General Attendances

LeftSideLarry

LeftSideLarry

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I’m often critical about our home attendances, but this match popped up on my YouTube feed. It was the day after Jim Smith stepped down, meaning it was Darren Patterson’s first match in charge. Nice result, but look at that attendance figure.

I’ll never moan again about our crowds. (I will but it was a good way to end the post).

IMG_3450.jpeg
 
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We played Ebbsfleet at home the following week attendance 4,655. Not bad for a non league club. What is great about the current attendances so many kids being given incentives to come with family's. Thats the future..
 
That was the 2007-08 season which was a bit of a disaster in us attempting to get back into the League. It was a season where we never truly looked like going up or down - oddly, we've had very few of those in the last 15 years. 2012-13 runs it close for a season of nothingness. I'm sure that a season that had little riding on it from November onwards stymied any reason for more fairweather fans to go.

Our average attendance that season was 4,553 with a high of 5,900 against Crawley on Boxing Day. We even had two sub-4000 home attendances in early January against Altrincham and Weymouth.

Compare and contrast with the 2009-10 season that was competitive. The first round FA Cup game against Yeovil (who were two divisions higher) saw 6,144 attend. The average home attendance across the season was 5,730 (up 1,177 from 2007-08) with two 10,000+ matches (Luton and Rushden SF play-off) and just the one League attendance below 5,000 (a deadish rubber match with Wrexham at the end of the season on a Tuesday night).

Things are miles better now than in the Conference days.
 
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LeftSideLarry said:
I’m often critical about our home attendances, but this match popped up on my YouTube feed. It was the day after Jim Smith stepped down, meaning it was Darren Patterson’s first match in charge. Nice result, but look at that attendance figure.

I’ll never moan again about our crowds. (I will but it was a good way to end the post).

View attachment 16647
Click to expand...

This was an FA Cup 1st round game. If you allowed for 200 Northwich (probably ambitious!) then there was only circa 700 more home fans in the ground last Saturday. That game was 16 years ago. So an average increase of 44 more supporters per year since then. It's hardly Dragons Den levels of increased revenue and bums on seats :ROFLMAO:.

Having said all that, Rage Online states that our average attendance figure in the 2007-2008 season was 4553. We've come a long way since those desperately bad times in the Conference.
 
Wrexham was the one I remember as being sub 4...........i think the point made about 'nothing to play for' is completely valid. I guess that 3/4 seasons of finishing 15th in League one we'd actually get less than if we were relegated but doing well in League 2.....people like to watch winning football. This would of course change ST with big teams/support in the championship but even then the novelty would wear off eventually. The early 90's, when we were perennial lower tier 2 strugglers, saw lots of 6/7k averages and non sell outs even v Swindon

I do think our attendances have improved, but without looking i wouldn't've said much vs the mean (median???) of all 92 clubs. Historically our average would always be between 50-60 ish when in the league, with a slight rise or fall if we are in a league above or below.
 
I remember some very low home league attendances in the conference.
I don't have all the data, but I'd like to see a rolling 12 month average attendance graph which would smooth out the effect of big games. or perhaps seasonal averages taking out the top and bottom two attendances.
 
ExclusiveOxnews said:
Wrexham was the one I remember as being sub 4...........i think the point made about 'nothing to play for' is completely valid. I guess that 3/4 seasons of finishing 15th in League one we'd actually get less than if we were relegated but doing well in League 2.....people like to watch winning football. This would of course change ST with big teams/support in the championship but even then the novelty would wear off eventually. The early 90's, when we were perennial lower tier 2 strugglers, saw lots of 6/7k averages and non sell outs even v Swindon

I do think our attendances have improved, but without looking i wouldn't've said much vs the mean (median???) of all 92 clubs. Historically our average would always be between 50-60 ish when in the league, with a slight rise or fall if we are in a league above or below.
Click to expand...
I like your user name. Exclusive Ox news?
 
unification said:
That was the 2007-08 season which was a bit of a disaster in us attempting to get back into the League. It was a season where we never truly looked like going up or down - oddly, we've had very few of those in the last 15 years. 2012-13 runs it close for a season of nothingness. I'm sure that a season that had little riding on it from November onwards stymied any reason for more fairweather fans to go.

Our average attendance that season was 4,553 with a high of 5,900 against Crawley on Boxing Day. We even had two sub-4000 home attendances in early January against Altrincham and Weymouth.

Compare and contrast with the 2009-10 season that was competitive. The first round FA Cup game against Yeovil (who were two divisions higher) saw 6,144 attend. The average home attendance across the season was 5,730 (up 1,177 from 2007-08) with two 10,000+ matches (Luton and Rushden SF play-off) and just the one League attendance below 5,000 (a deadish rubber match with Wrexham at the end of the season on a Tuesday night).

Things are miles better now than in the Conference days.
Click to expand...
5,900 on Boxing Day - wow.
 
MarkG said:
I remember some very low home league attendances in the conference.
I don't have all the data, but I'd like to see a rolling 12 month average attendance graph which would smooth out the effect of big games. or perhaps seasonal averages taking out the top and bottom two attendances.
Click to expand...

It's probably not the granular detail you're after but this wiggly line from Wikipedia gives an indication for how attendances rise and fall over time.

Oxford_United_Average_Attendances_Since_1963.png
The higher the level, the bigger the attendance, that's pretty obvious.

Interesting that even at our lowest ebb in the Conference we were a better supported side than in the 1970s (when hooliganism was rife and football was less fashionable perhaps?). Obvious spike in attendances for the top flight years and a rise and fall of 1,000 fans or so when going between the second and third tiers in the 1990s - again, when football was more fashionable with the rise of the PL and Euro '96.

In more recent years, Wilder's last two seasons saw a dip which Appleton reversed. A minor dip under Clotet and KRs first season and the line started moving upwards again.
 
Side note - did a little digging into our opponents that day. They now play in the Midland League Premier Division (step 9!) They now groundshare at Witton Albion and their average attendance is a paltry 171.
 
I don't believe we've ever had a sub 2000 crowd at home in a league game unlike Reading who definitely have.
 
Jakeyboy13 said:
I don't believe we've ever had a sub 2000 crowd at home in a league game unlike Reading who definitely have.
Click to expand...
...well apart from the 2020/21 season...

Lowest before that was v Wigan I believe, late 70s or early 80s?
 
Jakeyboy13 said:
I don't believe we've ever had a sub 2000 crowd at home in a league game unlike Reading who definitely have.
Click to expand...

If we exclude COVID-impacted attendances, then no, we've never had below 2,000 fans for a League fixture.

2,526 for the visit of Chester City in 1980 is our lowest home attendance.

» Fixture

www.rageonline.co.uk www.rageonline.co.uk

Top 20 lowest attendances are here and it's a sorry mix of dead rubber FLT matches and Full Members Thingamajig games.

» AdHoc

www.rageonline.co.uk www.rageonline.co.uk

I clocked that our average attendance listed on RageOnline for this season thus far at home is 7,175. I thought that looked low and saw that the three Cup and Trophy matches were included in that which hauls the average down massively. Excluding games against MK Dons, Maidenhead and Chelsea U21s, the average League attendance this season is 8,994 across eight matches, a difference of 1,819 compared to the average for all matches.
 
I was there in November 1980 when 2,526 attended that home match v Chester.

In reality the ‘actual’ attendance looked to be about 1,500 on that cold wet afternoon. First home league win of 1980-81.

Joe Cooke with the winner.
 
West Oxon U’s said:
I was there in November 1980 when 2,526 attended that home match v Chester.

In reality the ‘actual’ attendance looked to be about 1,500 on that cold wet afternoon. First home league win of 1980-81.

Joe Cooke with the winner.
Click to expand...
My dad said the same thing, he couldn't believe the attendance when it was announced.
 
I was there that Chester City game. it was bleak.. In a funny way I was sort of chuffed ,to say I was Loyal enough to of turned up...
Bill Asprey manager..
 
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Mind you back in the Manor days , the ground was sometimes absolutely heaving , couldn't move.
5 minutes before the end , the tannoy announcer would say today's attendance is 5,050.
The whole ground would all look around in astonishment , NO WAY 😂.
I think it happened , up & down the country.
2000 would of crawled under the legs of people just at the London rd turnstiles😉
 
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