OutByEaster? Posted April 26 Moderator Share Posted April 26 6 minutes ago, blandy said: It wasn’t 42,789, like you say the club public reporting of attendances is bobbins. But that’s more than the capacity of the ground. That would depend on who you ask for the capacity I'd guess -whether you configure your hospitality rooms for comfort, luxury or the fire limit for example will have a say, whether you're counting Emi's family in a box and so on. Lerner would often report 42,788 as capacity, even though there was a suggestion that the figure might not be an absolute - the whole thing is unnecessarily murky. In theory you should be able to jettison the figures from the papers and the websites and the Beeb and just go with what the club and league are declaring - except in our case of course, where those are different things. I'm quite happy with any number, but it'd be nice if we only had one. I wonder if it's the same at other clubs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted April 26 Moderator Share Posted April 26 Just now, OutByEaster? said: That would depend on who you ask for the capacity I'd guess -whether you configure your hospitality rooms for comfort, luxury or the fire limit for example will have a say. Lerner would often report 42,788 as capacity, even though there was a suggestion that the figure might not be an absolute - the whole thing is unnecessarily murky. In theory you should be able to jettison the figures from the papers and the websites and the Beeb and just go with what the club and league are declaring - except in our case of course, where those are different things. I wonder if it's the same at other clubs. For what it’s worth I use the Premier league handbook which they produce each season, which contains all the rules, clauses, and minutiae for each member club. This year’s reports 42,530 as VP capacity for PL games. They get those figures from the clubs. A pdf is available here https://resources.premierleague.com/premierleague/document/2024/03/04/0910e1b3-f94a-41a5-9818-6e1b5c961a9a/PL_Handbook_2023-24_DIGITAL_26.02.24-v3.pdf 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted April 26 Moderator Share Posted April 26 1 minute ago, blandy said: For what it’s worth I use the Premier league handbook which they produce each season, which contains all the rules, clauses, and minutiae for each member club. This year’s reports 42,530 as VP capacity for PL games. They get those figures from the clubs. A pdf is available here https://resources.premierleague.com/premierleague/document/2024/03/04/0910e1b3-f94a-41a5-9818-6e1b5c961a9a/PL_Handbook_2023-24_DIGITAL_26.02.24-v3.pdf It's the 'from the clubs' bit that we can't rely on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted April 26 Moderator Share Posted April 26 1 minute ago, OutByEaster? said: It's the 'from the clubs' bit that we can't rely on. Well, yes. But… Before the season starts and before someone with control freakery or whatever starts getting his knickers in a twist, it’s a reasonably safe assumption to accept the declared capacity to the League by the club, as the actual operating capacity. Safety certificates and so on are based on the number of people permitted to attend. It’s true that in-season changes could theoretically occur- the opening of a new stand, for example, but in our case that’s not happened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted April 26 Moderator Share Posted April 26 1 minute ago, blandy said: Well, yes. But… Before the season starts and before someone with control freakery or whatever starts getting his knickers in a twist, it’s a reasonably safe assumption to accept the declared capacity to the League by the club, as the actual operating capacity. Safety certificates and so on are based on the number of people permitted to attend. It’s true that in-season changes could theoretically occur- the opening of a new stand, for example, but in our case that’s not happened. It is listed as "at the start of the season". I guess if the same people give you two different answers to the same question then there's never going to be clarity. The club have said that capacity is 42,530 and the club have also said there has been an attendance of 42,789. For what it's worth, I suspect capacity flexes slightly based on all sort of things and that someone went out of their way to make sure the City game was recorded as one more than the next highest attendance for reasons that weren't based on counting tickets sold. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted April 26 Moderator Share Posted April 26 Just now, OutByEaster? said: It is listed as "at the start of the season". I guess if the same people give you two different answers to the same question then there's never going to be clarity. The club have said that capacity is 42,530 and the club have also said there has been an attendance of 42,789. For what it's worth, I suspect capacity flexes slightly based on all sort of things and that someone went out of their way to make sure the City game was recorded as one more than the next highest attendance for reasons that weren't based on counting tickets sold. Fair enough. You’re quite possibly correct in your suspicion. Me, I’m not disagreeing, just looking at it from a different angle. In essence that the Man City attendance was not the number in the programme and was much, much more likely to be that reported by the Premier league and the media (BBC etc). It’s only this season that we’ve had this ludicrous situation of someone up on high having a thing about concealing or exaggerating or tweaking attendance numbers. They used to knock them down when I were a lad, for tax reasons, but terraces are long gone. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted April 26 Moderator Share Posted April 26 Yep, I reckon if I were picking right now I'd probably go with the Premier League figure not the club's one. Which is disappointing in its own way. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts