Re: Gaz Dean

By Stockingford Blue22/4 18:10Wed Apr 22 18:10:44 2026In response to Re: Gaz Dean

Views: 375

There must be many factors why attendence numbers are declining. When I started going down Manor park, mid sixties, we were getting 2/ 3 thousand for most league games. Obviously ,as records suggest ,cup games and local derbies ,attracted many thousands more. This was a time when there was full employment in the town, and many in industry worked saturday morning too. Many, including myself, would go home wash, change, grab something to eat, then make our way down to the cock and Bear or the Naggs for a pint, then on to the game. Not many owned their own cars in those days so getting to the likes of Cov, Leicester, Villa or West Brom meant a coach or train. By the mid seventies the average attendences were down to about 1600. Again, certainly under Geof Coleman ,some games would still attract twice that many. The football, late seventies was not such an attraction as hooliganism raised it's ugly head, and parents were loath to introduce their children to football games at that time. Also many of the better players at the Boro' like Lewis, Vincent, Sugrue,fleet and Phillips were released or transfered away. We just qualified, mid table, to gain entry to the newly formed Conference league but were soon
relegated back into the southern league. Under graham Carr, we rebuilt the team, won the league, and finished runners up in the conference. The crowds, however, did not return and apart from a couple of seasons under Brendon Phillips we have failed to attract barely a thousand. The last two seasons we have been top of the league, hence last seasons average of 600. What the average will be in a higher league depends on whether we are competing, or just maintaining a status quo.