Our attendances

[BANGKOK RED]

At one home match that I atteneded, the "Announced" attendance was: 10,561.

Well a friend and I both counted 10,761.

Scamming gits.

[Reg Smeeton]

The biggest "gate fiddle" of all time was the promotion showdown v Bournemouth in April 1987. The official gate was 14,000 but most people regard the true gate as around 25,000. Which had been the CG's capacity prior a few years before. I was there that day, and it was close to being dangerously overcrowded in the Town End. As in other parts of the ground including the away end.

A few weeks later we played Gillingham in the playoffs when the gate was again 14,000 but as this game was all-ticket it really was about 14,000.

And you could see on TV as well as if you were there, it was nowhere near as packed.

I assume Hillier was fiddling the figures for tax purposes. Either that or else, post-Hysel he was afraid of punishment for exceeding the new restricted capacity.

 Although I appreciate the sentiment, factually you're wide of the mark, insofar as the crowd was nowhere near 25,000.  Perhaps 16,000 the regime then would never underestimate by so much, just too risky.

 The last crowd of 25,000+ at the CG was for the Wolves game Jan 80....when the TE was just old school TE.  A similar figure was out for the Spurs game at the beginning of the month .  I've posted up a pic before now of what a crowd like that  resembled

[mexico red]

good thread, i too remember that bournemouth game, it was stupidly busy. i used to stand in the shrivvy road and those was always laughter when the attendance was announced.

I think part of the problem in swindon is the population shift since the early eighties espescially in west swindon. Many young families moved into town who did not traditionally support swindon. kids growing up here tend to support their dads team which was mainly London based clubs. however a few slip throught the net like myself who is the only stfc fan in a family of QPR supporters. My family have no ties with swindon, so it looked for all likelyhood i would end up supporting qpr, fuck knows what happened there.

as a young boy you would generally look up to your father hence lots of chelsea tottenham arsenal etc fans in swindon.

[janaage]

Hence my fucking Hibernian/Scotland miserable life of doom and gloom.  

[chalkies_shorts]

The Bournemouth game that season along with the Gillingham play off and Leeds cup games had gates of over 20,000. My source was an ex director of the club now long gone.
I started going regularly in the 70's when one of the turnstiles was affectionately known as XXXXX turnstile in memory of an old STFC stalwart who alleggedly pocketed the cash.
STFC have been acknowledged experts at crowd diddling over the years. The Slave Traders caught on when we stopped them getting the play offs by under declaring the crowd by the best part of 10k.

[random_five]

The Bournemouth game that season along with the Gillingham play off and Leeds cup games had gates of over 20,000. My source was an ex director of the club now long gone.
I started going regularly in the 70's when one of the turnstiles was affectionately known as XXXXX turnstile in memory of an old STFC stalwart who alleggedly pocketed the cash.
STFC have been acknowledged experts at crowd diddling over the years. The Slave Traders caught on when we stopped them getting the play offs by under declaring the crowd by the best part of 10k.

I was at the Bournemouth game too.. Great memories of that day. I dread to think what would've happened to us had they declared the real attendance. Bournemouth fans say they had 6,000 there that day.. I'd say the crowd was 23 - 24,000.

You could tell it was over 18,000 from getting that crowd in the Prem. No game that season  (or since) was as packed as Bournemouth.