1989 Cup Final - A horrible confession..

[SJ's Love Monkey]

What, you mean like last season?

I meant regularly Hammers fan!

 

[fatboy]

Thank f*** for Lee Martin.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

Yeah and if my auntie was my uncle

closely followed by...

if we established ourselves in the Premiership would attract 30,000 plus a game.

 

[SJ's Love Monkey]

closely followed by...

I was actually referring to your statement that you USED to get similar crowds to Palace mate, but i didn't expect you to understand.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

I was actually referring to your statement that you USED to get similar crowds to Palace mate, but i didn't expect you to understand.

I understood your "If my auntie was my uncle" jibe perfectly well Mr Palace Scum Love Monkey...

You were attempting to ridicule my well founded observations about our fanbase and potential crowds given a bit of relative success... (i.e. "if X happened then Y could be expected to follow...") - but then rather spoiled the effect by going on to make exactly the same point on Palace's behalf in your own post...!!!

but being aware of the sayings about the merits of arguing on the internet (e.g. "Even if you win the argument you're still ["from Croydon"]...") I will attempt reconciliation...

I am not a golden anorak historian but from memory in the late 70s we had similar 20,25,30,000+ gates when both doing well in the old Div 3 and Div 2 (which is not something that all clubs can boast...)

In the 80s and early 90s crowds generally were lower than either before or since and even when in Div 1 think we both would have experienced crowds only in the sort of 14-20,000 range (obviously when your "Team of the 80s" were doing well you would have had a period of higher crowds but presumably this dropped off again afterwards...) and then when down in Div 2 those crowds dropped to the 7-12,000 range for a while when both doing averagely... (at this time though there were lots of crowd figures that bear no relation to today's climate like 13,000 at Newcastle and 20,000 at Arsenal or Man United...)

since then as we all know our paths have temporarily diverged and similar comparisons have become difficult if not impossible...

I'm not interested in arguing detail about specific seasons or matches (Selhurst always had bigger capacity so sold out games would have been higher e.g. you probably had 40,000+ for Tottenham at home in 77/78 when we had 33,000...) but the similarity in the historical figures is there to see...

FWIW ("If my auntie...") I entirely agree with your statement about you getting 30,000 if established in the Premiership and with a suitable ground...

 

[SJ's Love Monkey]

I understood your "If my auntie was my uncle" jibe perfectly well Mr Palace Scum Love Monkey...

You were attempting to ridicule my well founded observations about our fanbase and potential crowds given a bit of relative success... (i.e. "if X happened then Y could be expected to follow...") - but then rather spoiled the effect by going on to make exactly the same point on Palace's behalf in your own post...!!!

but being aware of the sayings about the merits of arguing on the internet (e.g. "Even if you win the argument you're still ["from Croydon"]...") I will attempt reconciliation...

I am not a golden anorak historian but from memory in the late 70s we had similar 20,25,30,000+ gates when both doing well in the old Div 3 and Div 2 (which is not something that all clubs can boast...)

In the 80s and early 90s crowds generally were lower than either before or since and even when in Div 1 think we both would have experienced crowds only in the sort of 14-20,000 range (obviously when your "Team of the 80s" were doing well you would have had a period of higher crowds but presumably this dropped off again afterwards...) and then when down in Div 2 those crowds dropped to the 7-12,000 range for a while when both doing averagely... (at this time though there were lots of crowd figures that bear no relation to today's climate like 13,000 at Newcastle and 20,000 at Arsenal or Man United...)

since then as we all know our paths have temporarily diverged and similar comparisons have become difficult if not impossible...

I'm not interested in arguing detail about specific seasons or matches (Selhurst always had bigger capacity so sold out games would have been higher e.g. you probably had 40,000+ for Tottenham at home in 78/79 when we had 33,000...) but the similarity in the historical figures is there to see...

FWIW ("If my auntie...") I entirely agree with your statement about you getting 30,000 if established in the Premiership and with a suitable ground...

Moshe i couldn't agree more fella, football has changed i mean when Palace were in the top division under Venables as you quite rightly say we got 45,000 against Spurs, 43,000 against Arsenal and 46,000 versus Liverpool and Man Utd and even if we had a 50,000 capacity ground i seriously doubt we would attain those figures again.

Lets hope you get falmer real soon so we can rekindle some real rivalry again eh?

 

[Moshe Gariani]

Moshe i couldn't agree more fella, football has changed i mean when Palace were in the top division under Venables as you quite rightly say we got 45,000 against Spurs, 43,000 against Arsenal and 46,000 versus Liverpool and Man Utd and even if we had a 50,000 capacity ground i seriously doubt we would attain those figures again.

Lets hope you get falmer real soon so we can rekindle some real rivalry again eh?

agree about looking forward to Falmer... although I think the two most recent "renewals" at Selhurst have done a pretty good job of nourishing the "real rivalry" over the past few years...

the point about crowds is that I do think you can draw on past history to get an idea about the future... with you doing well in the top division (and with a big away allocation) Palace v Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool or Man United could easily sell 40,000+ tickets...

Are there ANY examples of clubs with historically strong fanbases who currently don't get decent crowds when doing reasonably well?

 

[SJ's Love Monkey]

agree about looking forward to Falmer... although I think the two most recent "renewals" at Selhurst have done a pretty good job of nourishing the "real rivalry" over the past few years...

the point about crowds is that I do think you can draw on past history to get an idea about the future... with you doing well in the top division (and with a big away allocation) Palace v Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool or Man United could easily sell 40,000+ tickets...

Are there ANY examples of clubs with historically strong fanbases who currently don't get decent crowds when doing reasonably well?

I was going to say Blackburn but i am not sure they have ever really had what you call a strong fanbase.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

I was going to say Blackburn but i am not sure they have ever really had what you call a strong fanbase.

exactly... they are often cited as a team whose support has dropped away but I don't think it was ever really there compared to the other big Lancashire clubs...

the one I've noticed is Preston... they don't seem to get that many even when doing well - not sure of their capacity though

 

[SJ's Love Monkey]

exactly... they are often cited as a team whose support has dropped away but I don't think it was ever really there compared to the other big Lancashire clubs...

the one I've noticed is Preston... they don't seem to get that many even when doing well - not sure of their capacity though

I can't ever remember Preston getting really big crowds to be honest, i may be wrong but they are not a club i associate with anything over 15,000 gates.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

I can't ever remember Preston getting really big crowds to be honest, i may be wrong but they are not a club i associate with anything over 15,000 gates.

yes, you're right... just had a quick look through some old programmes in my office and they were only getting 10,000 in the late 70s when doing OK and we were getting 20,000+... (so that kind of supports my argument about "potential"...)

Stoke are a team who I expect to get more than they do... but they were top of our league for most of 78/79 and only got 22,000 against us and 17,000 against you - so not that great really... and I think also explained by them not doing that well recently - they would still get 20,000 at the top of the Championship and sell-outs in the Prem...