Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Villa Memories => Topic started by: andyaston on November 29, 2011, 09:01:37 PM
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Whats the lowest crowd excluding, those simod cup games in the 80s that you have been in at Villa Park.
I thankfully didnt go to the infamous game against Souhampton in the mid 80s. So, the lowest crowd at a competative game was against QPR in 1989/90, just over 14,000 turned up to see Trevor Satan Francis score a hat trick against us in a 3-1 defeat. Taylor nearly got the sack but we went on a run after that awful match in the eventual runners up season.
The crowd looked lost inside Villa park that day, Rangers brought about 500 fans which is more than alot of teams in those times. The lower trinity was full of brown seats either side of the dug out towards the corner. Terrible times for crowds.
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Southampton for me.There was still a queue for the pies.
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I was at that QPR game. Didn't realise the crowd was that low!
Was that lower than most of the the games in the Division 2 season 87/88? I went to a couple of night matches but they were against decent teams in that division (Blackburn and Crystal Palace)
Scunthorpe in the milk cup must have been lower?
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Exeter in the League Cup 1985-86, 6,000-odd.
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Exeter in the League Cup 1985-86, 6,000-odd.
Forgot about that one.
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I would like to say Besiktas but, watching it from the park through the gap between the Holte End and Trinity Road Stand, does not count. I know one person who did get in.
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I'm only 17, so obviously those fixtures were a bit before my time. Lowest attendance I've ever been to was last season, in Houlliers first game at home against Blackburn (who else would it be?) in the League Cup 3rd round.
won 3-1, with just over 17,000 if I remember correct. Me and my mates still made fun of it, mind.
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Went to the Exeter (7,000 odd) game and 8,456 against Southampton in 85/86, where we regualarly got somewhere between 10 - 12,000 crowds all season. Oddly for our relegation season the following year, our attendances were a bit better.
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Went to the Exeter (7,000 odd) game and 8,456 against Southampton in 85/86, where we regualarly got somewhere between 10 - 12,000 crowds all season. Oddly for our relegation season the following year, our attendances were a bit better.
Ditto.
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Take your pick from pretty much any game in the mid to late 60's.
Wander in through the Holte end turnstiles at five minutes to three, take a minute or so to choose which crush barrier you prefer to lean on, light a fag and away you go.
I do remember a game against Blackpool, when they had a young unknown lad in the side called Alan Ball. It was a very windy day and it started to pour with rain. The entire "crowd" on the Holte retreated out of the rain to the very back of the terrace and everyone was accommodated on about the top half dozen steps.
Exciting times.
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Southampton for me! Can't remember exactly what the official attendance was,but probably could have counted everyone before the end of the match! Do you know what the sad thing was? I started watching Villa in the late 70s and I really thought that we were going to turn it all around, and that this relegation nonsense was not for us. No! The mighty Aston Villa who were European champions a few years before couldn't get relegated! How wrong was I? Still preferred going down the Villa then to now though!
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Southampton in 1993 - and we were 2nd in the table at the time! Two Le Tissier goals in a 2-0 defeat and the absentees sure didnt miss much. Lousy performance, lousy night. 17,000 or so.
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Although saying that, the Intertoto game with Zurich in 2002 probably pushed it close, 12,000 or so? Allback and Boulding scored and Staunton got a penalty. We wore white at home as well.
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I was at that Zurich game... didn't strike me as a bad turnout at all in the circumstances. Think it was about 20,000.
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Not the lowest crowd but I remember going to a televised game against Liverpool in the early 90s where the crowd was about 19k. This was at the time when Liverpool still won league titles.
There is lots wrong with modern game but it was also pretty shite for different reasons in the past as well!
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Northampton in the sixties, old first division. I seem to recall a picture in the Argus of the Witton End and you could count the people. It pissed rain as I recall and Northampton, who rose from the fourth division to the first and back to the fourth in consecutive seasons beat us oone nil! I think it may have been their first away win of that season. We were truly dire around those times.
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I was at that Southampton game waiting for it to get a bit more crowded at the last minute. I think I went to all the Simod games too, I definately remember games against Bradford, Blues, Forest and Boro. Do friendlies count? I seem to remember going to a game against the Australian national team on a Sunday in the mid eighties and I'm pretty sure I didn't have to queue to get in!
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I still used to turn up half an hour early!
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I went to the Southampton game.
This game is turning into our Sex Pistols at the 100 Club moment - if everyone who said they were there were actually there, there'd have been a full house....
Funny, at the time, I considered any crowd over about 22,000 to be decent. Looking back they were truly dark days in our history
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I was in the Holte for the Simod (or whatever it was called) game against Forest. If I remember, it was two days before Christmas and I was exceedingly drunk. Huge conga going on and general pissed up misbehaviour. Marvellous. One of my favourite games down Villa Park, if only I could remember it.
I was also at the Southampton game; I think by the end of this thread the attendance will have doubled.
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I went to the Southampton game.
This game is turning into our Sex Pistols at the 100 Club moment - if everyone who said they were there were actually there, there'd have been a full house....
Funny, at the time, I considered any crowd over about 22,000 to be decent. Looking back they were truly dark days in our history
Yea, I remember in the 88/89 season, first one back in the top flight we played Spurs at home and beat them 2-1, they had Waddle, Gazza etc palying for them. We got a crowd of 26,000 odd and I read the Sports Argus in which the match report they said there was a bumper crowd for the game but, they were right at the time. Anything over 25,000 was a good crowd.
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Take your pick from pretty much any game in the mid to late 60's.
Wander in through the Holte end turnstiles at five minutes to three, take a minute or so to choose which crush barrier you prefer to lean on, light a fag and away you go.
I do remember a game against Blackpool, when they had a young unknown lad in the side called Alan Ball. It was a very windy day and it started to pour with rain. The entire "crowd" on the Holte retreated out of the rain to the very back of the terrace and everyone was accommodated on about the top half dozen steps.
Exciting times.
Yeah, I can remember some gates c 12,000 when we we are our way from Div 2 to Div 3.
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Went to the Exeter (7,000 odd) game and 8,456 against Southampton in 85/86, where we regualarly got somewhere between 10 - 12,000 crowds all season. Oddly for our relegation season the following year, our attendances were a bit better.
Same here. Didn't all those missing hundreds miss a goalfeast versus Exeter, eh?
As for the Southampton game, all I really remember about it is being about as cold as I've even been at a game in my life, Gary Shaw missing late on at the Holte and the game being a general 0-0 bore.
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Take your pick from pretty much any game in the mid to late 60's.
Wander in through the Holte end turnstiles at five minutes to three, take a minute or so to choose which crush barrier you prefer to lean on, light a fag and away you go.
I do remember a game against Blackpool, when they had a young unknown lad in the side called Alan Ball. It was a very windy day and it started to pour with rain. The entire "crowd" on the Holte retreated out of the rain to the very back of the terrace and everyone was accommodated on about the top half dozen steps.
Exciting times.
This.
And THAT Rangers "friendly". It also looks like I'm the only Villa fan that didn't go to the Southampton game. :)
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Take your pick from pretty much any game in the mid to late 60's.
Wander in through the Holte end turnstiles at five minutes to three, take a minute or so to choose which crush barrier you prefer to lean on, light a fag and away you go.
I do remember a game against Blackpool, when they had a young unknown lad in the side called Alan Ball. It was a very windy day and it started to pour with rain. The entire "crowd" on the Holte retreated out of the rain to the very back of the terrace and everyone was accommodated on about the top half dozen steps.
Exciting times.
This.
And THAT Rangers "friendly". It also looks like I'm the only Villa fan that didn't go to the Southampton game. :)
If it makes you feel better LP, I am fickle too as I wasn't at the infamous Southampton game. I moved to London in the summer of 1985 that year and only made one midweek game all season, that being the LC semi v Oxford. The train network being what it was, I had to leave 15-20 mins before full time to get to New St for the last train to London. Life was hard in them days of old....
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I vaguely remember a testimonial for Charlie Aitken that had a scandalously low 5 or 6k in attendance. I think it was the night before a Cup Final in the mid 70's. Does that ring a bell with anyone?
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I was at the Southampton game. It was bizarre. Must have been only 3k in the Holte you could have had your own game of footy.
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What I remember about the Southampton game is that it didnt seem to me to be much different to many of the other crowds we had that season, after all we only got 10,000 against Arsenal the following month. Only when it was announced was it shocking. I also remember Dave Ismay being on the pitch before the game telling the Holte to get behind the team and getting plenty of abuse back.
Interestingly, Spurs only got 9,000 at home against Blues before the end of that season, although Villa did seem to suffer more than most in the post-Heysel season.
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I remember a game against Watford which finished 1-1, probably April 1985 and i think the crowd was just over 10,000
I remember playing Liverpool on a Friday night in I think in 1984, it was cold and dark and we got to the Holte about 645 for a 730 kick off and they hadn't opened the turnstiles.
I think we had 20k there in the end and MOTD had put a cameraman on a plank of wood and two milk crates at the back of the Holte which some people tried to pull over at the end. We lost 3-1 and Rush scored a hatrick
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I remember Watford at home the year we went down, about 12k on a cold Wednesday night. Think there were about 11k at the league cup game against Boro the next season as well.
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I vaguely remember a testimonial for Charlie Aitken that had a scandalously low 5 or 6k in attendance. I think it was the night before a Cup Final in the mid 70's. Does that ring a bell with anyone?
I'm almost sure I was there, will have to ask the old fella later, though his memory is worse than mine. What I can tell you is that we played a Midland Select XI on 26th May, 1977, which was the night after the European Cup Final between Liverpool and Borussia Mönchengladbach. The FA Cup Final was played on the Saturday before.
A quick look on Ebay shows the Official Match programme that features Ron Saunders at Bodymoor holding the League Cup and down in the bottom left, a tiny picture of Charlie. My guess is that it was very poorly organised, probably at the last minute.
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Platt's 'testimonial' v Bari at VP - I think there were around 7,000 there?
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Platt's 'testimonial' v Bari at VP - I think there were around 7,000 there?
He kicked off Paul Birch's testimonial too, I don't think many went to that game but I could be wrong.
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I remember a game against Watford which finished 1-1, probably April 1985 and i think the crowd was just over 10,000
I remember playing Liverpool on a Friday night in I think in 1984, it was cold and dark and we got to the Holte about 645 for a 730 kick off and they hadn't opened the turnstiles.
I think we had 20k there in the end and MOTD had put a cameraman on a plank of wood and two milk crates at the back of the Holte which some people tried to pull over at the end. We lost 3-1 and Rush scored a hatrick
Blimey i think i remember that cameraman too. Were fans pulling on a rope that was tied to his little platform?
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I vaguely remember a testimonial for Charlie Aitken that had a scandalously low 5 or 6k in attendance. I think it was the night before a Cup Final in the mid 70's. Does that ring a bell with anyone?
I'm almost sure I was there, will have to ask the old fella later, though his memory is worse than mine. What I can tell you is that we played a Midland Select XI on 26th May, 1977, which was the night after the European Cup Final between Liverpool and Borussia Mönchengladbach. The FA Cup Final was played on the Saturday before.
A quick look on Ebay shows the Official Match programme that features Ron Saunders at Bodymoor holding the League Cup and down in the bottom left, a tiny picture of Charlie. My guess is that it was very poorly organised, probably at the last minute.
Thanks for that; sounds right to me now. All I can remember was it being a nice summer's evening, and the crowd being so low
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That 1985 season was my first going down regularly but I cant mind the Southampton attendance being anything out of the ordinary, perhaps I missed that one. Thing was in those seasons a crowd above 15k was considered half decent.
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Yeh that game for Platt was a very low crowd. Proper crap game too i think, he also refused to sign a autograph for me that night, i was well upset!!!
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Platt's 'testimonial' v Bari at VP - I think there were around 7,000 there?
He kicked off Paul Birch's testimonial too, I don't think many went to that game but I could be wrong.
We have always had crap attendances for testimonials.
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Southampton 1993 and Southampton again in our league cup run in 2000. Their was 17,000 their. Was also at Blackburn at home in the league cupast season.
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Yes, THAT Southampton game!
Also a Simod Cup game, home to Bradford (lost 5-0 I think) - I'm sure the crowd was about 5k - a couple of decided to go in with the Bradford fans for a laugh - I'm sure they brought about 100! Rather summed up that competition.