Attendances in the '60s and '70s [Archive]

sonofstan

10/10/2006, 4:47 PM

It is a 'fact' often bandied about that attendances at LoI matches in the 60s and 70s were mythically huge - my first experience of LoI football was in St. Mels in the mid '70s - I remember biggish -5,000? - crowds when Rovers and Bohs came around, but otherwise no bigger than most EL games now.

It is my suspicion that while some games -Dublin derbies, Cup finals - would have attracted much bigger crowds than they do now, run of the mill games were relatively sparsely attended. Has anyone any concrete, unaddled evidence, or even some figures?

Dodge

10/10/2006, 5:35 PM

Look at the size of the grounds FFS, there's no way Richmond ever held more than 7-8,000 (and I'm not saying it reached that). Its the same throughout the league.

Billy Lord

10/10/2006, 10:41 PM

At Shamrock Rovers when I was a kid, the big crowds were bigger - 20,000+ for vital league and FAI Cup games - but games against less attractive opposition meant crowds of 'only' 6-10,000.
What was amazing was how rapidly attendances dipped in the early 1970s. I remember 22,000 at Milltown - the place was jammed - for a game against Cork Hibs. Two years' later we played Dundalk in front of about 600.

Royfor

11/10/2006, 9:15 AM

I remember Cork Hibs v Cork Celtic games from that era attracting 22,000+ All ticket Affairs in particular at Flower Lodge when both side were closing in on the League Title.
Turners Cross would squeeze 14,000 in..back in the Day!

DonegalDub

11/10/2006, 9:23 AM

Finn Harps got big crowds in the early 70s...The difference with crowd sizes nowadays is ground capacities for safety reasons, TV football (no live matches back then ...only edited highlights on a Saturday night) and lack of other entertainment venues.

Dodge

11/10/2006, 10:07 AM

That Waterford v Pats game is a cup final so doesn't really count (BTW that was the Pats crowd...)

dcfcsteve

11/10/2006, 10:09 AM

heres a pic of waterford v pats in 1980,
(look at crowd in back round)
http://www.trueblues.zoomshare.com/album/BLUES%20PICS/images/529b0c582ac17a109432170c816bcdc9_11249013020/image.jpg

and another one of waterford v cork hibs
http://www.trueblues.zoomshare.com/album/BLUES%20PICS/images/3bd11865cb9c7c0f91ea74472cf115c8_11327640940/image.jpg

Are they not Cup Finals in Dalymount ? I agree that attendances have dipped since the halcyon years - but Finals do nothing to prove that.

2005 FAI Cup Final = over 25,000 attendance. Highly likely to be more than in those 2 games/pictures you've posted (Dalymount's capacity was below that figure in those days if I recall correctly).

sonofstan

11/10/2006, 10:16 AM

Are they not Cup Finals in Dalymount ? I agree that attendances have dipped since the halcyon years - but Finals do nothing to prove that.

2005 FAI Cup Final = over 25,000 attendance. Highly likely to be more than in those 2 games/pictures you've posted (Dalymount's capacity was below that figure in those days if I recall correctly).

First game i remember being at in Dalymount - an international in '75 - the capacity was 29,000 I think? (not including the shed roof)

dcfcsteve

11/10/2006, 10:19 AM

First game i remember being at in Dalymount - an international in '75 - the capacity was 29,000 I think? (not including the shed roof)

It wasnt that high when City crammed three-quarters of the place for the 1989 Cup Final. We'd around the 15-16,000 mark crammed into the terraces Hillsborough-stylee - maybe slightly higher - but Dundalk had a poor turn-out of only a few thousand behind one of the nets.

Someone take a wee duke on The Dalymount Trust website to confirm..... :)

OneRedArmy

11/10/2006, 10:22 AM

oriel

11/10/2006, 10:34 AM

I think the 60`s was when loi football hit its peak attendance wise. The History of Dundalk FC book out 2 years ago reported a crowd of 22,000 for the Shield Final of 1966 v Shamrock Rovs in Oriel. There was a great photo in the book of the place jam packed and new stand under construction.

Early 70`s with mass emigration saw most clubs report almost collapse in support and we were back to low thousands or high hundreds, but i think things improved mid/late 70`s.

The 80`s weren`t great for crowds. rovs/dundalk/athlone/limerick the main title winners of the decade (and bohs) would have all struggled to get 3 or 4,000 and I can recall an all time low in 1987 when less than 10,000 turned up at Dalymount for the FAI Cup final between Dundalk and Rovers.

A year later 20,000 were in the ground for Dundalk v Derry, (mainly due to derry mass support) and Cork v Derry a year late also got a similar crowd, then St Francis v Bray 29,000 is still a modern day record, after that cup finals fizzled out at between 10 to 15,000 on avg.

euro games from our side, i can recall the following

79 v celtic 22,000
81 v spurs 18,000
82 v liverpool 17,000
88 v ajax 5,000

Def the 60`s were the hey day. Our more senior contributors will know more........................

BohsPartisan

11/10/2006, 10:38 AM

Wasn't there 24,000 at last years' cup final?

Sheridan

11/10/2006, 10:46 AM

Interesting that the fall off was so dramatic. Did this coincide with the start of live English football being broadcast? That's the orthodoxy, I'm not sure how much truth there is in it. Sonofstan's post is a salient one, the theory is just too neat to be accepted unreservedly. I'd wager that most of the figures in this thread are vastly inflated, particularly in an age when attendances went unrecorded (how things change, eh) and terracing militated against accurate estimates. My dad used to watch Pat's in the 50s and 60s and the attendances he reported were obviously, as Dodge noted, implausible.

Calcio Jack

11/10/2006, 10:55 AM

Well if you think crowds are poor now... in 1973 (i think, Billy L will confirm) went to see Rovers v Athlone on a Satuday afternoon in Milltown... the crowd that day was a mighty 61 ... we won 1-0 . That day for me and anyone who was there is like our "GPO" momnet... proud to be able to say we attended... I bet Billy Lord (both of them) was there

SunnySweeney

11/10/2006, 10:59 AM

No urban myth here - Attendances in the 1970 thru 1975 period (earliest I can remember) were a solid 10K with routinely 15K/20K + for bigger games. Attendances in Cork fell off with the arrival of cable TV but more so with mass disillusion over the demise of dearly beloved Cork Hibernians and Cork Celtic in '76 and '79.

Pablo

11/10/2006, 11:28 AM

It wasnt that high when City crammed three-quarters of the place for the 1989 Cup Final. We'd around the 15-16,000 mark crammed into the terraces Hillsborough-stylee - maybe slightly higher - but Dundalk had a poor turn-out of only a few thousand behind one of the nets.

Someone take a wee duke on The Dalymount Trust website to confirm..... :)

You played Cork City in the 1989 Cup final and i can assure you the crowd was 50/50 because i was there

Dundalk :rolleyes:

Pablo

11/10/2006, 11:29 AM

Wasn't there 24,000 at last years' cup final?

yeah. 23,000 Drogs fans according to them.....

sonofstan

11/10/2006, 11:30 AM

That's the orthodoxy, I'm not sure how much truth there is in it. Sonofstan's post is a salient one, the theory is just too neat to be accepted unreservedly. I'd wager that most of the figures in this thread are vastly inflated, particularly in an age when attendances went unrecorded (how things change, eh) and terracing militated against accurate estimates. My dad used to watch Pat's in the 50s and 60s and the attendances he reported were obviously, as Dodge noted, implausible.

That's my feeling alright - I think in the 60s and into the 70s football was still the mass sport in all of our cities except Galway and in the football towns - Dundalk and Drogheda, Athlone, Sligo - in a way that's not true now; nevertheless, for a variety of sociological reasons that go back to the dawn of the game, the habit of regular attendance was never as deep rooted here as in Britain or even the North.

Sheridan is right about the unreliability of memory and estimates based thereon; not 3 years ago most Cork fans thought their attendances were way in excess of what they actually were; 3 decades will multiply the index of unreliability. I know we all stood closer together, than modern standards of safety and personal hygiene would allow, and peeed where we stood - or on the trouser leg in front - but i would still hazard a guess that - outside of Rovers, the Cork clubs, Waterford (in the late 60s) and Dundalk - attendance probably weren't even double what they are now. And, as Calcio Jack says above, there were a great many 3 men and a dog occasions.

bohs til i die

11/10/2006, 12:14 PM

Are they not Cup Finals in Dalymount ? I agree that attendances have dipped since the halcyon years - but Finals do nothing to prove that.

2005 FAI Cup Final = over 25,000 attendance. Highly likely to be more than in those 2 games/pictures you've posted (Dalymount's capacity was below that figure in those days if I recall correctly).

Dalymount once had 47000 people attend a game there [dont think UEFA would approve these days]

The crowd in those 1980 pics would have been 25000 crowd

oriel

11/10/2006, 12:18 PM

DCFC

I was at that cup final of 87, we were allocated school/shed end and 1/3 of side terracing. True Derry had massive support, maybe 14,000/6,000 in their favour

BohsPartizan - yes that was correct, 24,000 at last years final (20,000 cork and 4,000 drogs)

dcfcsteve

11/10/2006, 12:37 PM

You played Cork City in the 1989 Cup final and i can assure you the crowd was 50/50 because i was there

Dundalk :rolleyes:

You definitely brought more than Dundalk, but I can assure you the crowd was most definitely not 50-50 : in either 1989 game. At most 60:40 in our favour.

We had the stertch of open terracing behind one goal - you had the shed end behind the other. The terrace behind our nets was bigger than yours (excuse the childish pun..) We then had two-thirds of the long open stretch of terracing on one side - you had the other third. The main stand was mixed.

I can say this categorically, as I watched the 1989 Treble DVD last week :D

dcfcsteve

11/10/2006, 12:42 PM

DCFC

I was at that cup final of 87, we were allocated school/shed end and 1/3 of side terracing. True Derry had massive support, maybe 14,000/6,000 in their favour

The same split in terracing that was used when we played Cork a year later. Both thoise clubs filled their allocation - but we had been allocated an extra 13% of the side terrace than Cork.

BohsPartizan - yes that was correct, 24,000 at last years final (20,000 cork and 4,000 drogs)

I think you're letting your anti-Drohs prejudice colour your judgement there Oriel ! I would confidentaly estimate 8-10,000 Drogs and was actually surprised by how numerous, colourful, and 'family' their support was. Were also quite a few neutrals there s well - myself included. Would say 15-16,000 Cork max.

oriel

11/10/2006, 1:56 PM

Ah now come on dcfcsteve - as ricky jervais says in extras 'is he having a laugh'

answer yes - just a bit of fun, i know full well drogs had great support up that day, about 8,000 i`d say, i was actually very pleased to see them finally win a trophy after 42 years.

Good luck to them.

Billy Lord

14/10/2006, 12:53 AM

FAO Calcio Jack: that attendance of 63 for Rovers-Athlone was on Grand National day 1977, and - yes - I was there, along with several Hoops who are still going. The fall-off in attendances back then was quite dramatic, but it wasn't because of live TV coverage of English football but as a result of a number of factors.
People's lives changed dramatically, dads were suddenly becoming more responsible, family life began in earnest, the Big Match was available on UTV/HTV, Rovers, Hibs and Waterford all went into a tailspin, the organisation of the LOI was pathetic. It all added up to a disaster.
But the real differnce was that people suddenly didn't turn up for big games, therefore the big games shrinked and, as a result, the core suppport evaporated as clubs ran out of cash.
Most fans were casual/part-timers who wanted to see a winning team or a key game. At Rovers during my childhood attendances fluctuated from 5-20,000. What happened was that only the diehards were left as everyone else took other options. Even during the four-in-a-row our attendances rarely topped 3,000.
We need to bring back that latent/casual support. The big question is: how?

sonofstan

14/10/2006, 6:54 AM

We need to bring back that latent/casual support.

you want more latent casuals?!

CollegeTillIDie

14/10/2006, 8:43 AM

The first soccer game ever televised by RTE was in 1962 it was an early season game, I think it might have been something like a Dublin City Cup Final, between Drumcondra and Shamrock Rovers. It was held in Tolka Park on a Sunday afternoon and kicked off I believe around 3:30. The gates shut at 2 :00 because Tolka was full. In those days of terracing Tolka held somewhere in the region of 21,000 people. Brief Footage of the above game has been shown on nostalgic programmes over the years I have seen clips from it at least three times in the past decade, oh and it finished 5-5.

I believe emigration may have had an effect. But by 1971 a new phenomenon had begun, returning emigrés began arriving here from England. The children were already indoctrinated in English football through possibly having begun school . Plus people were able through individual aerials, Communal aerials , and the advent of cable television to watch cross channel football a lot easier. The final nail in the coffin , was the widespread availability of the ITV highlights programme The Big Match, which was shown on Sunday Afternoons shortly after lunch. Right smack bang against what was the traditional kick off times for League of Ireland games. I was in primary school at that time.
In a class with 35 young fellas most of whom were football fanatics only 5 of us had ever been to a League Of Ireland game. At the time I averaged about 1 game a year, as I didn't have a particular team to support and I had to arrange to travel with other people as I was too young to be allowed go on my own( from age 10 to about 15 I went to one game per year).

It was only when I went to UCD as a student that I became a regular LOI attender and I supported the College from that point on. I have now seen various different UCD teams play more than 800 times over the years, that includes the reserves, the Universities League teams, and the Women's team.
I have seen the club win 3 Leinster Senior Cups, 1 F.A.I. Cup, 1 First Division Championship, Qualify for the InterToto Cup, 2 First Division Shield titles, and
2 Under 21 Championships and 1 League of Ireland B title.

I have seen the Women win 2 Universities League titles, Women's Intervarsities Cup, 4 Dublin Women's Soccer League Premier Division titles 3 WFAI Senior Cups .

CollegeTillIDie

14/10/2006, 8:58 AM

I was luckier than many kids in that my teacher was a League of Ireland supporter and went to watch Waterford in their heyday , and indeed he still does support them when he can. Through the teacher we at least looked up results of League of Ireand teams. We used to enjoy it when Waterford got beaten by someone. But that didn't begin to happen very often till after we left the school in 1974.

Part of the problem should also be levelled at the clubs concerned. They put none of the fruits of the bigger attendances from the 1950's and 1960's into spectator facilities. And to be honest looking back on it now, many of the grounds in the 1970's were crumbling compared to today. Having said that, some of the results gained by Irish teams in Europe , particularly against English opposition , did a massive disservice to the perception of the game here. Finn Harps got hammered by Everton and Derby County on two seperate occasions in the mid 1970's. Not even the dramatically improved results gained by Dundalk later in the decade and in the early 1980's did much to improve things.

One interesting aside, I have noticed a strange parallel between the early 1980's and now. In the early 1980's Dundalk got some very respectable results in European football at a time when the Republic of Ireland failed to qualify at senior level for major tournaments. Now in the mid naughties (00's)
domestic teams results in European club competitions are again improving in inverse proportion to the fortunes of the the National team.

CollegeTillIDie

14/10/2006, 9:02 AM

In the 1960's and 1970's Cork had two senior clubs in the League of Ireland.
Hibernians often had crowds of 20,000 in Flower Lodge and Celtic when they were going well could get up to 10,000 in Turner's cross. Now allowing for the fact that the games were on Sunday afternoons and that up to 10% could have been travelling support, that still means that there were 27,000 soccer fans in greater Cork at this time. Where have the other 20,000 disappeared to folks?

CollegeTillIDie

14/10/2006, 9:05 AM

CollegeTillIDie

14/10/2006, 9:06 AM

I quote those two examples from the polar opposite ends of the country just to illustrate that the decline is not just confined to Dublin clubs.

CollegeTillIDie

14/10/2006, 5:53 PM

Correction tawdy

1/ Cork Hibs played at FLOWER LODGE that season which is where the game took place

2/ And the attendance was nearer 25,000.

The same two sides played in the Cup Final and Hibs ran out winners by a Miah Dennehy hat-trick to Nil. :D

CollegeTillIDie

14/10/2006, 5:55 PM

dcfcsteve

15/10/2006, 4:51 AM

Derry City regularly had crowds in excess of 10,000 when they first entered the League of Ireland. Now they fill the ground with 3,000 or less. Again the question needs to be asked. Given that those 10,000 attendances were on Sunday afternoons and that up to 10% might have been visiting supporters, that still implies a loss of 6,000 supporters over the past two decades, which to be fair have not been totally unsuccessful in the history of the club.

You can't treat the Derry example as similar to the others.

City benefitted/suffered from the classic 'bubble' effect. There was such a huge euphoria when the club came back into football. Huge crowds would turn out dfor even the most menigless of games. It was obviouis that that would never last once the tedium of the day-to-day, seaosn-to-season grind kicked-in

Howevver - unlike the Dublin teams, and on a parallel with probably only Cork and Sligo, theer is an entire generation in Derry where the vast majority of males have been to see an EL game. A very large number of those went just becauser it was the done thing, but a number of the others are likely to come back for the bigger/more exciting games - as we've found in our recent Euro ventures. There will always be a spectrum of support - from fanatics at one end, to 'never atends' at the other, and with everyone else at various stages in the middle. The issue therefore is not how to go from one extreme to the other, as that will never happen. Instead it's a question of how to shunt everyone a few steps along the spectrum so you get more people goining to more games more often.

dcfcsteve

15/10/2006, 4:55 AM

Well to illustrate the roller coaster ride in attendances which the same club can experience. I was at Lansdowne Road in May 1995 , for a friendly between UCD and Liverpool in front of 23,500. And by the same token seven years earlier in February 1988 I was at a First Division fixture between UCD and EMFA( now called Kilkenny City) when both sides were in the bottom half of that Division in front of less than 70.

Not a relevant example at all. How many of the 1995 game were there to se Liverpool, rather than UCD....? Undoubtedly the overwhelming majority.

Therefore - it wouldn't have matter had you played Jesus Christ Allstars 7 years earlier - the differential in crowd wouldn't have been roughly the same.

If you want to illustrate a drop-off in crowds, compare EL teams versus EL teams over time. Appples with apples....

dancinpants

15/10/2006, 5:11 AM

If you want to illustrate a drop-off in crowds, compare EL teams versus EL teams over time. Appples with apples....

minus 1 "p" :confused:

pineapple stu

15/10/2006, 11:04 AM

Jayz CTID - five posts in a row?! Is that a record? Surely that could all have been run into one post!!

dcfcsteve

15/10/2006, 5:17 PM

heres a photo of a record att for an irish club that will never be beaten
http://trueblues.zoomshare.com/album/BLUES%20PICS/images/747564dce4fee7a8b923579c9d87c82f_11260852370/image.jpg

blues v man utd 1968 european cup att 56.000
first ever soccer match to be played at landsdown road.

beat that.

Never say never.

No reason to not expect that at some point in the future an Irish team playing in Europan group stages could attract a similar crowd against big opposition (Real Madrid ? Man U ?) as that match.

We're talking, in my view, within the next 5 years for an Irish team to get the luck of the draw needed to break into probably the UEFA Cup group stages, and then god know's how long after that for Irish teams to bne making the group stages every so often and drawing big sides.

Then the only question would be finding a stadium that could actually host 56,000+. It looks like it'll only ever be Croker in Ireland, so spin the time machine dial forward a bit more before they're letting major soccer games be played there as and when negotiated.

So no reason why we couldn't see a 56,000 domestic crowd again, though it'd be some way away in the distant future...