and our hooligan issues won't have encouraged others.

Our crowds have been more consistent over the last decade or so than probably at any other time in our history. We know we can virtually sell out our ground in the Premier League. Give us a season of decent football and challenging properly for the playoffs and we'll get well over 20k. There's not a shred of evidence to suggest our crowds would be decimated if we were relegated and had a good season the following year. In fact, most clubs get bigger crowds in the third tier if they're doing well than they did when they were relegated.

If you’re not old enough to have lived through the sale of Toshack, it’s easy to underestimate the impact it had. Looking back at in now, I’d say it was the moment when a lot of the older supporters worst fears about the club were realised - they thought all along that Toshack would be sold and they were proved right. Contrasting that, I was only fifteen at the time and still had the naivety of youth - I still do in a way because I believe the sale was inevitable but it should have been delayed until the end of 70/71 season.

At the time, we were a bigger club than Luton Town in terms of gates and potential (I’d say we still are today), but Luton made a conscious decision to hold on to their young goalscorer Malcolm McDonald until the end of 70/71. Now, I could make an argument on either side as to who was the better player out of the two, but if you asked Toshack and McDonald to show you their medals from their club careers, there’s no doubting that the ex City man has the more impressive collection.

However, by selling Toshack in November 1970, City got £110,000 and by selling McDonald in the summer of 1971, Luton got £180,000 for McDonald and that isn’t an accurate reflection of the relative abilities of the two players at that time.

So, City were not just perceived as being willing to sell, they were seen as eager to sell as those misgivings of the older fan base were realised. People generally stuck with the club for the rest of that season and the early games of 71/72, but it soon became obvious that the team was a shadow of its former self and that the sale of Toshack had not benefited the club on the pitch. With the team in sharp decline and Toshack’s replacement Alan Warboys mirroring this, it’s understandable that gatesdropped so drastically.


It was during this period that I began thinking that City would average about 25,000 if they ever became an established First Division club and I stuck with that opinion until I was proved wrong in 18/19 in the Premier League. We’d get crowds like that again if we were ever promoted again and they might be bigger again if the stadium was expanded., but you give any set of supporters the sort of dull and unsuccessful garbage that City home fans have had to watch since the grounds reopened in 21/22 and it’s obvious less are going to attend.

I agree with you, if we were to get relegated and this led to better results and more enjoyable football, you’d see crowds getting over the 20,000 mark and maybe higher.

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

If you’re not old enough to have lived through the sale of Toshack, it’s easy to underestimate the impact it had. Looking back at in now, I’d say it was the moment when a lot of the older supporters worst fears about the club were realised - they thought all along that Toshack would be sold and they were proved right. Contrasting that, I was only fifteen at the time and still had the naivety of youth - I still do in a way because I believe the sale was inevitable but it should have been delayed until the end of 70/71 season.

At the time, we were a bigger club than Luton Town in terms of gates and potential (I’d say we still are today), but Luton made a conscious decision to hold on to their young goalscorer Malcolm McDonald until the end of 70/71. Now, I could make an argument on either side as to who was the better player out of the two, but if you asked Toshack and McDonald to show you their medals from their club careers, there’s no doubting that the ex City man has the more impressive collection.

However, by selling Toshack in November 1970, City got £110,000 and by selling McDonald in the summer of 1971, Luton got £180,000 for McDonald and that isn’t an accurate reflection of the relative abilities of the two players at that time.

So, City were not just perceived as being willing to sell, they were seen as eager to sell as those misgivings of the older fan base were realised. People generally stuck with the club for the rest of that season and the early games of 71/72, but it soon became obvious that the team was a shadow of its former self and that the sale of Toshack had not benefited the club on the pitch. With the team in sharp decline and Toshack’s replacement Alan Warboys mirroring this, it’s understandable that gatesdropped so drastically.


It was during this period that I began thinking that City would average about 25,000 if they ever became an established First Division club and I stuck with that opinion until I was proved wrong in 18/19 in the Premier League. We’d get crowds like that again if we were ever promoted again and they might be bigger again if the stadium was expanded., but you give any set of supporters the sort of dull and unsuccessful garbage that City home fans have had to watch since the grounds reopened in 21/22 and it’s obvious less are going to attend.

I agree with you, if we were to get relegated and this led to better results and more enjoyable football, you’d see crowds getting over the 20,000 mark and maybe higher.

No chance

We would get far lower away support than we have in the Championship

Leeds , Swansea , Bristol City , Birmingham , Sunderland , West Brom , Coventry , Leicester , Ipswich have boosted our gates by at least 1500 on the occasions they have visited both our home attendance and away team numbers would drop

Cardiff City fans are incredibly fickle .....always have been

We like the big games .....no problem getting big crowds once in a while .....but a relegation to league one would see a big decline in gates , and the quality of football will be just one of the excuses not to attend

When we were in the basement last time we would get an occasional big crowd .....Burnley, Shrewsbury .....but the rest of the season would be poor

In fact sides like Plymouth had far better support than us at the same level , even Bristol Rovers

[the other bob wilson]

No chance

We would get far lower away support than we have in the Championship

Leeds , Swansea , Bristol City , Birmingham , Sunderland , West Brom , Coventry , Leicester , Ipswich have boosted our gates by at least 1500 on the occasions they have visited both our home attendance and away team numbers would drop

Cardiff City fans are incredibly fickle .....always have been

We like the big games .....no problem getting big crowds once in a while .....but a relegation to league one would see a big decline in gates , and the quality of football will be just one of the excuses not to attend

When we were in the basement last time we would get an occasional big crowd .....Burnley, Shrewsbury .....but the rest of the season would be poor

In fact sides like Plymouth had far better support than us at the same level , even Bristol Rovers

You're stuck in the eighties though Sludge, just like I was stuck in the early seventies when I used to say we'd average 25,000 in the old First Division. The difference between us is that while I'm prepared to recognise my mistake, you aren't. To be fair, a reason you can't is that you do not have the precedent to draw on that I do - I was proved wrong when we averaged 30,000 plus while getting relegated in 18/19 and there were some games where the gates could have been higher if the ground was big enough. We've not played in the lower divisions for twenty one years and so it's hard to know for sure what attendances would be, but precedents from the time you like to refer to show that our gates increased in the third tier after a relegation.

For example, we averaged 9,143 in getting relegated from the old Second Division in 74/75 and 11,702 in being promoted from the third tier a year later. In 81/82, we went down to Division Three with average crowds of 5,574 and were promoted twelve months later averaging 7,036. Of course, when our relegation from the second division was followed by another one to the Fourth like it was in 84/85 and 85/86 crowds fell by a third, but they rose by more when we were promoted to the third tier in 87/88 - in fact, our average when being relegated from the second tier in 84/85 (4,363) was twenty seven fewer than we averaged in getting promoted from Division Four in 87/88.

The overwhelming conclusion to be drawn from this is that in the era your opinions are based on, crowds increased following relegations if they were quickly followed by better results and, inevitably, more enjoyable football. I see no reason to believe this has changed in an era where football is much better attended than it was then and an increase in gate size of around twenty five per cent following a season when a club has been relegated is to be expected if they are doing well at the lower level.

Your opinions were formed at the time when gates were, generally speaking, as low as they've ever been in my lifetime - it's different now, for a start you get far more women and families going now than you did forty years ago when you had a Government and media that despised and demonised those who went to football matches.

https://www.european-football-statis...nengleague.htm