The Best Fans In The Land And All The World?

To the great majority of City fans this is generally seen as a statement rather than a question, but there has been a growing concern about its credibility.

The one constant throughout our clubs rapid development has been the well maintained reputation of its fans. It has been viewed that the stature of our fans has been a catalyst for bringing in quality players, whilst players departing the club have echoed these sentiments and often sang the praises of the City faithful.

There has been questions raised recently however about the number of empty seats that consistently litter the City of Manchester stadium, especially in the cup competitions. The old proverb states that success brings adoration, even in the fickle minds of most football fans it seems a given that the better your team play then the greater the desire to watch them – hence my lack of understanding at the number of seats left empty and its correspondence with our degree of cup progression. Our league attendances over the last 4 years agree with this theory; in the 07-08 season we averaged just over 42,000, the 08-09 season just short of 43,00, in the 09-10 season 45,500 and this season we can boast  a healthy average league attendance of 47,177. Our fans sit fifth in the attendance table only behind United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Newcastle. With the defeat at Old Trafford this year our ambitions for the season changed, with most fans now content with a Champions league place and to focus our attention on the two remaining cup competitions. Despite this, we can only produce a contrasting average attendance for FA cup games which is a lowly 26,867 – 9th in the attendance table with teams above us including Leeds, Leicester, West Ham and Everton. So I remain unsure of what it will take to encourage fans to watch cup games, our best chance in winning silverware for a well documented 35 years and one game away from playing at Wembley just doesn’t seem to provide the motivation.

In our home Europa League games this year we average a slightly less shameful 35,700, which bridges the gap between FA cup games and Premier league games. This leaves us with the 7th highest attendance in the Europa League. To put the things into perspective the teams above us include Borrussia Dortmund, Benfica and Ajax. Looking at the other end of the scale the teams below us include Rubin Kazan who had an average attendance of just 400.

The common perception is that the main reason for our low attendance is financial; with the current economic climate of course this is understandable. With our FA cup tickets costing between £15 and £25 and our cheapest season tickets selling for £420, City offer one of the fairest ticket pricing schemes in the division with only considerably ‘smaller clubs’ being able to offer similar; West Brom, Blackpool and Stoke pose as good examples. To put that into context, the other teams currently making up the top four; United, Arsenal and Chelsea sell season tickets for £513, £893 and £550 respectively. Even taking the financial situation into account, clubs have still managed to bring in high FA cup attendances this year, Spurs and Leeds have both averaged over 35,000 along with the aforementioned ‘big three’ from the premier league. This considered, I would certainly refuse to solely blame finances for our poor turnouts.

The simple part as usual is identifying the issue, coming up with a solution would always be more problematic. One approach, taken by more and more clubs is to tie in a cup ticket scheme with the purchase of season tickets. This makes cup games compulsory for season ticket holders, some offering discounted rates. The negative aspects to this tie-in are again financial but the positive aspects are clear to see in the success that United have had operating the scheme. With an average FA cup attendance this year of 74,753 it is clear that the cup scheme is contributing to filling the ground more regularly. This could become more and more important as new financial fair play regulations are introduced and all the revenue from ticket sales will be considered.

If  City do progress to the Semi-finals or even further in the FA cup, I have no doubt that the club will easily distribute their full allocation, however there certainly needs to be some planning for the early stages of all cup competitions next year.

So do we really have ‘the best fans in the land and all the world?’ – I’d say about 25,000 of them.

Irony?