The crowd against Peterborough was somewhat disapointing.
Before people start getting on their high horse about this being another of my rants about attendances and that I should be aware that there is a recession on etc etc, what I am doing here is comparing this attendance against a comparable from last season.
Funnily enough exactly a year today on Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Dagenham & Redbridge arrived at St Mary's for an evening fixture, in the preceeding month Saints had been at home 3 times and in the coming 4 weeks after the game there were already a further 3 home fixtures scheduled (it would turn out to be 4 with an extra FA Cup Game) So at this time last year it was just as busy as now in terms of people having to pay out for tickets, if not more so.
The crowd for the Daggers game was 20,161 of which 242 were away fans, leaving a net figure of 19,919 home fans in attendance, on Tuesday night the gate of 21,350 included 325 Peterborough fans meaning 21,025 Saints fans in the ground.
To save you getting out a calculator, last night there were only 1,106 more Saints fans at the game than for the fixture a year ago, I find that a little poor.
Yes of course we have had bigger gates this season, but in the main half of the increase on the average attendance has been from extra away supporters, its fine to turn out to watch West Ham but the key is turning up for the lesser fixtures.
I find it amazing that last nights gate should only be 1,000 or so more, as mentioned last term was in the middle of a lot of home games, we had also had a bad start, indeed we sat 9th going into the game and prior to the win at Notts County on the Saturday we had been 14th, Dagenham werent attractive visitors, the game was always going to be a low gate.
A year on and we sit top of the league with a side playing some of the best attacking football we have seen in years, message boards are full of fans shouting how great things are, indeed in Peterborough it was guaranteed to have a few goals, yet the grand total of extra fans was barely a thousand, indeed the gate was even 827 less than for the visit of Ppeterborough last November .
Im puzzled as to why with this big feel good factor around the club there werent more there last night.
Yes the support has been good and we sit near the top of the Champonship highest average attendances, but Im not comparing us to the rest of the division, Im comparing us to ourselves last year and the increase in our success on the field was not matched by bums on seats last night.
So what was the reason for this, why arent didnt the fans respond in droves last night or indeed in most games aparrt from the West Ham fixture, the gate for Middlesbrough was decent, but that was pretty much a one off the Hammers game excepted, I want to see flowing attacking football and i want to see the ground filled to capacity, surely there is nothing wrong with that !