How come a club like Norwich...

[J-C]

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All attendances plummeted in the early 60's after the post war boom. The big games still drew 30-40k but run of the mill games were poor less than todays. It picked up again in the early 70's before dipping to new lows after our stint in Div1 when the East Terrace was closed for a season IIRC.

Our attendances now are up on the 80's, there were some big gates back then but many more at 4-6000.

Here you go up to 2004

52/53 29800
53/54 22020
54/55 22825
55/56 20224
56/57 18176
57/58 20206
58/59 14618
59/60 16559
60/61 15471
61/62 9763
62/63 9063
63/64 11972
64/65 13826
65/66 11664
66/67 12321
67/68 11475
68/69 10835
69/70 13128
70/71 10541
71/72 14057
72/73 16100
73/74 14339
74/75 13721
75/76 13797
76/77 10003
77/78 9647
78/79 9794
79/80 9564
80/81 4460
81/82 7445
82/83 7109
83/84 8334
84/85 7425
85/86 9135
86/87 9154
87/88 11590
88/89 13896
89/90 10705
90/91 9257
91/92 9841
92/93 8791
93/94 9718
94/95 8782
95/96 9842
96/97 10480
97/98 12029
98/99 10220
99/00 12070
00/01 10793
01/02 11588
02/03 10157
03/04 9127

Interesting, I notice you mentioned the fact that the bigger games got 25,000+, that;s how I remember it, almost doubling up from the 11-12,000. Now I don't think the away support from those bigger games would've brought 10,000+ with them, so where have all those extra fans gone?

[AndyM_1875]

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It's defo the case that some private schools such as Edinburgh Academy promote rugby, cricket and hockey ahead of football. Source - neighbour's son who is a Hibby and went there. In my opinion this is done deliberately to keep their precious offspring away from the oiks.

Perhaps that's true if you are only thinking about the likes of Merchiston Castle or Fettes which tend to be dominated by English Boarders. However Edinburgh private schools like Stewarts Melville/Watsons/Heriots with an overwhelming majority of locally based kids offer a spread of sports so that the you can try them all. There is nothing wrong with that.

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Also, in my experience, those with a private school education tend to support Hearts. I'd be interested to hear posters views on this.

Not true at all in my experience. Was a pretty general spread - Hibs, Hearts, Rangers, Celtic, Dunfermline were all represented. A lot of good Hibbies went to my school.

[JackRegan]

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Hibs were getting regular crowds of 25,000+ with a high of I think 30,000 in 1952ish. What has happened since then, are the kids not getting involved, well I don't think that's it cause there's plenty youngsters still going to the games. No difference in the catchment areas, still coming from surrounding parts of Edinburgh, so it's probably 2 things that have cased attendances to drop.

1. Team performaces and stability of the club.
2. More glory hunting fans either going to OF games, remember OF crowds have increased and our decreased since the mid 80's.


Apart from the occasional cup run, we haven't even come close to challeging the OF for the league, our performances have been up and down like a whores drawers and this frustrates supporters. Back in the 70's when we had a very decent team we were regularly splitting the OF and crowds were of a decent size. Nowadays the crowds show the expectancy of our team, very little money, regular changing of managers and our best players being sold to make ends meet and keep us out of debt. Youngsters grow up seeing the OF on tv every other game and regularly in Europe and want to support a winning team, so allegiance is switched and another supporter is lost.

JC,

If I could just pick you up on a couple of points. while you are correct that Celti'c average attendance has risen significantly since the 80's, most of this is down to teh phenomena of the Season Ticket, whereas before, fans could pick and choose their games. For example, from the early/mid 70's to the mid 90's and moving to teh new Celtic Park, the attendance varied dramatically form full houses against Rangers one week, to sub 20k v St johnstone the next, with crowds of 30k to 60k for games versus Hibs, hearts, aberdeed or whoever was doing well at that time.

As for Glory Hunters, well this is definately a problem for clubs other than Celtic and Rangers, however this phenomena IMO was first seen in the early/mid 80's when in Glasgow and the West, Aberdeen fans started springing up everywhere. Having said that, only around 7% of Celtic ST holders come from areas in Scotland further than 25 miles from Celtic Park. I think clubs in the North, East and South West lose more to Rangers than Celtic in this respect. Dumbarton, morton, Albion Rovers, Partick, Hamilton, Clyde and St Mirren lose more to Celtic however.

Much of the blame in ths lies with the media and its Glasgow centric view of the world - something which can also cause a LOT of friction between Celtic fans and sections of the media. Rather than write about other Scottish club's, they will simply make up negative nonsese about Celtic or print some pre arranged bluff from Murray.

Prices and all seater stadium don't help either. Most boys I grew up with, be it Celtic or Rangers, were taken to games as a "neutral" when their club was playing an away game in Dundee or Aberdeen. this no longer happens

More worrying is the saturation and absolutist coverage the EPL recieves, where you now have the scenario of it being veiwed as the centre of the football universe. First it was soem Scottich clubs being marginalised by the media, now its moving to the game in Scotland as a whole.

[JackRegan]

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Have you ever seen the dozens of buses leaving Haymarket etc every week either heading sor Darkheid or Greyskull. 30 buses with 40 in each bus, plus the hundreds going by train and cars, you're talking about 4-5,000 potential extra supporters Hibs or Hearts could have.

My next door neighbour is a Jambo and he wasn't happy when his laddie decided to support the Huns, another neighbour is a Celtic supporter purley because his family originally came from there and his dad was a Celtic man. Look around you and you'll see more and more kids wearing OF shirts, more than I ever remember seeing.

JC,

Sorry for appearing to get on your case, but Celtic have 4 supporters clubs in Edinburgh, two of who actually share a bus. The other is the Edinburgh and Heriot Watt Unis CSC, most of who's members are originally from Glasgow, Belfast and other parts of Ireland. I think you are overstating the numbers here . I would say celtic have less than 500 attending fans in Edinburgh, many of who will not be "natives" of Edinburgh, with maybe about 2,000/3,000 who claim to be Celtic fans.

Can't speak for der hun, but I reckon their numbers in Edinburgh will actually be less or around the same. Off the top of my head, I can count less than 20 CSCs from Caithness, Inverness, Grampian, Tayside, Dundee, Fife and the Lothians

[J-C]

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JC,

Sorry for appearing to get on your case, but Celtic have 4 supporters clubs in Edinburgh, two of who actually share a bus. The other is the Edinburgh and Heriot Watt Unis CSC, most of who's members are originally from Glasgow, Belfast and other parts of Ireland. I think you are overstating the numbers here . I would say celtic have less than 500 attending fans in Edinburgh, many of who will not be "natives" of Edinburgh, with maybe about 2,000/3,000 who claim to be Celtic fans.

Can't speak for der hun, but I reckon their numbers in Edinburgh will actually be less or around the same. Off the top of my head, I can count less than 20 CSCs from Caithness, Inverness, Grampian, Tayside, Dundee, Fife and the Lothians

That may be the official no. of supporters clubs, what about the non official ones. We have official buses going to away matches but also many more unofficial ones that also do them, infact we have just started an unofficial club in Corstorphine Edinburgh, which ran a couple of buses to the recent away games down south.
You've obviously never seen the hoardes of OF supporters entering Haymarket station every saturday going to the games. We're also talking about the surrounding areas Jack, Midlothian, E Lothian and even W Lothian, do you know the number of official supporters clubs from these areas.

Take your 500 missing fans, add the unofficial buses and then double that with the no. going by train and you'll easily get to 2,000.

[JackRegan]

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That may be the official no. of supporters clubs, what about the non official ones. We have official buses going to away matches but also many more unofficial ones that also do them, infact we have just started an unofficial club in Corstorphine Edinburgh, which ran a couple of buses to the recent away games down south.
You've obviously never seen the hoardes of OF supporters entering Haymarket station every saturday going to the games. We're also talking about the surrounding areas Jack, Midlothian, E Lothian and even W Lothian, do you know the number of official supporters clubs from these areas.

Take your 500 missing fans, add the unofficial buses and then double that with the no. going by train and you'll easily get to 2,000.

I know that as a result of much of Scotland's mining communities moving from parts of Ayrshire and North and East Glasgow through to Mid Lothian, there would be a lot of OF fans moving through - for instance Celtic seem to have a lot of fans in Prestonpans.

CSCs in the Lothians I can think of: Edinburgh No.1, Brother Walfrid CSC, E&HW Uni CSC, South Edinburgh CSC, Dalkeith CSC, Musselburgh CSC, Bathgate and Armadale CSC.

Not sure about unoffical ones as they would not be able to get tickets for away games - I used to be a convenor of a bus and these were the ones I recognised.

Also, you're right I have never seenthe amount of Celtic fans at Haymarket on a Celtic home game.

What does surpirse me though is the amount of kids/teenagers who come from, lets just say "non traditional Celtic families", i.e a combination of West Coast, Working CLass and Catholic, supporting Celtic. Apparently places like South Queensferry, Linlithgow, Dunblane, Bridge of Allan etc (not yer usual Celtic haunts it has to be said) have growing numbers of Celtic fans.

having said that, I do think the influence Celtic (and Rangers) have outwith their tradition heartlands is over stated and I think its more a case of the game losing people as opposed to the individual clubs.

[J-C]

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I know that as a result of much of Scotland's mining communities moving from parts of Ayrshire and North and East Glasgow through to Mid Lothian, there would be a lot of OF fans moving through - for instance Celtic seem to have a lot of fans in Prestonpans.

CSCs in the Lothians I can think of: Edinburgh No.1, Brother Walfrid CSC, E&HW Uni CSC, South Edinburgh CSC, Dalkeith CSC, Musselburgh CSC, Bathgate and Armadale CSC.

Not sure about unoffical ones as they would not be able to get tickets for away games - I used to be a convenor of a bus and these were the ones I recognised.

Also, you're right I have never seenthe amount of Celtic fans at Haymarket on a Celtic home game.

What does surpirse me though is the amount of kids/teenagers who come from, lets just say "non traditional Celtic families", i.e a combination of West Coast, Working CLass and Catholic, supporting Celtic. Apparently places like South Queensferry, Linlithgow, Dunblane, Bridge of Allan etc (not yer usual Celtic haunts it has to be said) have growing numbers of Celtic fans.

having said that, I do think the influence Celtic (and Rangers) have outwith their tradition heartlands is over stated and I think its more a case of the game losing people as opposed to the individual clubs.

That's 8 supporters clubs, say running 3 buses each at 40 per bus = approx 800, double that for the train supporters and you're nearly at 2,000.
I don't think I've seen so many kids in Edinburgh wearing OF shirts as I have in the past 4-5 years, my next door neighbour who's a Jambo was very upset when his son declared himself a Rangers fan a few years back.

Also the no. of people who support the OF due to parentage or grandparents etc coming originally from Glasgow, never going to the games mind cause they're in Glasgow and too hard to get to, even though ER and PBS are a 20 mins bus journey away.

I do think less people are getting involved in football nowadays and kids have more things to do on saturdays compared to 30 -40 years ago but you can't deny the glory hunters are getting more each year, look at Man U, famous for having more supporters outside Manchester than within it.

[Liberal Hibby]

Taking London Hearts and Wakeyhibee's figures together the early 80s really was the nadir for Edinburgh football crowds:

Hibs

79/80 9564
80/81 4460
81/82 7445
82/83 7109
83/84 8334
84/85 7425

Hearts

79/80 5512
80/81 6534
81/82 4256
82/83 5453
83/84 10102
84/85 10016

And if the 79/80 figure for Hibs was held up by the 'George Best' effect things would have been even worse.

[jgl07]

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Hibs were getting regular crowds of 25,000+ with a high of I think 30,000 in 1952ish. What has happened since then, are the kids not getting involved, well I don't think that's it cause there's plenty youngsters still going to the games. No difference in the catchment areas, still coming from surrounding parts of Edinburgh, so it's probably 2 things that have cased attendances to drop.

1. Team performaces and stability of the club.
2. More glory hunting fans either going to OF games, remember OF crowds have increased and our decreased since the mid 80's.


Apart from the occasional cup run, we haven't even come close to challeging the OF for the league, our performances have been up and down like a whores drawers and this frustrates supporters. Back in the 70's when we had a very decent team we were regularly splitting the OF and crowds were of a decent size. Nowadays the crowds show the expectancy of our team, very little money, regular changing of managers and our best players being sold to make ends meet and keep us out of debt. Youngsters grow up seeing the OF on tv every other game and regularly in Europe and want to support a winning team, so allegiance is switched and another supporter is lost.

As has been pointed out, Hibs could pull in very big crowds of up to 45,000 in the 1970s, usually against Celtic, Rangers or Hearts, the general attendance level was no higher than now and in some cases lower.

In 1972-73 for example, Rangers drew a crowd of 33,356; Hearts 21,221; Celtic 45,443.

The home matches against Arbroath drew only 7,000; Motherwell 8,614; and Airdrie 10,000.

The last time that Hibs split the OF was 1994-95 which co-incided with their lowest average crowd of the last twety years at 8,782.

The relegation season saw some of the best average crowds over the same period at 12,029.

[J-C]

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As has been pointed out, Hibs could pull in very big crowds of up to 45,000 in the 1970s, usually against Celtic, Rangers or Hearts, the general attendance level was no higher than now and in some cases lower.

In 1972-73 for example, Rangers drew a crowd of 33,356; Hearts 21,221; Celtic 45,443.

The home matches against Arbroath drew only 7,000; Motherwell 8,614; and Airdrie 10,000.

The last time that Hibs split the OF was 1994-95 which co-incided with their lowest average crowd of the last twety years at 8,782.

The relegation season saw some of the best average crowds over the same period at 12,029.

I agree but funny how the OF support has increased considerably since the 70's and 80's and the rest of us have stayed the same or even dropped.

[Joe Baker II]

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Yes I agree with you, the point I was trying to make which I think has been lost is the reasons both Norwich and Celtic get 'good crowds' are for completely different reasons:

Norwich get good crowds because they are well supported in their local area (Norwich & Norfolk as a whole) this is mostly due to their isolation and lock of competition.
Celtic get big crowds, yes they are from a big city, they attract a huge number of 'glory hunters', people who want to follow a team that wins a lot which you will always get in whatever country your in, but the sectarian element is a huge factor in drawing theirs (and Rangers) support in Scotland.

I disagree to a point that Scottish clubs support (not just Hibs) is not as big as it could/should be in comparison to to some English clubs because of the product on offer. Some folk are too quick sometimes to undermine the Scottish game, which I think is unfair & it compares well to English football IMO.

IF the product on offer is an issue then that again comes down to the OF's domination keeping other clubs back from from fulfilling their potential. Its a vicious circle.
In conclusion, its the OF that are the reason for any lack of competition and low crowds at certain other clubs and the reason why the OP asked why a club like Norwich will end the season with a probable average attendance about 10K more than ours.
OF GTF

Will resurrect this thread having just looked at Saturday's crowds in Scotland and the Football League which think show that Norwich not a typical case to compare oursleves against:

In 6 Division 1 (2) Hibs official crowd of 13,426 was exceeded in 6 games, 6 home teams attracted less. Only 3 games (Newcastle, Forest, Ipswich) has substantially larger attendances.

In Division 2 (3) no games exceeded out attendance and only one (Huddersfield who are former champions) were close - albeit the 4 teams (Leeds, Norwich, Charlton, Southampton) who may have exceeded 13,000 were all away from home. 6 games had smaller crowds than the SPL's smallest crowd on Saturday and for 5 of these there were higher crowds in Scottish Division 1 (2) on Saturday, also rumours that Raith v Dundee official crowd of just under 5,000 was significantly understated.

In Division 3 (4) no games other than Bradford (who had 11,000 albeit a club known for overstating attendances) were close to Hibs crowd and in fact only Grimsby was even close to the SPL's smallest crowd on Saturday (St Johnstone). The Scottish Division 1 (2) had crowds that exceeded 9 out of 12 of the Division 3 attendances on Saturday.

[The Old Brigade]

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Taking London Hearts and Wakeyhibee's figures together the early 80s really was the nadir for Edinburgh football crowds:

Hibs

79/80 9564
80/81 4460
81/82 7445
82/83 7109
83/84 8334
84/85 7425

Hearts

79/80 5512
80/81 6534
81/82 4256
82/83 5453
83/84 10102
84/85 10016

And if the 79/80 figure for Hibs was held up by the 'George Best' effect things would have been even worse.

Caveat is suspicion clubs understated attendances at that time though think 1981-82 were lowest recorded attendnaces in Scotland.

Don't think you are fullyright about Best effect - our crowds were down from 1978-79, season before Best and fell further during his second season (though he did not play much) although that was obviously down to relegation. Though has to be acknowledged that he was a crowd puller at other grounds and our away support increased.

I see from the stats our crowds went down 20% when we were relegated in 1997, this should not come as a surprise but it is astonishing how many Hibs fans genuinely believe they got increased crowds in Division 1.

And would be interested in any club historians could account for1/3 drop in attendances from 1961-63?

[Andy74]

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I see from the stats our crowds went down 20% when we were relegated in 1997, this should not come as a surprise but it is astonishing how many Hibs fans genuinely believe they got increased crowds in Division 1.

We got virtually no away support and certainly did not have the benefit of 6 old firm and hearts visits a season.

I think the actual Hibs suppport was certainly not down and perhaps up a bit over that season.

[Ray_]

Talking of Norwich, Lambert & management team have left Col U to join the canaries, Lambert's getting slaughtered in this part of the world.

[Part/Time Supporter]

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As has been pointed out, Hibs could pull in very big crowds of up to 45,000 in the 1970s, usually against Celtic, Rangers or Hearts, the general attendance level was no higher than now and in some cases lower.

In 1972-73 for example, Rangers drew a crowd of 33,356; Hearts 21,221; Celtic 45,443.

The home matches against Arbroath drew only 7,000; Motherwell 8,614; and Airdrie 10,000.

The last time that Hibs split the OF was 1994-95 which co-incided with their lowest average crowd of the last twety years at 8,782.

The relegation season saw some of the best average crowds over the same period at 12,029.

Capacity was severely restricted that year (both end stands were being built)

[NAE NOOKIE]

I only have to look out of my Galashiels living room window to see the OF affect. Loads of kids running about with OF tops on and not a Hibs or Yam top to be seen. Its even worse on a sunny day in the town centre, though you do see the odd Man Utd top.

The population of what should be the normal OF catchment area, as far as I am aware, is around 1,000,000.

So if you take the average home gate of both the ugly sisters together of around 100,000 that means that 10% of people in that area go to football every fortnight. That doesnt even include supporters of Partick, Clyde, Morton, St Mirren etc.

Not a chance that that will be the case, so the chances are that the thoery that they filch significant support from Edinburgh and elsewhere does stand up IMO.

The thing that really does bug me is when any OF spokesman comes out with their " we subsidise the rest of Scottish football " nonsense.

If the total of their fans who dont have a 'G' in their postcode went to see their home town clubs on a Saturday I would guess that several East Coast clubs would see an increase of around 5% or more on their average attendance ( Fife clubs around 10% ) and the OF would be down by around 30% each.

[cockneymike]

"The last time that Hibs split the OF was 1994-95 which co-incided with their lowest average crowd of the last twety years at 8,782."

If I remember rightly that was the season we were building the two end stands, so the capacity was dramatically reduced for the last 8 games or so. I also remember bolting out of school sharpish to get there at half time to see us playing Motherwell (?) at 3pm on a Wednesday as we didn't have floodlights at the time!

[cockneymike]

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I only have to look out of my Galashiels living room window to see the OF affect. Loads of kids running about with OF tops on and not a Hibs or Yam top to be seen. Its even worse on a sunny day in the town centre, though you do see the odd Man Utd top.

I don't disagree, but could that also be a feature of the fact that they're the only football jerseys in their local shop?

As Confuscious once said: What comes first, the fan or the kid wearing the jersey?

[NAE NOOKIE]

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I don't disagree, but could that also be a feature of the fact that they're the only football jerseys in their local shop?

As Confuscious once said: What comes first, the fan or the kid wearing the jersey?

Good point.

But what are the rest doing about it.

Even if Hibs stuck up a poster in Gala with ' support your local pro team ' on it it would be a start. No?

[cockneymike]

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Even if Hibs stuck up a poster in Gala with ' support your local pro team ' on it it would be a start. No?

Quite possibly, but I think it comes down to success or glory; if/ when we have a team that can consistently get into Europe/ be on the telly, win trophies more regularly than every 20 years, and edge closer to the OF, the fans will come.

I think that there are tens of thousands of people that would love to support a non OF team that were winning and playing well, but it's about consistenly doing that over 4 or 5 years, and then people would get into a habit of supporting Hibs. The problem is that in the last 20 years, the OF's dominance has been so great that they have battered everyone else into submission, and the habit of supporting your local team has, for many people, been broken.

I think that that can happen if we finish the stadium and get the team playing well, but unfortunately it takes time and there is no silver bullet.

[NAE NOOKIE]

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Quite possibly, but I think it comes down to success or glory; if/ when we have a team that can consistently get into Europe/ be on the telly, win trophies more regularly than every 20 years, and edge closer to the OF, the fans will come.

I think that there are tens of thousands of people that would love to support a non OF team that were winning and playing well, but it's about consistenly doing that over 4 or 5 years, and then people would get into a habit of supporting Hibs. The problem is that in the last 20 years, the OF's dominance has been so great that they have battered everyone else into submission, and the habit of supporting your local team has, for many people, been broken.

I think that that can happen if we finish the stadium and get the team playing well, but unfortunately it takes time and there is no silver bullet.

Agree with the stadium bit, if kids see a ground like the ones they see on the telly it does have an impression on them.

And a team to go with it would be even better.