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 !     

Photo: Action Images

avonsaint added 11:57 - Nov 3 firstly,good debate nick but i have to disagree with you as in people not giving valid reasons for not going as i think all the reasons on here are valid to some people in one way or another.i dont know you personally so therefore don't know where you work, what you earn, or if you have kids etc but of course all these things effect peoples disposable income and at the moment without doubt people are on the whole a lot worse off than they were even last year, as for petrol and food not going up in the last 12 months i think you have got that wrong, but again how much depends on how much you use e.g if you can walk to work then you may not notice how much petrol has gone up, but say you travel to work in london i would say the cost of fuel has gone up at least £5 a day so over a week the cost of an adult ticket. so its not a matter of making excuses for people its a matter of pointing out what some of the reasons might be. as for why we had a full house for west ham and a lot less for peterboro as i said before, maybe people counted their pennies and decided they could only do one of the games and decided that west ham being our main challengers at the time as well as being a bigger team would be the one they would like to spend their cash on and get behind the team and try to cheer them on to victory. i also don't think the football bubble has burst and believe that if times get better people will return.

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FriskySaint added 13:37 - Nov 3 I doubt this is particularly relevant to the bigger picture but...when I went online to buy some tickets for the next few months about three weeks ago, the Peterborough game was showing as "SOLD OUT".
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bartley added 17:11 - Nov 3 Yes the attendance was disappointing, the possible reason might be that the West Ham match took place 17 days after the previous home match, the Peterborough match was only 4 days since the Middlesborough game. Money is tight and the prices at St. Mary's are quite a litle bit higher than other Championship Clubs, for example a Senior ticket at Derby was only £17.50, the cheapest at St. Mary's is £24.00. To find £48.00 over a weekend is not easy for some people!

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saintstowin added 18:57 - Nov 3 i think it is is quite sad (and completely incorrect) that some saints fans feel like bigger fans because they can and do get to more games than other fans. i hardly ever get there for similar family, money, distance reasons. my dad (saints fan for 65 years and counting) gets to even less and i think he'd make a decent case to be considered a 'proper' fan. i personally think it's great when we sell out, i have no negative feelings towards people who make it a capacity crowd. i also think 20k plus is pretty damn good and am proud to be one of that number whether i am there or not. let's face it, no one supports saints because they expect to win and have regular glory. when i get to saints v blackpool after planning ahead i'll love my second game of the season but will feel just as much a fan as when i'm nervous as anything keeping up with the scores every single time we play.

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Whatsforpud added 12:49 - Nov 4 Nick, one aspect to this which I don't think has been mentioned, is the unfortunate fact that the fixture list has pairs of home league games, as it has pairs of away league games. Playing Peterborough at home just after Middlesborough is unaffordable to some. I see that we have 3 more of these home pairings to come. I don't know if it is my memory, but these fixtures have become more common in the last few seasons than previously, when it was more of an alternate home/away arrangement.

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