Attendances

[The Lone Gunman]

I can only think of three seasons which match this one in terms of the chances of Premier league/Division One football through automatic promotion in the time I've been supporting the club - 1970/71, 2010/11 and 2012/13. The average crowds for those seasons were 21,535, 23,194 and 22,999 respectively.

The average attendance for this season so far is 18,886, a miserable fourteenth best in the Championship. I suppose if we were to go up automatically, that figure would get pretty close to the attendance for 70/71 at least, but it's hard to see us matching the two seasons from this decade.

This season's average is skewed somewhat by the alleged 27,000+ attendance for the early-season game against Leeds. I'm pretty sure there wouldn't have been any similarly large attendances brought about by cheap/free tickets in the other three seasons you mentioned.

The comparison with other clubs in those seasons is interesting. In 1970/71, City had the 4th highest average in the division. In 2010/11 it was the 6th highest. In 2012/13 it was the 5th highest. As you say, this season Cardiff are currently 14th in the Championship attendance rankings. Whisper it quietly, but even Bristol City's average is almost 2,000 higher.

If you had to name the five main factors in this season's low attendances, what would they be?