Jon
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Post by Jon on Sept 28, 2010 22:05:48 GMT
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petef
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Post by petef on Sept 28, 2010 22:13:23 GMT
1939
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Sept 28, 2010 22:20:48 GMT
Close but no cigar! It's from the Football Herald 15 October 1938. Would you have guessed if it hadn't mentioned the manager by name? It's one of those stories that could have been written at any time in our history - the constant battle against disappointing attendances. |
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petef
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Post by petef on Sept 29, 2010 22:59:41 GMT
I confess I would never have known the year without the managers name in the article. Its no coincidence that the topic of low attendances are continually in the spotlight and have been for 60 yeras and more. Fact is the conclusions as to why are always the same and will never change and as you so rightly say Jon it could have been written yesterday. Now where did I put my cigar Cigar?  Close but no cigar! It's from the Football Herald 15 October 1938. Would you have guessed if it hadn't mentioned the manager by name? It's one of those stories that could have been written at any time in our history - the constant battle against disappointing attendances. |
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Nov 12, 2010 19:29:31 GMT
Here's another one. Guess the year this time:   |
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Post by stefano on Nov 13, 2010 8:38:30 GMT
Here's another one. Guess the year this time: Well it's pre- decimalisation in 1971 as it mentions £sd from the days when LSD actually meant money, so I'll go for a wild stab in the dark and say about 1950 when we finished in our then highest position since joining the league. ... and before anyone asks no I can't remember it! ;D |
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chelstongull
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Post by chelstongull on Nov 13, 2010 8:53:43 GMT
Here's another one. Guess the year this time: Well it's pre- decimalisation in 1971 as it mentions £sd from the days when LSD actually meant money, so I'll go for a wild stab in the dark and say about 1950 when we finished in our then highest position since joining the league. ... and before anyone asks no I can't remember it! ;D Did you catch Midge Ure last night - he was playing an acoustic set in Ivybridge? |
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Post by stefano on Nov 13, 2010 9:13:28 GMT
Well it's pre- decimalisation in 1971 as it mentions £sd from the days when LSD actually meant money, so I'll go for a wild stab in the dark and say about 1950 when we finished in our then highest position since joining the league. ... and before anyone asks no I can't remember it! ;D Did you catch Midge Ure last night - he was playing an acoustic set in Ivybridge? No and worse still didn't even realise it was on! I assume it was at the Watermark, which is our new library but is far more than a library in the traditional sense (even has a cafe / bar). The local council do make quite an effort to add a bit of culture to the town but unfortunately in a town populated by Argyle supporters it is an uphill struggle! ;D |
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Post by aussie on Nov 13, 2010 9:28:32 GMT
Here's another one. Guess the year this time: Well it's pre- decimalisation in 1971 as it mentions £sd from the days when LSD actually meant money, so I'll go for a wild stab in the dark and say about 1950 when we finished in our then highest position since joining the league. ... and before anyone asks no I can't remember it! ;D There I was thinking it meant `limited slip diff`! Wasn`t that Man.Ure bloke the head of a really aweful 80`s group of trash musicians. Couldn`t stand `em, far too limp wristed for me! Bet everyone who went was wearing eye liner and that was just the blokes!  |
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Nov 13, 2010 18:55:08 GMT
I'll go for a wild stab in the dark and say about 1950 when we finished in our then highest position since joining the league. Spot on! It was after our 3-1 win over Bournemouth on 18 March 1950 which left us just two points behind leaders Notts County and with a great chance of promotion to the Second Division. The official crowd was actually 6,955 - 500 lower than mentioned here. Our average home attendance in 1949/50 was 8,779 - far bigger than we had ever had and well over double what we were getting before the War, so it might be hard to understand why these crowd levels were felt to be so disappointing. If you look at the average of our AWAY gates in 1949/50, it was a staggering 17,253 - very nearly double what we were attracting to Plainmoor. Around the time this article was written our manager John McNeil departed to go to Bury, stating that TUFC could not achieve its ambitions due to the apathetic response of the South Devon public. We failed to win a single one of our remaining nine matches. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2010 11:13:58 GMT
Spot on! It was after our 3-1 win over Bournemouth on 18 March 1950 which left us just two points behind leaders Notts County and with a great chance of promotion to the Second Division. The official crowd was actually 6,955 - 500 lower than mentioned here.. Thanks for solving the mystery because I’d forlornly burrowed through the record books to find a 7,500 crowd against Bournemouth. Instead I found a history of wildly fluctuating gates against the Cherries (a post for another day I suspect). For example, the opening match of 1951/52 saw 11,556 at Plainmoor (why?). I’m sure too that I’ve previously mentioned an occasion when scores of Bournemouth supporters arrived at Plainmoor wearing berets (please don’t tell me this was my imagination). I guess this was February 1972 when we were struggling and Bournemouth were doing well under John Bond. The crowd of 9,805 – according to the centenary history (Rothman’s quotes a slightly lower figure) - was sandwiched between home gates of 3,569 (v Tranmere) and 4,177 (v Shrewsbury). 4-5,000 Bournemouth supporters perhaps? If you look at the average of our AWAY gates in 1949/50, it was a staggering 17,253 - very nearly double what we were attracting to Plainmoor. My calculator says that was 1.97 spectators at an away game for each one who saw a match at Plainmoor. Sounds familiar? Average crowd at Plainmoor this season = 2,601; away from home = 4,945 (a ratio of 1.90:1 in favour of away gates). How’s it go again, Jon: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose? |
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Nov 14, 2010 13:23:02 GMT
My calculator says that was 1.97 spectators at an away game for each one who saw a match at Plainmoor. Sounds familiar? Average crowd at Plainmoor this season = 2,601; away from home = 4,945 (a ratio of 1.90:1 in favour of away gates). How’s it go again, Jon: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose?I bet someone somewhere has a spreadsheet that shows average home crowd compared to average away crowd season by season all back to 1927.  |
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Dec 29, 2011 23:05:16 GMT
I haven't played this little game for a while. Can anyone guess what year these two pieces bemoaning the crowd size at Plainmoor date from?   |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2011 8:06:22 GMT
I've reached for my fascimile Baedeker's Handbook to Great Britain - 1890 edition - and I see Torquay is described as "a town of modern growth with 30,000 inhabitants." That sounds about right for Jon's cuttings and, because we've talked about Excelsior as a team from the 1880s, it might even be from just before then. The reference to "the splendid gates in the North of England" suggests we're not too far removed from the founding of the Football League in 1888.
And what's this? "....the people have not yet been educated to the point of appreciation." That almost resembles some contemporary arguments that have been expressed in this place over the last two or three years.
And who is the writer of the piece on the right who talks about playing in matches watched by thousands?
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petef
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Post by petef on Dec 30, 2011 12:50:56 GMT
My guess would be around 1900 or before.
Would be very interesting to see a graph of local population v Plainmoor attendance records for the last 100 or so years. My guess would be that an increase in population saw a decrease in attendances with the odd blip here and there.
How did supporters travel to matches in those early years? It must have been quite an effort for some compared with the two cars in every houshold independence we have these days.
Like anything I guess football is just a fashion that comes and goes and perhaps why its so important to "keep up with fashion"and keep the product fresh something clubs like ours failed to do for so many years.
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