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maccawozzagod · 27-08-2012, 17:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wynonie Harris

Just to serious for a moment, were the gates bigger in the conference? I certainly don't recall them being bigger. Apart from the first few weeks of the initial 2003/04 season and the final weeks of the 2005/06 season, I remember gates as being fairly mediocre with a lot of attendances around the 1,200 mark!

go on then I'll bite at this one.

2003/04 = 1792
2004/05 = 1537
2005/06 = 1894
Conference average = 1741

2006/07 = 2261
2007/08 = 1633
2008/09 = 1424
2009/10 = 1976 (play-offs til 8 games to go but includes all the begging bowl games)
2010/11 = 1859 (play-off season)
2011/12 = 1784 (1611 up to coley leaving and we were 1 point from play-offs)
League average 1822

so the title winning season of the Conference was worth only 102 more fans than season 1 in the Conf. Football League results are a bit all over the place to be honest. The skewed figures of season 1 include all the gawping away fans coming for their first view of us and also include the figure from the free game against Torquay (which would only make the difference of about 80 on the 'true' figure).
Was the 2008-09 figure affected much by the fall out from the betting scandal? The "wouldn't pay 'em with washers documentary? 2009/10 was the season that the tax fiasco story broke, so we gained a whole bunch of fans that maybe we shouldn't have done but possibly lost a heap following the saving of the club due to O'Neil/Whalley still being at the helm, who knows?

Looking at the figures in a nutshell a winning team does produce higher gates (and nobody really would dispute that would they), but the Football League has produced an average of only 81 more fans, and we have to assume the likelihood that away followings are greater in the FL.

AND, how many people were of the opinion back in the day that crowds were actually way higher than we were told, the notorious 'Eric factor'? AND how many times did we rumour whether we actually adding numbers to crowds in the FL to avoid the disparagment of sub-1000 crowds?