LOI crowds in the 70s, 80s and 90s

[peadar1987]

He's a Shams supporter IIRC, said it in the "where do fans come from" thread

[Riddickcule]

*Rovers supporter.

[dcfcsteve]

were Derry full time in the late 80s ? Seem to remember them paying big wages (and getting big crowds) back then

Yes - but the big crowds came first.

[John83]

Now playing AC Milan crowd was 9000 plus but if you believe everyone that says they were there it was closer 100.000 as every Dublin taxi driver that I have travelled with swera they attended the game

Jaysus: I thought they were just moaning when they said deregulation had dumped too many new taxi drivers on the market.

[Martinho II]

I vaguely remember being taken to Mels in the early 80's when Athlone were winning titles, the crowds seemed huge to me but I would guess looking back probably 3 or 4 maybe 5 thousand?
When i started going again in the 90's the crowds were mainly in the low to mid hundreds, a decent season would bring them out in bigger numbers, the promotion season was a good one, I remember the Sligo game in St Mels being a very big crowd

I know that in the early eighties when Athlones crowds were huge a lot of those fans were from Longford in the days when we were a leinster senior league side or League of Ireland B side.

[apollo]

From derry joined the loi in 1985 until the season after we won the treble we got massive crowds home and away, examples are cork away at flower lodge cup quarter final 86 we took 8,000 down there and again in 87 we took 7,000 to cork for another cup game and also 8-9000 for a cup game against bohs a dalymount that year. We regularly had home crowds of 7-8000 during that period for league games even when we were in the 1st division.But sadly the novelty for most wore off around 1990 and the reality and grind of following a loi team year in year out took its toll and our crowds fell away badly to the levels of the rest of the loi clubs.Was a magic era for our city but, cause the troubles had made derry by the 1980,s a bleak place to live, going to the brandywell or away trips around ireland to watch colourful players like owen da gama, alex kristic ect was a great lift for a lot of people.

[stann]

From my memory, crowds at most clubs in the league were very poor in the mid to late 80s. Some of that may have been relative as I would have been travelling with City fans, who in those days were turning up in Monaghan, Kilkenny and Tolka in their thousands. But I particularly remember Cork, Bohs and even Shels having crowds a fraction of what they get now. The only clubs who semed to have any decent support really were Dundalk and Rovers, but the Milltown exodus killed half of that off for a while.

Cork had very good crowds for at least some games in the late 80s, which was when I was starting to go to LoI games (at the Cross, a stones' throw from where I lived). I would always stay down weekends when Waterford and Derry were playing, in particular, and well remember very decent crowds, how much of those were away fans I couldn't say, but the total was usually two or three times what was announced over the PA each time, to much hilarity. Was aware though that these were exceptional numbers, and the league elsewhere (including ourselves at home) were suffering badly, as now.
For the Blues, our halycon days were definitely the late 60s and much of the 70s, though numbers will vary in proportion to the nostalgia in the eyes of the teller.