Sales for Horsham are going well…

I’m saying this from memory, but I think there were around 3000 odd when we played Wimbledon last game of the season and then the same when we played Palace first game of the next season. The biggest home attendance one season in the 80s was the FA Cup replay against Aldershot, when there were around 8000 there. It wasn’t just us, as attendances were down all around the country, even at the clubs who claim they’ve always had massive attendances, mainly due to the levels of hooliganism at games. It’s easy to forget, 40 years on, how often there was trouble in the ground back then.

There was loads of trouble outside the ground and I’ve seen fighting with away fans in both the Ponty and the Brewery stand. And back then I was only a teenager, but I imagine the pubs weren’t a safe place to be. Barnsley also suffered greatly from Thatcher’s attack on the north. Our crowds were really good during the Allan Clarke/Norman Hunter period, but they fell dramatically after the miners went on strike. The crowds didn’t really increase until the second half of the promotion season, over 10 years later.

Friday’s shouldn’t trouble the record books though, because of the away support. If they are fetching 1,200 we should hopefully top 4000. But even that figure would be absolutely pathetic and the blame can only be pointed in one direction.

 

What's more worrying, is I have to totally agree with you there!.

 

Have to see how Storm Ciaran is.

 

It'll be gone by Friday night. Probably hyperbole anyway.

 

David Curry. ? Kieffer Moore. ? Bruce Dyer, ?

 

11 of us going, Friday night. The only one not going and could, doesn't do early rounds regardless. And it would have been a few more if not on holiday. It ain't going to be a big crowd. But that's not unusual. Quite a few will be waiting on the weather and will pay on the day. I guess 3k. (Including around 1k away fans if rumours are true.)

 

Its Currie isn't it lol.
And anyway, I think he's on about Dave Regis actually.

 

He was a red hot striker was David.
Al get mi coit.

 

I'm not going. I wouldn't have gone on Saturday or Sunday either. So there

 

If they hadn't forced everyone into the esl I would have gone

 

I don't remember any below 2000 in the 70s. We'd turned the corner then. I certainly remember being there with fewer than 2000 in the mid-60s though, before Ernest Dennis took over and signed Barrie Thomas and Johnny Evans. In our 1st round FA Cup tie v Southport, soon afterwards, we had an attendance of over 11000, even though we were in the lower reaches of Div 4.

 

I recall a game against Workington from the 1972/73 season where the attendance dipped below the 2000 figure.

 

We certainly turned a corner with the Thomas and Evans signings and continued that when the cultured Jimmy Robson arrived. We did slip back though and the gates dropped to the 2,000 level again (and below once or twice)

 

The lowest I can recall is for the Anglo-Italian Cup in the early 90's (where we naturally faced the famous Italian sides of Middlesbrough and Grimsby Town). The Grimsby game got an attendance of 1,627 at Oakwell. I also recall a news article saying that the heroes of the away tie at Middlesbrough were the 16 away fans who attended the game (could have been 11 or 13, but 16 seems to be the one that rings a bell).

 

This is the one I think I can remember, 1200 seems to in my mind

 

Thanks for the correction. I may have been teaching in Germany at the time and hence not been present. Jimmy Robson was a very good player. He played a lot of games in the First Division with Burnley.

 

We were privileged to see such a player in our red shirt. He was one of those veteran First Division players very happy to play at Fourth Division level which is a contrast to today’s prima donnas who would rather see out their fat contracts not playing at all.

 

I’ve seen us play Swansea in the mid 70s when the crowd was less than 1400