City average attendances from 88/9 to last season

This was mentioned on another thread, so here they are:

2007 - 3.627
2006 - 3.790
2005 - 3.389
2004 - 3.665
2003 - 3.763
2002 - 3.443
2001 - 3.692
2000 - 3.014
1999 - 3.154
1998 - 3.990
1997 - 3.014
1996 - 3.442
1995 - 2.482
1994 - 3.349
1993 - 3.268
1992 - 3.645
1991 - 4.285
1990 - 4.859
1989 - 2.671

Great stats Al. The last 5 years attendances have a greater average than the 11 before that. Oh for the glory years.

The population of Exeter is 110,000 or there abouts so approx 3% go to SJP...Thats the way i compare various teams attendences...A rough rule of thumb,i know,but it can give a idea of the intrest in a local team..

On the other end of the scale Burnley get fantastic crowds for the population (75,000) of the town...But i guess Burnley have a good football pedigree,whereas the Grecians..well..

1992 & 1993 were poor averages & the Grecians were in the equivalent of L1 playing the likes of WBA,Birmingham & Stoke,but of course it was a struggling side at the wrong end of the table...

The general public in Exeter have never been very intrested in whats happening at SJP & IF we went up & struggled,history suggests,we would probably not get anywhere near a 4k average...a sobering thought for the budget makers at the club,especially as we do not have a 'sugar daddy'

Oldsmobile-88 said:

The population of Exeter is 110,000 or there abouts so approx 3% go to SJP...Thats the way i compare various teams attendences...A rough rule of thumb,i know,but it can give a idea of the intrest in a local team..

On the other end of the scale Burnley get fantastic crowds for the population (75,000) of the town...But i guess Burnley have a good football pedigree,whereas the Grecians..well..

Click to expand...

Russ, difficult to have Burnley as a fair comparison. They only support their home town club. They are totally loyal and it is a rare sight to see any other team shirt in Burnley than their own. Whereas Exeter, like most other towns and Cities have supporters who follow two clubs, one successful/well known so they can talk about the Premiership to their friends and their home town when it suits.

Steady on Olds.

Burnley's a small town but it's got a well populated catchment area, including, oddly, a chunk of West Yorkshire. I once played with the census and (from memory) got their catchment area up to about 170,000 all to themselves, and about 80,000 each that they share with Blackburn and Halifax. Still, as you say, a well supported club.

You're right about the crowds for the Alan Ball years (92 and 93). This is post Italia 90, World in Motion, Gazza's tears and all that, with Gargoyle wins in the case of 93 and, as you say, Blues, West Brom, Stoke, Torquay and Bournemouth among well-supported visitors. Yet we never kicked back up over the 4,000 mark. Note, also, the Exe Rugby were doing next to nothing at this time too.

My view is that our support is more solid as a rock than hugely elastic. So long as we're doing something interesting, there'll be 3,000 at SJP. And that's great to know. If we're looking strong candidates for promotion there'll be 4,000 there. But I'm really not sure when I'd say we were nailed on for 5,000.

If it was up to me, I'd start next season (if we're in the BSP) budgeting for 4,000 crowds and go public on this. If gates fall short of that, then explain to the fans and Trust members that we're not getting the revenue at the turnstiles and we either need gates to increase, or somebody to make up the shortfall or we need to lower the wage bill...

Another fascinating fact is that from 1991 to 2003 we failed to finish higher than 12th.

Are the two connected??

Well, yeah, but have a nose at the gates from 93/94 when Jepson was firing us up towards the play-off spots. They were solid but not spectacular.

Ditto in our first seaosn after the 89/90 promotion. We were challenging early on (took almost 1,000 to Birmingham in midweek) but, from memory, we didn't get more than 4,000 home fans along.

Like I say, solid not elastic. There were some good gates early in 97/8 though when we were doing well at the top of what's now Lg2.

Oldsmobile-88 said:

The population of Exeter is 110,000 or there abouts so approx 3% go to SJP...Thats the way i compare various teams attendences...A rough rule of thumb,i know,but it can give a idea of the intrest in a local team..

On the other end of the scale Burnley get fantastic crowds for the population (75,000) of the town...But i guess Burnley have a good football pedigree,whereas the Grecians..well..

Click to expand...

2001 Census Population of Burnley 89,541, Burnley also runs into Nelson and that has a population of 29,000.

Exeters population in 2001 was 112,000 now 118,000.

Mind you, there's nothing else to do in Burnley apart from drink, watch football or race pigeons!

Alan,

Just out of interest, can you produce the same going back to 1970?

I am sure the attendances in the early eighties would have been less than 3000.